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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > iPhone, iPad & iPod > Anyone else disappointed with Phone/Touch Mail?

Anyone else disappointed with Phone/Touch Mail?
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Don Pickett
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Jun 9, 2009, 10:53 PM
 
Having watched the keynote, I've seen nothing about improving what I think the is Phone/Touch's worst app: Mail. No ability to sort messages to different folders with rules, no spam filtering, etc. Does anyone else find Mail to be all but useless, or is this just my bugaboo?
The era of anthropomorphizing hardware is over.
     
gradient
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Jun 9, 2009, 11:18 PM
 
I wouldn't say that it's useless, but it's seriously lacking in features. Agreed. I have two major peeves with mail.app - not getting notifications of mail delivered directly to folders via server-side rules, and not being able to search for content within emails. Neither of these have been fixed, upgraded, whatever, in 3.0.
     
ctt1wbw
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Jun 10, 2009, 06:17 AM
 
I have four different email addys going to my iPhone. If I'm looking at an email in one, I have to hit the back button about 124 times to make it back to the list of mailboxes. I wish the list was easier to get to.
     
JKT
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Jun 10, 2009, 07:19 AM
 
gradient - Mail (along with most other Apple apps) is gaining a search function in iPhone 3.0 that will search the content etc. It will even search messages on the server for you if you opt to do so (btw, it was one of the demo'ed features in the keynote). Note, this is not the same as the "Spotlight" search feature from the home screen - it is a distinct search field built into the app.

As to whether or not we get a unified inbox, and all the other desired improvements... who knows until it arrives. Not mentioned does not necessarily mean not there so I'm still (probably naively) hopeful.
     
mdc
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Jun 10, 2009, 08:49 AM
 
I'd like it if my Mail.app smart folders were on the iPhone. Other than that, I'm happy with Mail.
     
slugslugslug
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Jun 10, 2009, 09:09 AM
 
ctt1wbw's complaint is also my biggest annoyance with iPhone/touch Mail. I can definitely see drawbacks to a completely unified inbox like you can get on the desktop. But there really should be an "all the way back" on the top left of any mailbox list, so you can see your top-level accounts list.
     
kman42
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Jun 10, 2009, 09:18 AM
 
I would love a unified inbox option. I know it wouldn't work for everyone, but I just want my mailbox list the same as it is in mail.
     
gradient
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Jun 11, 2009, 03:10 AM
 
Originally Posted by JKT View Post
gradient - Mail (along with most other Apple apps) is gaining a search function in iPhone 3.0 that will search the content etc. It will even search messages on the server for you if you opt to do so (btw, it was one of the demo'ed features in the keynote). Note, this is not the same as the "Spotlight" search feature from the home screen - it is a distinct search field built into the app.
That's excellent. I hadn't watched the keynote until today and was pleased to see that. From the earlier announcement, I had thought that search in mail was only covered by Spotlight, which omits email content. That's going to be a real boon for my productivity under the gun.
     
JKT
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Jun 12, 2009, 07:31 AM
 
Hmmm, I might have jumped the gun on that one a bit. Looking at it again now, they mention an in-app search for "finding all your messages", but they don't specifically say or show that it will search the content ... sorry about that.
     
JKT
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Jun 12, 2009, 01:58 PM
 
Oops, I might have been right after all, only it wasn't in the Keynote that it was demo'ed. Start viewing the iPhone guided tour around the 11.35 mark:

Apple - iPhone - A Guided Tour

It looks to me as though that is searching contents and not just titles...
     
JKT
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Jun 12, 2009, 02:08 PM
 
... and back again. I am wrong:

Apple - iPhone - Learn how to use all the features of iPhone.

Nadgers.

Edit: It also doesn't appear as though there is a unified inbox feature either from those guides.
     
gradient
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Jun 12, 2009, 09:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by JKT View Post
... and back again. I am wrong:

Apple - iPhone - Learn how to use all the features of iPhone.

Nadgers.

Edit: It also doesn't appear as though there is a unified inbox feature either from those guides.
Damn, I got my hopes up there.... I suppose having search at all is still an improvement, mind you.
     
besson3c
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Jun 12, 2009, 10:37 PM
 
Is the Mail app for the iPhone/iTouch essentially a repackaged version of OS X Mail? If so, I bet I'd get about a half hour of battery life with the way Mail used to handle my mailboxes if I left this app running constantly.
     
JKT
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Jun 13, 2009, 07:47 AM
 
Probably not - it only retrieves messages for the folder you view at any one time so if you never visit e.g. your archived messages folder on your iPhone, they never get downloaded and that folder is never checked. The only exception is the scheduled check of the inbox of each of your accounts which will happen regardless and the check that occurs for each inbox when you launch the app.
     
   
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