Founders

The new Shortwave iOS email thread UI we launched today is a work of art 🎨👨🏻‍🍳💋

Here are some of the details we sweated 🧵⬇️

Bringing AI to email at Shortwave. Previously Cofounder of Firebase.

2. Header auto-hiding

We always show the subject, AI summary, and reply footer when you open the thread, no matter where in the thread you are, so you can get the info you need and take quick actions. But to make the most of your mobile screen space we hide all of that when you start scrolling. It feels *great* 🤩

3. Smart recipient headers

On long threads with the same group of people, showing who each message went to over and over again clutters up your reading experience. We use a sticky header instead to show you who the current message went to, and we highlight changes for you when people are added or removed.

4. Reply input collapsing

When you’re writing a response often you want to reference the email you’re replying to. Now, tapping out of your draft collapses it into just one row, but still keeps it handy so you can jump back into it.

5. Tappable AI summaries

Want to expand on an AI summary? Just tap it and we’ll pull up the AI Assistant, with a long-form summary, and the ability for you to ask followup questions.

6. Email-optimized dark mode

Our dark mode is optimized both for easy readying in low light environments, and for power efficiency. And we don’t just make our UI dark — we convert the emails to dark mode too (using a… quite complex HTML rendering engine we built)

A ton of TLC went into this project, and I’m thrilled ya’ll finally get to play with it!

1. Smart scrolling instead of messaging collapsing

Threads auto-scroll to new, unread messages, marked with a clear “new” divider. Read messages aren’t collapsed - they’re just above the fold. Scrolling up to see them is faster than tapping open a bunch of messages and more efficient with mobile screen space.