Email and Messaging

Google has recently added IMAP as an available protocol for their GMail. This is a long awaited feature for GMail users (not just GMail iPhone users) as it allows for true synchronization between GMail and offline mail readers.

UPDATE: Now iPhone users can simply choose "GMail" from the list of built-in accounts when adding a new email account. Navigate to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Add Account -> Gmail and enter your account Address and Password. Touch "Save" and it will connect automatically.

Old information follows:

Google has offered two sources of easy to follow instructions, a text version and a video, for setting up GMail reading via IMAP on the iPhone. Both are copied below:

Unfortunately, at this point, there isn't.

For the time being, you're left with one of two options, each which delete only one message at a time:

1) tap the EDIT button then use the minus+confirm DELETE
2) swipe your finger across the subject/teaser of the message you want to erase and confirm DELETE

Hopefully a multiple delete or delete all feature is coming in a firmware update to the iPhone.

For iPhones using firmware 3.0 or higher, forwarding of SMS messages is a built in feature. To forward a text message, simply

1) view the SMS text message conversation containing the message you'd like to forward
2) tap EDIT at the top of the screen
3) check off the message(s) you'd like to forward
4) tap FORWARD at the bottom right of the screen

UPDATE: Send SMS or MMS messages to multiple recipients by adding them all to the "To:" line when creating a new message. Phone numbers can be entered and separated using the "return" key. Multiple recipients can be added from your Contacts using the "+" button.

Update: Hotmail now offers POP access to all users. Connect here.

Though not offered by all free email providers (i.e. Hotmail), Google offers external email reading via the POP3 protocol as part of the Gmail service.

Setting up your iPhone to read your Gmail is fairly simple.

First, insure that POP is enabled in your Gmail account. Go into your Gmail settings and click on the "Forwarding and POP" tab. Once inside, enable POP access (for either new mail or all mail, it's up to you).

Update: Apple iOS has fully integrated MMS support in the Messages app. The latest firmware also includes support for Apple's iMessage, which can be set up to send messages between iOS devices without using a text plan.

Contrary to popular belief, the answer is most likely YES!... sort of. Web applications are going to have a huge impact on the iPhone. As users will not be able to install their own software, they will resort to web applications. Instant messaging can be achieved through sites like XS4All's web chat site.

Officially, the iPhone will not provide native instant messaging functionality.

Each iPhone owner can receive a free push IMAP email account from Yahoo!. Push e-mail systems provide an "always-on" capability, in which new e-mail is instantly and transferred to the email client from the server. This will be useful as there is no instant messaging software for the iPhone, such as AIM, ICQ, or IRC.