Functionality of e-mail

About 2 years ago, less than 10% of our clients wanted or needed to get e-mail on their PDA or SmartPhone.  Now more than 50% want or need it.  There are many subtle differences in how it’s handled on various devices and this becomes quite evident when comparing the iPhone and Blackberry.

When you initially sync your iPhone with your Mac, you will be asked if you want to sync e-mail accounts.  This won’t actually move your e-mail messages, but rather it will replicate the account settings on your iPhone, and I must say it’s a nice touch.  On a Blackberry, it’s easiest to add the accounts via the Blackberry web site, but they can also be added via the device itself.

In a nutshell, the limitations I found on the iPhone were being able to view only the last 200 messages on my phone without manually choosing to download more, the complete lack of a search function within the e-mail client, the frustrating process needed to switch back and forth among the multiple e-mail accounts, and having only a single signature for use across all e-mail accounts.

I use IMAP e-mail so that the state of my e-mail is equal on my laptop, via webmail, and on my Blackberry.  I think it’s important to state here that I receive about 50 messages per day in my primary e-mail account (about 20 more per day combined in the other accounts), and reply to 10 or more a day from my Blackberry.  On an iPhone and on a Blackberry, the storage capacity is far less than a typical user’s inbox and each device handles the situation differently.  An iPhone lets you choose how many messages to make available to you by letting you select the latest 25, 50, 75, 100 or 200 messages.  If you need more, simply scroll to the bottom of your inbox and click the link to show more messages, and wait while it downloads them approximately 50 at a time.  Based on this, my iPhone was able to preserve about four days worth of e-mail in my inbox at any given time.

On a Blackberry you don’t set how many messages to keep, but rather for how many days they are kept, the minimum of which is 15 days.  If you then set the “Auto More” option, it will download them in the background automatically as you scroll down your inbox.  A huge plus on the Blackberry is the Search feature.  If you want to find that message from Joe a few days ago, you can simply tap the menu key, choose Search, and then search for “Joe” as recipient or sender, and a few seconds later every message sent to or from Joe is made available. You still cannot search your e-mail on an iPhone.  It is very aggravating to scroll through 300+ e-mails on my iPhone when looking for an e-mail received a week earlier. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack.

I also found the iPhone is not equipped very well for handling multiple accounts.  The e-mail accounts, and subsequently the folders and the contents of those folders, are organized much like the column view in the Finder on a Mac.  In order to change from the inbox of one account to another entails the following four steps:

(1) From the Inbox of account “A”, tap the “Mailboxes”  link to see the folders for this account
(2) Tap the “Accounts” link to see the list of the accounts
(3) Tap account “B” to see its folders
(4) Tap the Inbox

I have to check my e-mail on all three of my accounts multiple times daily. Imagine doing the above process fifteen times a day.  It was truly frustrating.  On a Blackberry, you can either view all accounts independently, or you can set a preference to merge them all into one inbox so you can access all of your e-mails at once. This is far easier and faster than what the iPhone offers. With regard to composing e-mail, both phones allow you to change the “From” address.  However, on an iPhone, all e-mail accounts must share the same signature, whereas on a Blackberry, each account can have its own unique signature.