I saw this complaint about iPhone volume and thought I would throw my two cents in on my biggest complaint about the iPhone as well.
My biggest complaint about the iPhone is that there is no way to filter junk mail. Mail works great on the iPhone almost exactly like it does on your desktop but there is no junk mail filter for iPhone.
You don’t realize how big a deal no junk mail filter is until you don’t have a junk mail filter. The volume of junk mail is unbelievable. Not having the ability to filter junk mail on my iPhone renders email on my iPhone virtually useless. I’m almost afraid to check my email on my iPhone because I can’t filter the junk. For me, that means on a single check of my email maybe once every two hours would bring me 30 junk mail messages and 5 legitimate emails. This just isn’t a viable ratio. It kills the whole idea of productivity to have to sift through the junk to get to the real stuff.
My limited understanding of the iPhone is that it runs OS X more or less just like a desktop. So why not filter? I have 8GB of space on the phone, I’m sure I wouldn’t even notice a filter space wise.
I hope a junk mail filter for iPhone is something that is on the way with the next iPhone software upgrade, but until then, I won’t be checking my email on my phone.
Subscribe to anyone
You might want to consider letting Gmail do the work for you. Open a Gmail account, enter your current email address’ POP3 settings, let gmail collect those emails and then use the IMAP features on the iPhone and Gmail to keep the junk out and your email in sync. Click the link below to take a look at a YouTube video that explains the process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ22euWXYog
Good luck
Ken on November 8th, 2007 at 8:55 am | Link
Does anyone else have any feedback on this? I’m looking to get an iPhone so that I can take my email with me. Although I get about 1000 junk mails per day. Does using this google tip help? What about the mail on my desktop? Thanks.
Bingo on April 24th, 2008 at 4:11 am | Link
I tried using the gmail as an option but the problem is manifestly worse than that.
By opening a gmail account although Gmail will filter your mail great when it is sent to your gmail account, i also forward all of my business email accounts to gmail (7 in all) so that i have a single repository.
When i added gmail to my iPhone i found that not only did gmail not deal with the email forwarded to me it also dramatically INCREASED the amount of spam i got.
I DID love the imap feature in Gmail but rendered the solution next to useless for ME… not to say it wont work for others.
I find that I spend the majority of my time in the edit mode of mail on the iphone deleting junk mail. I get probably 150-200 a day (oh how i wish i knew how i got on these lists), however email is TIME CRITICAL to my business so I HAVE to wade through the trash.
I am currently scouring the net for a filter and should I find one I will certainly post a link to it
Just my .79INR worth
Shaun Kelly
Shaun Kelly on May 16th, 2008 at 8:42 am | Link
well I have to say I followed the “new” way of using the Gmail and am VERY pleased with the results.
I have now disabled all of my “real” accounts and just use the gmail one using imap.
One small thing that the video gets wrong is that you use “googlemail” instead of “gmail”. Other than that pretty happy. Of course I have now had to go and set up labels in Gmail as well as a bunch of filters, but i guess I should have been doing that anyway. (I really just used my gmail account as a backup bucket)
So retraction on my previous comment and a big tick for the new.
Shaun Kelly on May 17th, 2008 at 3:57 am | Link
Try going into your yahoo email account and change the spam filter settings to delete upon receipt rather than storing in your spam folder.
There is a small risk of not getting an email that is valid and marked incorrectly by the filter, but the benefits of not having to delete hundreds of emails is worth it. If an email sender is really trying to get something to you that is so important, then they would call you or you would notice you didn’t get it.
Live dangerously and be free from junk email on your iPhone!
Trish on June 18th, 2008 at 10:43 am | Link
is apple going the way of microsoft? honestly, i’ve been a mac fan all my professional life and it is quite shocking that apple leaves holes like this on their products and software ??? why not just pick up the settings from your mac when sinking? and how do you delete junk e-mails without having to go 1 by 1? even the 25 minimum is a pain… anyway it seems like for all practical purposes using the iphone e-mail as it is kind defeats the very purpose that it is intended for. lots of other holes on the interface and settings but that’s enough for now. and we should not have to be hackers to function with consumer devices… it is too much of a brain drain as it is.
not that windows anything is an alternative to anything (it never was and never will) but that should not be an excuse for apple not to do their home work before releasing a product and specially of this relevancy. please…
pepe on July 9th, 2008 at 8:03 am | Link
The iPhone is missing several features and this is just an example. The new MobileMe is missing the junk button as well, and does not have the ability to create rules to pre-filter.
I am not sure what Apple has been doing since the last iPhone release, but they didn’t seem to listen to the consumer comments.
Stuart on July 14th, 2008 at 6:30 am | Link
Having the same problems with loads of junk mail… would love to hear any solutions!
And Trish, I hope you’ve already found the way to delete them all at the same time?! You go to edit (i think?) then select all the junk then press delete once.
Anna on August 13th, 2008 at 12:35 am | Link