This is not about making it easier to write email clients or servers, it's about making it easier to write email apps. Currently, you either have to write a plugin for an email client or interact with IMAP directly. Opening up email to mainstream developers means ditching IMAP/MAPI/etc as the API.
And again, I don't see why that's such a huge improvement. IMAP is clunky and weird, but it's not rocket surgery. If there was a huge market opportunity for someone to write custom mailoid gadgets using IMAP, clearly it would have been done already.
A better protocol will only be "better", analogous to, say, the Mac (c. 1990) being better than Windows 3.1. While true, compatibility pressures aren't going to allow someone else into the market simply for being "better". You have to be transformative, and this isn't.
And in any case what's killing email isn't the lack of apps, it's the lack of authentication and moderation.
You rarely need to use IMAP directly, though: most email apps are fine using a library that manages the details of the IMAP protocol under the covers, and presents a more sane interface.
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This is not about making it easier to write email clients or servers, it's about making it easier to write email apps. Currently, you either have to write a plugin for an email client or interact with IMAP directly. Opening up email to mainstream developers means ditching IMAP/MAPI/etc as the API.
And again, I don't see why that's such a huge improvement. IMAP is clunky and weird, but it's not rocket surgery. If there was a huge market opportunity for someone to write custom mailoid gadgets using IMAP, clearly it would have been done already.
A better protocol will only be "better", analogous to, say, the Mac (c. 1990) being better than Windows 3.1. While true, compatibility pressures aren't going to allow someone else into the market simply for being "better". You have to be transformative, and this isn't.
And in any case what's killing email isn't the lack of apps, it's the lack of authentication and moderation.
You rarely need to use IMAP directly, though: most email apps are fine using a library that manages the details of the IMAP protocol under the covers, and presents a more sane interface.