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Email reading

S

stevearm

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 15, 2007
992
91
Am I right in assuming that if I set up a POP3 email account on my iPhone, download and read an email at 3pm say... and later that day wanted to read that same email again I'd have to redownload the email??? And if I had no signal and no wifi, I couldn't read the email?

If so that's pathetic. It's incredible how many basic flaws there are with the iPhone. Shocking in fact. The only thing the device has going for it is it's multitouch and user interface.
 
stevearm said:
Am I right in assuming that if I set up a POP3 email account on my iPhone, download and read an email at 3pm say... and later that day wanted to read that same email again I'd have to redownload the email??? And if I had no signal and no wifi, I couldn't read the email?

If so that's pathetic. It's incredible how many basic flaws there are with the iPhone. Shocking in fact. The only thing the device has going for it is it's multitouch and user interface.
Click to expand...

This has nothing to do with the iPhone being 'flawed'. Your problem is the 'flawed' POP3 system! Try using IMAP – there is a new post here explaining more details: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/385255/
 
designaholic said:
This has nothing to do with the iPhone being 'flawed'. Your problem is the 'flawed' POP3 system! Try using IMAP – there is a new post here explaining more details: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/385255/
Click to expand...

Flawed POP3?

My Nokia N95 lets me download emails to my phone for me to read however many times I want on the phone, without having to redownload them every time I want to read it again.

That's my issue.
 
CD3660 said:
IMAP is the solution to all your problems!
Click to expand...

Can someone put it simply for someone who can't figure out the difference between POP3 and IMAP?

I bought my own domain name a few years ago and have been using Outlook, configured with a POP3 account to access all my emails. Same as on my N95, it'll load up all the emails on my server and I could download whichever email I wanted to the phone's memory.

- Can a personal .com email adress be configured with IMAP?
- Will using my email with IMAP on my iPhone mean that I won't have to connect to the internet/wifi every time I want to read a specific email?
- Does IMAP download and delete emails from the server or does it just provide a copy of them on my phone?
 
POP3 downloads the email but doesn't sync to the email server. So you may read a load of emails and reply to some but then say you get home and use your PC/Mac to check your email, you will get your emails again as if you have never read them on your iPhone.

With IMAP it syncs to your email server, so any read emails and sent/deleted emails etc... will be synced back to the server. So when you check your email online or from a PC/Mac the emails you read on your iPhone will come down as read emails.

Am not sure what happens though if you go into your Mail on the iPhone have no connection at all. Not sure if the emails are there or it needs a connection.

EDIT: Forgot to add, it will depend who you use for email on your own domain to decide if they support IMAP or not. You need to ask them.

Dave
 
Dave B said:
POP3 downloads the email but doesn't sync to the email server. So you may read a load of emails and reply to some but then say you get home and use your PC/Mac to check your email, you will get your emails again as if you have never read them on your iPhone.

With IMAP it syncs to your email server, so any read emails and sent/deleted emails etc... will be synced back to the server. So when you check your email online or from a PC/Mac the emails you read on your iPhone will come down as read emails.

Am not sure what happens though if you go into your Mail on the iPhone have no connection at all. Not sure if the emails are there or it needs a connection.

EDIT: Forgot to add, it will depend who you use for email on your own domain to decide if they support IMAP or not. You need to ask them.

Dave
Click to expand...



Cheers for the explanation Dave.

I don't actually care whether IMAP affects the server and POP3 doesn't. I don't mind opening Outlook at the end of the day and seeing loads of unread emails even though I'd already read them.

The reason I started this thread had nothing to do with that. I wanted to know whether, in the iPhone mail application (POP3 or IMAP)... say you get your emails, download one and read it when you're walking along the street, then exit the Mail app. Five hours later when you're in an area of zero signal and no wifi, whether you can still open that previously read email or do you need to re-download.

If it's the latter, it's ridiculous. Surely Apple can't be THAT stupid?
 
stevearm -

as far as I know, I don't think the Mail app downloads any emails permanently onto the iPhone (even one's you have already opened once) - you only get a two-line or so preview. So, yes, if you're in a zone with no signal or wifi, you won't be able to look at the email again. That's happened to me before and it's a stupid design flaw.

The only way to get around it is to move the received email into your 'sent mail' box, that way it is stored permanently.
 
ay98182 said:
stevearm -

as far as I know, I don't think the Mail app downloads any emails permanently onto the iPhone (even one's you have already opened once) - you only get a two-line or so preview. So, yes, if you're in a zone with no signal or wifi, you won't be able to look at the email again. That's happened to me before and it's a stupid design flaw.

The only way to get around it is to move the received email into your 'sent mail' box, that way it is stored permanently.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, answered my question, sadly not in the way I hoped.

Gotta say, I was going to get an iPhone later this week... but the number of stupid design flaws that are becoming apparent are seriously turning me off it. Some of them are just basic functionality issues that you won't find on 99% of other phones!

- No 3G
- No MMS
- Crap camera
- No Video camera
- No high res photos on Photo app
- No cut/copy/paste
- No mass SMS/SMS Forwarding
- No email storage
- No Flash/Java browsing
- Bluethooth sharing
- No Word/Excel/PDF document saving

Seems Apple made a seriously underpowered phone, knowing people would go crazy for the design/interface/multitouch regardless of its flaws so that when iPhone 2 comes out and is infinitely better, everyone would also buy that one.

Hmmmm.
 
a quick edit on what I said before (to be fair to the iPhone):

Although I've been unable to open previously opened emails in an area with no signal/wifi, I've realised that all of these had relatively large (50k+) attachments.

I just tried the Mail app in an area with no signal and with wifi switched off, and all of the smaller emails (ones with just text) seemed to open fine (regardless of whether they were read or unread). Mail couldn't seem to open emails with attachments or a large amount of formatted text though.

I'm guessing that the iPhone stores all the smaller emails, but, after a certain size, gets the larger ones from the server each time to conserve space. That's better than I previously thought, but still not particularly useful as it's the emails with the long attachments that you usually want to keep on referring back to, without having to wait for EDGE to download them again. The solution is, as I said, to transfer the emails with the important attachments to your sent mail folder and then you can access them whenever.

Sorry about my previous (more confident) reply!
 
stevearm said:
Thanks for that, answered my question, sadly not in the way I hoped.

Gotta say, I was going to get an iPhone later this week... but the number of stupid design flaws that are becoming apparent are seriously turning me off it. Some of them are just basic functionality issues that you won't find on 99% of other phones!

- No 3G
- No MMS
- Crap camera
- No Video camera
- No high res photos on Photo app
- No cut/copy/paste
- No mass SMS/SMS Forwarding
- No email storage
- No Flash/Java browsing
- Bluethooth sharing
- No Word/Excel/PDF document saving

Seems Apple made a seriously underpowered phone, knowing people would go crazy for the design/interface/multitouch regardless of its flaws so that when iPhone 2 comes out and is infinitely better, everyone would also buy that one.

Hmmmm.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm is right. Sounds like you had your mind made up well in advance of this thread. :apple:
 
ay98182 said:
a quick edit on what I said before (to be fair to the iPhone):

Although I've been unable to open previously opened emails in an area with no signal/wifi, I've realised that all of these had relatively large (50k+) attachments.

I just tried the Mail app in an area with no signal and with wifi switched off, and all of the smaller emails (ones with just text) seemed to open fine (regardless of whether they were read or unread). Mail couldn't seem to open emails with attachments or a large amount of formatted text though.

I'm guessing that the iPhone stores all the smaller emails, but, after a certain size, gets the larger ones from the server each time to conserve space. That's better than I previously thought, but still not particularly useful as it's the emails with the long attachments that you usually want to keep on referring back to, without having to wait for EDGE to download them again. The solution is, as I said, to transfer the emails with the important attachments to your sent mail folder and then you can access them whenever.

Sorry about my previous (more confident) reply!
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for this, good to know. Not as bad as originally thought but as you say it'd be handy to be able to download emails we want to the iPhone's internal memory.


chadrob30 said:
Hmmmm is right. Sounds like you had your mind made up well in advance of this thread. :apple:
Click to expand...

Not at all, but all the negatives of the iPhone have just been building up during the past couple of weeks as I've discovered more and more stupid shortcomings of the phone.

I'll probably still get it, but wouldn't be surprised if I went back to my N95 after a few weeks and used the iPhone for music, video, photos and the internet...
 
If you do get one you will quickly forget about any preconceived notions you may have about it. The only things I wish it had were a bulk email delete button and picture texting....the rest of it is great just the way it is. Good luck. Sorry if I came across as rude in my other post, but it just seemed like you had done extensive research then decided to troll here. Sorry! ;)
 
stevearm said:
I'll probably still get it,
Click to expand...

WHY??

The iPhone does the things some people want very, very well. It apparently doesn't do the things you want a phone to do.

But you're still going to buy it?? Explain how this isn't just wasting your money.

(I'm not even going to get into the whole issue of calling a product that doesn't do what you want "flawed" when really...it's just a product that doesn't do what you want. That's like calling an iMac "flawed" because you need a laptop.)

I suggest buying a phone with the features you need.
 
Small White Car said:
WHY??

The iPhone does the things some people want very, very well. It apparently doesn't do the things you want a phone to do.

But you're still going to buy it?? Explain how this isn't just wasting your money.

(I'm not even going to get into the whole issue of calling a product that doesn't do what you want "flawed" when really...it's just a product that doesn't do what you want. That's like calling an iMac "flawed" because you need a laptop.)

I suggest buying a phone with the features you need.
Click to expand...

In my opinion, the iPhone is flawed when you compare it to pretty much every other mobile phone from any other of the major manufacturers of the few years.
 
stevearm said:
In my opinion, the iPhone is flawed when you compare it to pretty much every other mobile phone from any other of the major manufacturers of the few years.
Click to expand...

Looks like the N95 is the best fit for you then. Enjoy! :)

p.s. while you might be legitimately seeking info before you purchase, you do look a bit like a troll (posting that the photo app is rubbish when you've not used it, posting question threads that read a bit like an excuse to list the "design flaws" of the phone). Maybe keep a bit more of an open mind?
 
alFR said:
Looks like the N95 is the best fit for you then. Enjoy! :)

p.s. while you might be legitimately seeking info before you purchase, you do look a bit like a troll (posting that the photo app is rubbish when you've not used it, posting question threads that read a bit like an excuse to list the "design flaws" of the phone). Maybe keep a bit more of an open mind?
Click to expand...


Wow, a troll reputation already eh? I was merely sharing my disappointment at finding out that the Photos app doesn't do high res images, and in this topic I was then seeking information about the email app.

And what's wrong with discussing the negative aspects of the iPhone, surely a discussion board is for just that... to talk about things, good and bad.
 
Dave B said:
POP3 downloads the email but doesn't sync to the email server. So you may read a load of emails and reply to some but then say you get home and use your PC/Mac to check your email, you will get your emails again as if you have never read them on your iPhone.
Click to expand...


See, I like it this way.

I like to get email when I'm travelling, but I like to keep my archive of mails on my Mac at home.

Works for me.
 
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