Chapter 3. MESSAGING AND COMMUNICATION
Over the last several decades, computers, phones, and Internet platforms have provided us with dozens of different modes for text-based multimedia communication: email, chat, text messaging, instant messaging, and multimedia messaging.
The iPhone and iPod touch support email exceptionally well, providing high-fidelity support for many common email attachments. The addition of near-instant “push” email support to the iPhone—for free—has enhanced real-time communication.
This chapter introduces the iPhone email system and various clever ways to use it. It also covers the other must-have communication tools—SMS, IRC, and IM—and ways to get the most out of these protocols. Finally, it presents several workarounds to solve the iPhone’s remaining deficiencies in these areas.
Get the Most from iPhone Email
You can use a free Yahoo! push email account as extra “cloud” storage for your iPhone.
Sure, the iPhone is a “computer in the palm of your hand.” But it lacks a few key features that desktops have. The iPhone has a tiny keyboard, making it difficult to enter long URLs. Frustratingly, the iPhone still lacks (as of this writing) copy-and-paste functionality, making the manipulation of URLs—a key part of Internet power surfing—a difficult task. And the iPhone has resisted the urge to provide system-wide filesystem access, preferring to keep data (pictures, videos, podcasts, and notes) in their own application “silos.”
Fortunately, the iPhone does have a ...
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