iPhone and email ... BB user's please advise ...

[oiyhoy]

I LOVE my iPhone (of course) the only thing I wish is that it would handle emails and text exactly like my blackberry.

I'm looking for tips from anyone who has their email set up on their iphone and is happy with it. Is there a way to get it to work similar to a blackberry?

What I liked is all my emails from all my addresses going into one folder on my BB and then being able to reply from the same as address as the email was sent to. If the iPhone can ever adopt this blackberry like feature it would satisfy a LOT of people.

I have 5 email addresses, I own two companies with email addresses for both, plus two personal email accounts.

What I don't like about my iPhone is how they're organized and how I'm notified. With the Blackerry I hear the 'beep' email notification, then I hit the trackball and look in the folder and all the emails are there.

With the iPhone I don't care so much if they're pushed instantly although I'd like to receive my emails with 15-30 minutes of when they're sent...

Is there a way so that I can set up my iphone so when I'm notified of an email, I can simply navigate to the home folder, see all my email accounts there, know which folder has a new email, and then reply from the account in which it was addressed.

Right now with my 5 email accounts it's a mess... I used to forward all my emails to a gmail account then just work from that account, I can't do that on my iPhone, plus the built in mail version that works with gmail doesn't have all the functions, such as seeing starred items in the in box.

Is there a way to set up my iPhone so it works similar to the blackberry, I can't wait to hear some idea's.

Thanks.

PS I use a PC not a Mac so I don't benefit from MobileMe features.

 

[Jeremy]

Yeah, you are pretty much out of luck. They are two different phones with different feature sets. I have a Bold and iPhone and I honestly prefer the way iPhone handles email. Again I only have two accounts and one of those is MobileMe.

 

[JohnH59]

From other boards I have read, this can't be done. I would like to see it implemented as well.

I would also like the ability to search in the email app. On my previous Treo's I could simply start typing and find emails based on what I typed.

 

[Wyatt]

I have 4 email accounts and while the BB way seems nice I have no problem with the lack of a unified mail folder. What you are asking is probably not going to happen. BB's were always first and foremost email/pager devices while smartphones are PDA/phones. Two totally different devices in every sense of the word.

 

[shutter]

I respectfully disagree with what the previous posters said, what you want is possible with mobileme and outlook.

I have 5 mail accounts 1 me.com account and 4 others. I have all mail from the other 4 accounts forwarded to my me.com account at the server level. My gmail accounts are setup with gmail to forward to my me.com account as well as my isp account. So all mail, no matter where it's sent to is received in my me.com folder. Unified folder! The key is to have your other accounts still set up on the phone, because the mail is automatically forwarded those accounts will not pull any mail, but these accounts can be used to send/forward/reply from, even from the me.com folder. Just tap on the from field when replying to an email, or forwarding, or composing a new email and you can change the account it's being sent from. Not quite as easy as on my wife's bold, but does the same job. The same is possible in outlook, set up outlook to sync your me.com folders and, again the other accounts have to be present in outlook and again because of the forwarding they are not pulling any mail, but when replying, forwarding or composng new emails you can choose which account is used.

So in short you have all email coming to one mailbox and you can reply/forward/compose new emails from any of your addresses from that same inbox.

 

[Jeremy]

I respectfully disagree with what the previous posters said, what you want is possible with mobileme and outlook.

I have 5 mail accounts 1 me.com account and 4 others. I have all mail from the other 4 accounts forwarded to my me.com account at the server level. My gmail accounts are setup with gmail to forward to my me.com account as well as my isp account. So all mail, no matter where it's sent to is received in my me.com folder. Unified folder! The key is to have your other accounts still set up on the phone, because the mail is automatically forwarded those accounts will not pull any mail, but these accounts can be used to send/forward/reply from, even from the me.com folder. Just tap on the from field when replying to an email, or forwarding, or composing a new email and you can change the account it's being sent from. Not quite as easy as on my wife's bold, but does the same job. The same is possible in outlook, set up outlook to sync your me.com folders and, again the other accounts have to be present in outlook and again because of the forwarding they are not pulling any mail, but when replying, forwarding or composng new emails you can choose which account is used.

So in short you have all email coming to one mailbox and you can reply/forward/compose new emails from any of your addresses from that same inbox.

The OP does not use MobileMe... and wants to keep email accounts separate.

 

[shutter]

The OP does not use MobileMe... and wants to keep email accounts separate.

From the OP's post:

I'm looking for tips from anyone who has their email set up on their iphone and is happy with it.

Well, in all fairness this method would work using any email address as your unified inbox, I like mobileme cause it gives me push for all my email using the method I described above as well as syncing my contacts, calendar and bookmarks OTA.

What I liked is all my emails from all my addresses going into one folder on my BB and then being able to reply from the same as address as the email was sent to.

Granted my method will not necessarily keep them seperate, although he could opt to forward and leave a copy on the server, this would cause duplicates though for the other accounts.

 

[Jeremy]

From the OP's post:


Well, in all fairness this method would work using any email address as your unified inbox, I like mobileme cause it gives me push for all my email using the method I described above as well as syncing my contacts, calendar and bookmarks OTA.




Granted my method will not necessarily keep them seperate, although he could opt to forward and leave a copy on the server, this would cause duplicates though for the other accounts.

I understand what you are saying but it is not a viable solution to exactly what the OP is looking for. Again, a Blackberry is completely different than a iPhone. No way around it. It's cut and dry.

 

[oiyhoy]

Thanks, I understand your points.

My next question is, how do you all set up your email accounts with the iphone? Do you have a separate mailbox for each account on your iphone, that would solve the reply to problem and keep things clearly organized / separate, I'm going to attempt that now ... problem I have is I have so many email accounts forwarded through gmail, and if I separate all the accounts on my iphone I'm going to get a lot of duplicates...

You might say I can turn off all the forwarding through gmail on my desktop, but then that means I'd have to check each account separately that makes more work on my desktop ... forwarding through gmail really is convenient ...

 

[JNHohol]

I really like the email set-up on the iPhone with having each account separate. I can usually tell what the emails are for depending on the account and because I have been keeping my emails organized in my folders. I had a BlackBerry for about 10 months and I rarely used my computer to check them, so my Inbox became just a big long mixed up mess.

I have (5) email accounts through Yahoo, Gmail, and AOL. Each email address is separated and all the different folders I have set-up online for each account are available under the account on the iPhone. I wasn't sure about Gmail, but I just added a label and it showed up on my iPhone. You do have to add the folders/labels from the email's web page though, I don't know of a way to add a folder in the email app on the iPhone. I am not sure how the folders work with smaller email providers such as, Comcast, Qwest, etc.

One thing to be aware of is, that I believe if you have new mail go to specific folders via filters, your iPhone won't recognize the mail as new if it is not in the "inbox". It will show it as new under the folder, under the email account, but it won't show up on your email app icon or notify you.

A couple of things I do for mailboxes, under advanced, under the email account:

-If there is an option, I have the sent items store on the server to keep a record.
-If there is an option, I have the deleted emails go to the trash on the server.
-I keep drafts on my iPhone so they don't have to sync with the server, so you can write emails even if you don't have reception.

You can add each account and turn them off in the settings, under mail, contacts, calendars. If you turn it off, your iPhone remembers your settings and all the previous emails for the account but it won't show it in the email app and it won't fetch any new mail. This would be helpful if you want to keep you emails forwarded to gmail and don't want them to pop up under the individual account as well. But you may as well just leave your gmail account as the only email because if the other accounts are turned off, they really don't do anything.

 

[Jeremy]

Thanks, I understand your points.

My next question is, how do you all set up your email accounts with the iphone? Do you have a separate mailbox for each account on your iphone, that would solve the reply to problem and keep things clearly organized / separate, I'm going to attempt that now ... problem I have is I have so many email accounts forwarded through gmail, and if I separate all the accounts on my iphone I'm going to get a lot of duplicates...

You might say I can turn off all the forwarding through gmail on my desktop, but then that means I'd have to check each account separately that makes more work on my desktop ... forwarding through gmail really is convenient ...

Correct each account must be separate. So having more than one account on the iPhone can be a pain to some.