On September 20th, 2021 Apple released their latest annual iOS update which includes some significant changes to make email more private. This won’t affect your ability to send email to iPhone or Mac users but will prevent Hail Mail from accurately knowing if an email has been opened or not. Read on for all the details.

What’s happening?

Apple’s latest OS updates will first land on iPhones and iPads and later on Apple laptops and desktops running macOS Monterey. Apple is more and more focused on privacy, with recent changes to prevent the likes of Facebook from tracking users' activity across the web. Now they are turning their attention to email to prevent tracking there too.

At Hail, we’re also big proponents of privacy and applaud Apple’s stance. We continue to release features of our own to help provide control over how your content is viewed, shared and found online. So although Apple’s update will affect Hail Mail’s reports, we fully support it and recognise that people’s desire not to have their online activity tracked is fundamental.

Why is Apple doing this?

Up to now, all bulk email providers like Mailchimp and Hail Mail were able to provide users with reports showing numbers and percentages of subscribers who have opened individual mailouts sent with the service.

Some email providers even expose exact times, dates and which location and device subscribers are using when opening bulk emails sent to them. At Hail, we never included those extra details as we felt they were unnecessary and taking the technology too far. Especially since most people receiving the emails never imagined they could be tracked in this way by the senders.

However, we know many of our Hail Mail users simply like to know that their communications are actually reaching the community. So seeing numbers of people who have opened and clicked is handy and encouraging.

Who will Apple’s update affect?

Apple’s update will present users with the ability to turn on Mail Privacy Protection and is likely to be enabled by the vast majority. This will radically change the way email is opened with their Mail app and block bulk email providers from being able to accurately track details like location.

The only effect this will have for Hail Mail users is that the number of Opens will be overinflated. This means that your mailouts will likely receive higher numbers of opens that are false. There’s nothing that Hail or any other bulk email solution can do to get around this. And because the Mail app can be used to check all manner of email addresses, including @icloud, @mac, but also @gmail, @xtra and all manner of personal and work email addresses, we can’t be sure of which exact email opens are false and which are real.

When will this happen?

People are likely to start installing the latest iPhone and iPad update this week and the Monterrey update later in the year on supported Macs. So we can expect email open rates to start getting inflated over the coming weeks and months.

As mentioned, we see this as a positive change for the industry and support all improvements to online privacy. And we do have some good news for those of you that like to check Hail Mail delivery reports. The numbers for how many subscribers clicked on your mailouts are collected independently and will not be affected. So you’ll still be able to rely on those. And understanding how many people clicked through to your articles and newsletters is arguably a much more interesting and relevant data point.

Any questions? 🤔

In summary, this Apple update won’t have any effect on people receiving your communications sent out with Hail Mail. It’ll simply help prevent companies and individuals from tracking those emails.

As always, if you have questions about this or anything else, feel free to get in touch with our friendly team.

Kind regards,
Team Hail