iPhone email (also diplomacy between experts and laymen)

[Bullgrit]

OK, you've convinced me to get with the nerd-recommended best practice We'll switch to gmail, and I'll accept how my iPhone-email-sync works.

It still annoys me to have used something a certain way, happily, for years, then suddenly have it change to something very different. (At least when D&D changes to a new edition, my old books don't spontaneously combust and the ashes blow away.)

Bullgrit

 

[Janx]

OK, you've convinced me to get with the nerd-recommended best practice We'll switch to gmail, and I'll accept how my iPhone-email-sync works.

It still annoys me to have used something a certain way, happily, for years, then suddenly have it change to something very different. (At least when D&D changes to a new edition, my old books don't spontaneously combust and the ashes blow away.)

Bullgrit

I don't disagree that this kind of change can be frustrating.

And to be honest, I wasn't being gentle about getting you to convert.

What I see is a collision. You are trying to solve a problem (wanting email on iPhone for one reason, on PC for another), and trying to apply the technology as you understand it to that end.

Unfortunately, you ran into the kind of solution that professionals cringe at. There are bad practices in electrical wiring, software development, etc that an amateur can run into headlong and not know it.

If I was a better internet "friend" (and not tired from having worked 8am-past midnight for 5 days straight), I'd like to better understand what behavior you're trying to get and why. Not the how, that's what nerds do. What kind of email do you want on the iPhone vs. the PC. What's shared, what's separate. Why do they need to be that way?

Then see if we can arrange things to happen that way, with the best practices applied (IMAP). We might not be able to get everything, but you're probably feel better about the process.

Feel free to explain more of the what/why part of your desires, and maybe one of us can be a better internet "friend".

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Bull, one thing you might consider is trying to get the same sort of "I may need this information later" functionality out of your setup without trying to make email clients do it for you.

I'm a fan of Evernote, which you can get a free account with and use to create that stored content that is available across all your devices. When you set up your account, you'll get an email address you can use to send emails to that will automatically import them into your evernote.

I use this for things like Air travel itineraries, meeting agendas, shopping lists -- anything that I think I might need when I'm out and about.

Evernote isn't the only tool that gives you this sort of functionality, but it's a good one.

Another tool you might look at is an iPhone mail app called Mailbox -- which is much better (IMO) than the iPhone Mail app. Its all gesture-driven, which makes managing your email quick and easy, and it also has some cool features like the ability to tell it to show you an email again later (like, later tonight when you've got the time to deal with it) -- the email goes away and comes back, new, at that new time.

-rg

 

[Enforcer]

I"m glad Janx was able to talk sense to you. I honestly couldn't figure out how your old setup even did what you said it did...

 

[Bullgrit]

Well this will twist everyone's noodle:

I still have access to my TWC email account, even though it's closed. I don't even get a bill for it anymore; in fact, I got a refund for overpayment when I closed it. But I can still check it, send and receive email through it, (with web mail, Outlook, and my iPhone). It still works exactly like how it did before. That is, it works in the way AT&T and Apple tell me it can't work on an iPhone.

For the record, I never specifically set it up to work the way it does. I just set it up. It just works that way. For years. I got used to it. I never knew that was unusual, (or wrong). Never had any problems with that way.

That is, I get an email on my iPhone. I later can delete it from the server, (either directly or through Outlook) and it will still be on my iPhone until I specifically delete it from my phone.

So, it's kind of surreal to learn that iPhones and email don't work that way.

Actually, holy crap! My second/web business (totalbullgrit) email works this way. So out of three email accounts, two work the way they shouldn't (but I like), and one works the way it should (that's new to me). Totalbullgrit and TWC are POP accounts, and AT&T is IMAP. So there it is.

Bullgrit

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Makes sense to me -- in a POP3 world.

You have your iphone settings set up to leave email on the server for 1 week (or whatever)
You have your computer outlook settings set up to remove email from the server when you're done.

Scenarios:
Iphone First:
1. You check your email on your iphone, downloading new mail.
2. Email remains on the server.
3. You go home and download the email, which removes it from the server
4. Because in POP3 there's no connection beyond that, the iPhone retains it's copy of the email until manually deleted, even though it's no longer on the server.

Computer First
1. You check your email on your computer, downloading new mail
2. Mail is removed from the server
3. You check your email with your iphone, and see no new mail.

It's possible, in POP3, to set up the desktop to also leave mail on the server for a week or so, which would mean it could also be there for the iphone to download it as well.

For most of us, though, while it works, there are a lot of problems with this workflow (easy to misplace email, etc). IMAP, in my opinion, is much friendlier. You can create a lot of confusion for yourself when you start having different emails saved on different devices.

-rg

 

[Bullgrit]

Radiating Gnome, you've accurately stated my [former] situation, better than I did.

For most of us, though, while it works, there are a lot of problems with this workflow (easy to misplace email, etc). IMAP, in my opinion, is much friendlier. You can create a lot of confusion for yourself when you start having different emails saved on different devices.

I've come, (through this thread conversation), to learn this. I can understand this position, and I'm resigning myself to using my email like this. (Even though the POP way has never caused me any problem in the past.)

It's just disconcerting to face incredulity from techs and "geniuses" [Apple store] when asking about this. I thought something "broke" and they thought I was insane.

Bullgrit

 

[Radiating Gnome]

It's just disconcerting to face incredulity from techs and "geniuses" [Apple store] when asking about this. I thought something "broke" and they thought I was insane.

Kids these days, they have no respect for us soviet-era technologists.

If they're too much invested in IMAP, often folks don't remember the tricks that were possible with POP3 to try to come to some sort of usable situation using a single account on multiple devices. Still, you're not doing yourself any favors sticking to your steam-power and vacuum-tube email technologies.

-j

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Another thought -- technology philosophy, etc....

More and more today we're encouraged/expect/empowered to have a relationship with content that is independent of the our relationship with different devices. Cloud storage is one expression of this, but so is IMAP email, kindle sync, dropbox, google drive, and any number of other products or services.

If you're reading a book on kindle, for example, the reader stores the location you've reached in the book so that the next time you try to read that book -- no matter what device you try to read it on -- you can start in the place where you left off. It doesn't matter what you're using to read, the important relationship is with the book, not the device.

So, the same sort of idea applies to email. The ideal is to have a single email account, expressed across multiple devices that you use to connect to it, but with continuity across those devices. IMAP makes that possible, and it's not possible with POP3.

-rg

 

[Alan Shutko]

Considering that IMAP has been around since 1988, it is shocking that cable companies exclusively offer POP. But that's because they're cheap hits who want to force mail off their servers as fast as they can.

Bullgrit, since you really liked the POP3 workflow, you can set gmail up to use POP instead of IMAP. Check out Google's instructions. It will get you out of AT&T/Yahoo email and let you keep things the same even if you change providers again.