Why does my iPhone mail suck?
Y’know. I wasn’t really going to post anything about this, but I brought it up with Scott who’s having the same problem and he said I should post it. So here it is.
Why the hell does my iPhone’s mail not sync up unless I actually open the mail app? Why is there a setting that let’s me set this thing to sync every 15 minutes (even though my mail server supports IMAP IDLE and so does the iPhone but Apple says no, only Yahoo gets to use IDLE… grr…)? There’s nothing more awesome then walking somewhere, wanting to check your email which you presume to have been happily syncing throughout the day only to see “Downloading 100 emails”, and since this is over EDGE and you’re in a place where signal isn’t so good, you sadly put the phone back in your pocket and move along.
I still love my iPhone but this is one of the bigger frustrations I have with it. Does it happen to you, too? Oh, and so you can create contact groups, but only on your desktop - I didn’t even know that contacts had groups because I don’t use my desktop address book and if you don’t already have groups set up Contact and SMS show you not even an inkling that it knows anything about groups? WTF up with that? Come on Apple. Do me a solid. Fix this shit.
I’m not saying, I’m just saying…
January 30th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
maybe the sync (check?) mail setting is for POP only? i use a pop account and it indeed downloads mail in the background without me checking.
but then again, my iphone always has been better than yours.
January 30th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I guess it’s possible that it’s for POP only, although that would be even more insane. I think, though, that it used to sync automatically that this is a somewhat new in the last few months type of problem. Sigh.
And my iPhone could totally take your iPhone. Except in a mail sync’ing race.
January 30th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
maybe its a 1.1.3 issue?
im now running a fully jailbroked 1.1.3 yo. its so hot. wiggly icons AND etch-a-sketch.
YOUR
iPHONE
IS
WEAK
January 30th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I *think* I was seeing this in 1.1.1 as well (I skipped 1.1.2), hmm.. but maybe I’m making that up. Urgh.
Ah well. As for my iPhone. Dude. When the iPhone SDK update bricks your phone and I’m buying tetris off the iTMS for $50… don’t say I didn’t warn you… you are NEX!!
January 30th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
The iPhone mail app is SUPPOSED to sync on its own (according to the setting you found). Only it forgets to sometimes… This has been there since the very first rev - and it’s annoyed me since then, but I love it too much in too many other ways to complain much.
I’ve found that you can SOMETIMES fix this by changing the sync time (I vary it between 15 and 30 minutes). The “official” fix is to delete and re-add that mail provider, but this does not actually fix it, it just gives you something to do. I’ve found that rebooting sometimes helps it, but it will eventually forget to sync.
As for IMAP IDLE, the iPhone actually does not support this. Yahoo push works with a special SMS message (no kidding!) not with IMAP IDLE.
Also, you forgot to mention another annoyance of Mail.App: When you get a calendar invite it refuses to download it at all, but it tells you you have messages to be downloaded. So it just tries every 15 minutes, wasting your battery and doing nothing.
Then there’s the “download more” bug in 1.1.3 that doesn’t let you download more…
January 30th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Stephen! Thanks for the tips, I’m going to try the sync time trick. Hopefully that’ll work - it’s just so freaking annoying. I mean, my Treo (my TREO!) pulled mail so fast mail reached it consistently before it hit my desktop. Sigh.
I’m sad to hear that they didn’t implement IDLE, I thought it was more or less just around the corner when they flipped the switch that would make it an option for any account. Sigh.
Hopefully Apple will get on the stick and fix this crap because honestly, it’s embarassing. But I’m with you, the rest of everything is so much better than any other phone I’ve had I’m sticking with it. It’s only getting better.
January 31st, 2008 at 1:23 am
My Samsung has a unicorn on it.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:50 am
I also think iPhone mail sucks when signal isn’t so good.
For this reason I prefer use web mail app, as TouchMail http://www.tm.comvalid.com , that works good also in those conditions and that provides me Hotmail access too.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I know this is an old post, but I have to vent.. I do a lot of email and I HATE the mail app. I too am coming from a Treo with Chatteremail…hands down the best mobile email app ever. Then going to the iphone mail app, uhg! No imap idle push, the problem you describe that it doesn’t actually check mail when you set it to (yes I have it too) even though with IMAP you should *have* to set it to anything, and the VERY clunky interface when using it with more than one email account… (6 clicks to go from an email in one account to an email in another?!?). At least give us a “back to accounts” button!
I am hoping someone comes out with a REAL email client for the iPhone. Safari on the iPhone is the only thing keeping me from going back to the treo, but it’s a real close call….even if Blazer is the worse browser ever.