Many people overlook the most important part of a mobile email solution. It is easy to get caught up in the idea that it is going to be so wonderful to have access to your email where every you are. The fact is, if you can’t delete emails from your mobile device in a way that will delete them from your desktop computer, your mobile solution is probably going to cost you more time than it saves.
If every email you read and then delete requires that you “touch” it again on your desktop, you are doing a lot of extra work. In the paper world, you get the most efficiency by minimizing the number of times you have to physically handle an item. The digital world is no different. Every time you have to decide what to do with an email, that requires you to take time and make a decision. If you have to decide what to do with each email twice, you’ll effectively double the amount of email you have to deal with.
So if you are looking for a mobile email solution, make sure you take the time to understand how it will impact your work-flow as you use your traditional desktop tools.
Originally published October 17, 2006.
You should take a look at IMAP mail on the iPhone, it is amazing!
This has been on my mind a lot lately. I use gmail as my main email account and I download through POP3 to MS Outlook on my laptop. I would like to use my Pocket PC (non-phone model) for email occasionally, but most of my email consists of newsletters with lots of links that I open in Firefox. If I download to my Pocket PC (I use Flexmail 2007) I can read through the few personal emails I get and read a few text based newsletters like the Slashdot daily digest, but anything else I then have to access through the web based gmail if I want to check out any links (The Pocket PC screen is too small, and Pocket Internet Exploder is too slow anyway). I’ve been hearing a lot about IMAP lately which would be an ideal solution, but I believe most IMAP mail at this point requires payment.
This has never been a problem on my iphone! The most trouble I have is starring my gmail emails as needed. I can still sort them into labels and everything!
Exchange is great!
If you use gmail and PPC (windows mobile) you can sync it via exchange.
Also, gmail can be synced via IMAP.
I used GMail / Google Apps (own domain) and use it on my laptop, desktop and BlackBerry. What I read on one, is reflected on the other. Gmail/Apps works.
James–Are you using the blackberry built in email client or the one you downloaded from Google?