MailPlane GMail Desktop application is awesome!

I've been using MailPlane beta for over a week now, and it's already has got a comfortable place on my dock. MailPlane is a desktop interface to GMail, Google's free email service. For the most part, MailPlane loads the actual GMail interface into a window with some buttons above it. See picture below.


While the buttons don't really add any extra usability, the best part is simply getting your GMail to a desktop application. With growl support, you know immediately if you've got mail through its notification. For the most part, the application is flawless and very stable. While using it, I could not create a new email using the MailPlan New button but this was fixed in their update to version 1.4.2. Oddly the number badge on the icon seemed to have broke as it now only displays ### instead of the unread emails.

The software is in beta still and only available by signing up at their website which says 100 invites are sent out daily. So there is a very good chance to get to try it quickly enough. There is no information as to how much this will cost, hopefully it will be relatively cheap. Since GMail has a great interface itself and is free, the appeal of the application may have limited value. As long as the price is fair I may buy into this.