Column-view message threading in Mail

I pitched a number of ambitious ideas when I worked on Mail in the early-2000s. Most didn’t get very far, with Magic Mailboxes being the notable exception. When we were considering adding threading to Mail, I pitched the idea of using a column-view interface.

Are you confused yet?

I have no visual design skills and I’m not very good at pitching things, but I gave it a good try. I presented the idea at a meeting with our representative from the Human Interface Group and Scott Forstall (I don’t recall what his position was at the time). I was disappointed he shot it down, but not particularly surprised.

Here are the ideas I jotted down sometime in 2003 (I think). I left it in original form and [I’ll put any commentary in brackets].