Receive Emails on Your i wireless Phone

I'm going to go way back for this posting, although I'm sure that many of you are not aware of this fact.

If you want to receive emails on your phone, but you do not have a phone with an email client or you do not subscribe to the necessary data services, you can still do it...and i wireless customers have been able to do it for years. You just need to give the person or people who want to email you your address. Emails will arrive on your phone as text messages. "So how do I know the email address for my phone?" you may be wondering. Just add a "1" to the front of your phone number and ".iws@iwspcs.net" to the end of it and you have your mobile email address. For example, if your phone number is (123) 456-7890, your email address would be 11234567890.iws@iwspcs.net.

Please note that depending on your phone model, these emails may be broken up into multiple text messages 160 characters in length. Also - It works best if the person sending you the emails sends them to you in plain text format. HTML and Rich Text emails may not go through, and if they do, they are usually pretty hard to read with all of the extra formatting instructions that are sent as part of the message.

For those of you that have the advanced data services and other email solutions, this information may still come in useful if you ever want to sign up for text message alerts (for bill payment reminders, weather alerts, etc.) and i wireless is not listed as one of the supported carriers. Typically there will be an option for "Other carriers" or to sign up for traditional email alerts. Both should work as long as you know your email address.

...And Speaking of E-mail

The one thing that customers (particularly business customers) have been asking i wireless for the last few years is if they could get their work e-mail on their phone. Aside from setting up some convoluted mailbox rules to forward all of your e-mails, the answer has been "no." Not any more! I have not been one of the lucky ones who have been carrying the Windows Mobile devices for the past few weeks and months, so I haven't had much opportunity to see this in action, but you can now access your Outlook while on the road. I will write more when/if I try it out for myself. I do have a trick you can use to access your Outlook even if you don't have a smartphone or PDA. If you have the new Mobile Web PLUS and your company supports Microsoft Outlook Web Access, you can access it using your phone's browser. The browser on some phones does not support frames, so you may need to download the Opera Mini web browser. I have successfully read and replied to e-mail using Microsoft Outlook Web Access in the Opera Mini browser on a Motorola KRZR K1 phone. I believe I have seen this demonstrated on a Nokia 6620 as well. I don't think that the Symbian browser supported it -- the person use the Opera Mini browser...which is the topic for another post.

Google Makes Mobile E-mail Even Better

Even with i wireless' old Mobile Web (WAP 1), you had the ability to check your e-mail, but the navigation and interface (for Gmail, anyway) was a bit clunky and arduous...even if you knew the shortcut keys. Now Google has launched a downloadable webmail application that makes the whole process so much easier and more enjoyable. I downloaded it to Motorola KRZR K1 the same day it was released and I am in love! More options and fewer clicks!