Daring Fireball: Google Introduces New Gmail API

Gruber:

Is this the beginning of the end for IMAP and SMTP access to Gmail?

I don’t think it really matters for most people. The minority who truly care about such things (IMAP, SMTP, POP, etc.) will find another email provider (I recommend Fastmail) - and honestly if you haven’t done so already you’re a little late to the party.

Everyone else will keep using whatever email software they currently use. If Google forces the issue truly popular email clients will simply adopt support for the Gmail API. Also, I wonder what % of Gmail users even use a non first-party email client in the first place? (other than iOS Mail)