Great Ideas Start As Random Scribbles

Be it the iPhone, Statue of Liberty, Tower Bridge, or for that matter the laptop, tablet or phone you are reading this post on, their designs most probably started as a scribble.

Who knows, even Jony Ive may have drawn a rough rectangle on a paper napkin, the casual scribble causing the edges to be curved, resulting in an ‘aha!’ moment and the iPhone design took its first form (purely imagined situation).

The freedom of being able to express an idea, feeling or thought with a quick, simple sketch, is any day a more fun and easy way to unleash ideas (that mostly flash at odd times, all of a sudden) than to toil with a Photoshop tool that demands professional skills.

At Zoho, we have always been fond of the freedom to scribble. That is why we have now made it possible for you to get your fingers do more exercise than just tap on letter keys while composing emails. You can now find a scribble button in compose view when you access Zoho Mail mobile version from your iPhone, iPad, Android touch devices. Tap it to load an ultra lite drawing interface and scribble away.

We surmise that this feature will score first as a fun tool, especially with people who love to draw, like Draw Something mobile app enthusiasts.

Since it’s Thanksgiving season, you could try bringing your latent drawing skills to the fore. How about draw a cool ecard, egreeting, cartoon to your friends and loved ones or get cute while inviting someone for lunch or coffee, right from Zoho Mail compose? Here are a some samples for inspiration:

Well, fun is good but we wanted to make this feature useful for business and official situations too. We thought about how people send emails with images of bar charts, flow charts, design sketches etc., as attachments, seeking reviews and opinions while collaborating.

So we further added the ability to use any attached image as a canvas in scribble mode, when you reply to such messages. This way you can quickly express yourself by drawing on top of the image, save it as an attachment or inline in your message, hit send to reply.

 

So there! Next time you are on the move and have a ‘eureka!’ moment or even a hunch, take out your iPhone, iPad or your favorite touch device, log in to Zoho Mail on your mobile browser, scribble email the idea to your colleague(s) right away and set your idea into execution mode. Because great ideas start as random scribbles.

As always, we’d love to hear your comments and feedback on how this feature worked for you.

Comments

26 Replies to Great Ideas Start As Random Scribbles

  1. @DennisThank you for your feedback. We appreciate it and are as excited as you are about this ‘Scribble’ feature. We have also taken note of your suggestion and will analyze and check if we will venture in that direction over time.@AAAAANDREPlease try using the native browser on your Android device to access our scribble feature and do send out an email to support@zohomobile.com if you are still facing issues in doing so.

  2. @Peter ParkinsonThank you for writing to usWe analyzed and checked that we were able to access the scribble feature using the Safari browser on a device similar to that which you mentioned. Please do check if you are able to access the feature using the Safari browser. Please do send out a mail to support@zohomobile.com if you are still facing issues and we will get back to you.@Ted LanzoThank you for your feedback. We are glad that this feature could be of good use to you and your business.@David
    As you have mentioned, we do not serve any advertisements in our web mail or mobile site (mail service). If you are referring to the new feature announcement notification on top in the Zoho web mail interface, it should vanish once and for all when you select ‘Hide’. In case this is not happening, please send a mail to support@zohomail.com and we’d check if there are any problems at our end.

  3. on my “antique” Virgin Mobile Samsung SPH-M910 (Instinked:), Android 2.2.2.
    The interface opens up in Skyfire Web Browser 4.0, but not much functionality.
    Drawing leaves a dot, fill works.Opera Mini web browser 7.5.1… Zoho Mobile barely even works!? ;-(

  4. WOW!!! Kudos to Zoho team for such incredible development. The word about Zoho is spreading fast! Ability to comment and “scribble” on any device with our client communications – added “wow” from our clients that belong righteously to Zoho team!Next development – please include service similar to PamFax into your portfolio – it will generate additional revenue and provide additional services that are still “missing” in your portfolio of products.

  5. I wish Zoho would spend more time perfecting Docs, Calendars and Mail before working on b.s. projects like this that hardly anyone will use.Docs has poor performance compared to Google Docs. If you leave a Zoho doc open too long, eventually you can’t save any edits you make.Calendars currently only allow you to sync on calendar (the main one) to a phone, disallowing me to color code events for easier legibility.Zoho mail is also a tad sluggish at times and for some reason utilizes Adobe Flash in some way I’ve yet to figure out, which is honestly the dumbest thing i’ve ever seen. This results, across browsers, computers and flash versions for Flash to occassionally repetitively crash every time i click on a label, or a folder, or open an email in a new tab or go to compose an email.But rather than fix all this…we have Scribbles. Excellent priorities guys. Excellent.

  6. @Jennings, @Melynda, @JseThat is great to hear. We are glad you like our new feature. Please do keep the feedback coming.@BenetachThank you for your feedback. We will explore the possibility to support this on Symbian devices as soon as possible.@EllenWe are currently working towards increasing the drawing space and implementing the zooming feature. Also, including text is in our roadmap and will be implemented in the mobile site over time. Thank you for your understanding.@Jolo, @DaraiusYes, currently the scribble feature is supported only on iOS and Android devices. For now you can access the scribble feature on your PC and laptop’s browsers by going on to the sites (http://m.zoho.com " rel="nofollow">m.zoho.com) and (http://t.zoho.com " rel="nofollow">t.zoho.com) where this feature is compatible but not optimized. To bring out an enriched experience of this feature on PC’s and laptops is in our list of to do’s and will be implemented over time.

  7. I’m sick of the nag screen every time I log in to my “guaranteed advertising free” ZohoMail.Yes I click “hide this” and yes it hides it and yes I follow good security practice and delete all web content (cookies and all) when I log ouy browser (which happens quite often). Back comes the message next time I open my browsert and close m. Please turn the advert in ZohoMail off.

  8. I can see how I could use it in my business communicating with clients, employees, etc. I am sure it will help me sell clients by highlighting the important benefits of our products.

  9. The drawing area is rather small for finger work … I tried to do a brief flowchart and couldn’t get more than two lines. Can I change canvas size or scroll lower?Also, write/print with finger is unwieldy … can you add text?

  10. I use K9 app for accessing zoho on my Android. It works great and is an app you can download for free. It looks and feels almost like zoho on my laptop.

  11. Do I have to have an ipod or iphone? Why cant I use the scribble feature from my pc/laptop?? Please make this available, it sounds great!

  12. Scribble does not work in my Achos Android 101 with operating system Android 2.211.
    Whats the point if it does not work with all devices and operating systems

  13. @Cassi, why would you need a zoho mail app. Just go to android market and download any generic mail app (or may be your phone already came with one). Configure imap settings and there you go ! Happy thanksgiving.

  14. Brilliant! We will start using this immediately to highlight items on charts and sheets sent to our clients….Thanks again Zoho.

  15. @CassiThank you for writing to us. We are glad you like the scribble feature. Bringing out an app for Zoho mail for Android devices is in our list of to do’s and will be implemented over time. We would definitely keep you posted as and when it is out.

  16. @jayThank you for writing to us.Sorry that you are having issues with accessing our mail service on your mobile devices. We believe you are looking to configure Zoho Mail as POP/IMAP in your mobile devices to access your mails. For further details about configuring the POP/IMAP, please refer the links given below.POP : https://zohomail.wiki.zoho.com ...
    IMAP : https://zohomail.wiki.zoho.com...If you are still facing issues with accessing your emails please elaborate on the issues you are facing and send them to support@zohomobile.com and we will get back to you.

  17. It doesn’t work for me (samsung galaxy ace, android 2.3.3). i get a empty image (0 bytes – not even is an image). tested sending inline and attachment mails for ZohoMail and GMail accounts.

  18. So fun! Question: Will you guys ever release an actual Zoho email app just for checking mail on the go (for Android)? It is so hard to check it through my web browser, and it takes forever. I would loooove to see an app like the hotmail or gmail app!

  19. @GVNThank you for writing to us.
    Sorry that this is supported
    only on iOS and Android browsers as of now. Including this feature in Windows devices is in our roadmap and will be implemented over time based on the technical feasibility. Thank you for your understanding.

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