iPhone: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition

Writing Messages

To compose a new piece of outgoing mail, open the Mail program, and then tap the icon in the lower-right corner. A new, blank outgoing message appears, and the iPhone keyboard pops up.

Here's how you go about writing a message:

1. In the "To:" field, type the recipient's email address—or grab it from Contacts. Often, you won't have to type much more than the first couple of letters of the name oremail address. As you type, Mail automatically displays all matching names and addresses, so that you can tap one instead of typing. (It thoughtfully derives these suggestions by analyzing both your Contacts and people you've recently exchanged email with.)

   Tip

   If you hold your finger down on the period (.) key, you get a pop-up palette of common email-address suffixes, like .com, .edu, .org, and so on. (You can see a similar effect pictured on The Safari Keyboard.).

   Alternatively, tap the button to open your Contacts list. Tap the name of the person you want. (Note, though, that the Contacts list shows you all names, even those that don't have email addresses.)

   You can add as many addressees as you like; just repeat the procedure.

   Tip

   There's no Group feature on the iPhone, which would let you send one message to a predefined set of friends. But at http://groups.yahoo.com, you can create ...