iPhone: The Missing Manual, 4th Edition

Chapter 11. Email

You ain’t never seen email on a phone like this. It offers full formatting, fonts, graphics, and choice of type size; file attachments like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, Pages, Numbers, and photos; and compatibility with Yahoo Mail, Gmail, AOL Mail, MobileMe mail, corporate Microsoft Exchange mail, and just about any standard email account. Dude, if you want a more satisfying portable email machine than this one, buy a laptop.

This chapter covers the basic email experience, which has been thoroughly overhauled in iOS 4. If you’ve gotten yourself hooked up with MobileMe or Exchange ActiveSync, though, you’ll soon find out how wireless email syncing makes everything better. Or at least different. (See Chapters Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 for details.)

Setting Up Your Account

If you play your cards right, you won’t have to set up your email account on the phone. The first time you set up the iPhone to sync with your computer (Chapter 12), you’re offered the chance to sync your Mac’s or PC’s mail with the phone. That doesn’t mean it copies actual messages—only the email settings, so the iPhone is ready to start downloading mail.

You’re offered this option if your Mac’s mail program is Mail or Entourage or if your PC’s mail program is Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Mail.

But what if you don’t use one of those email programs? No sweat. You can also plug the necessary settings ...