I like the Apple mail app, but it has a major shortcoming vs blackberry -- data/bandwidth management when away from WiFi. When I receive an email of moderate size, it takes forever to download. If I want to forward an email with a large attachment, it must download it to the phone, then upload it back to my mail server (Gmail IMAP).
The reason blackberries work so well over 1G, 2G, or 3G networks is that they manage the data flow on the server. They transmit mail in plain text (which, admittedly, could be better), and only offer attachments upon request (iPhone does do this partially). Similarly, when forwarding a large email, the data is never sent to the blackberry - forwarding occurs on the server, so forwarding a 10MB email only takes a KB or two of blackberry bandwidth.
The Gmail web app accomplishes all of these things well, and also allows for quick archive searches of my 9,000 emails. Unfortunately, it doesn't cache anything on my iphone for reference. A native Gmail app, especially with choice of plain text or HTML, would offer the best of both worlds - cached data when I want it, combined with rapid mail management on the server. This would be a killer app IMO!
I LOVE my iPhone, but I'm stuck with 2G 99% of the time. My ancient work blackberry happily syncs hundreds of mails per day, while I end up holding my iPhone over my head with two fingers waiting for some attachment or photo to forward!
The reason blackberries work so well over 1G, 2G, or 3G networks is that they manage the data flow on the server. They transmit mail in plain text (which, admittedly, could be better), and only offer attachments upon request (iPhone does do this partially). Similarly, when forwarding a large email, the data is never sent to the blackberry - forwarding occurs on the server, so forwarding a 10MB email only takes a KB or two of blackberry bandwidth.
The Gmail web app accomplishes all of these things well, and also allows for quick archive searches of my 9,000 emails. Unfortunately, it doesn't cache anything on my iphone for reference. A native Gmail app, especially with choice of plain text or HTML, would offer the best of both worlds - cached data when I want it, combined with rapid mail management on the server. This would be a killer app IMO!
I LOVE my iPhone, but I'm stuck with 2G 99% of the time. My ancient work blackberry happily syncs hundreds of mails per day, while I end up holding my iPhone over my head with two fingers waiting for some attachment or photo to forward!
I keep my inbox empty