My Free iPhone / iPod Touch

Another nice change in the 1.1.3 firmware update is that the Gmail portion of the Mail.app on the iPhone and iPod Touch now use IMAP (rather than POP) by default. Google posted (Important changes to email deletion on the iPhone mail client) this to their blog shortly after the MacWorld Keynote speech:

There’s a new software update for the iPhone. The next time you sync your iPhone with iTunes, your iPhone will be updated to version 1.1.3 of Apple’s software. It has a nice new feature — the built-in Mail app on the iPhone will now use IMAP to access your Gmail account, rather than POP, like it used to. IMAP is way better — it keeps your mail in sync wherever you read it. If you read a message on your iPhone, it will be marked as read in your Gmail account. If you move a message to a folder on your iPhone, it will be moved to that label in Gmail. If you delete a message on your iPhone, it will be moved to the Trash in Gmail and permanently deleted in 30 days. This is different than what used to happen! Before, deleting a message on the iPhone had no effect on your Gmail account. But now, delete actually deletes!

This is great. IMAP is certainly a better way to manage your mail. I am very happy that they (Apple or Google - whoever actually made the change) changed from POP to IMAP.

You can get a free Apple iPhone (or iPod Touch), just like I did. The steps are extremely easy:

1. Fill out a short form with your information.
2. Complete a simple exclusive offer or two.
3. Have a few friends do the same.
4. Click here (iPhone) or here (iPod Touch) to get started.

Google has just announced that they will now provide Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) service to their GMail client. They were even nice enough to add a nice tutorial (including a video) on how to set this up on your iPhone.

IMAP access will allow you to manipulate your email messages on your iPhone like you were manipulating them on the server (or through Gmail.com). If you delete a message on your iPhone, it will be deleted from your GMail account. This is different than Post Office Protocol (POP) access which will copy the emails to your local machine to be manipulated independently.

So, if you have your iPhone and are a fan of IMAP, you can now access your GMail account through IMAP. Happy Emailing!

You can get a free Apple iPhone (or iPod Touch), just like I did. The steps are extremely easy:

1. Fill out a short form with your information.
2. Complete a simple exclusive offer or two.
3. Have a few friends do the same.
4. Click here (iPhone) or here (iPod Touch) to get started.