Help E-mail limitations

[gibson6594]

Hey guys, I wanted to compile a list of the Android e-mail limitations I've seen on my nexus so far. These apply to the exchange accounts and if Google wants the business market, these are things they must update to be successful:

1 - Folder syncing as well as the ability to move messages to specific Outlook folders.

2 - E-mail forwarding: Forwarded e-mails are attached as .eml files instead of in-line forwarding. This is not only awkward but can cause problems if your are forwarding an e-mail to someone who can't view attachments.

3 - Corporate global address lookup. Being mobile means being away from your computer and other tech. What good is it if you can't look up corportate contacts that are not stored in your contacts.

4 - Integration with Outlook invitations. The ability to accept or decline invites is not available.

5 - Signatures. Come on

6 - Push mailbox reshreshes without having to manually refresh or reopen the inbox. This a problem because if you read an e-mail on your PC, your phone won't know and still notify you as having a new message.

Note that the iPhone is able to do all of these things. I love my Nexus, I just don't want to be in a situation that may compromise my ability to do my job because of it.

 

[nyfinest32]

Nevermind

 

[gibson6594]

I can't figure out how to copy and paste in email

Not really the point of this thread, but here you go:

select the field which contains editable text

tap and hold or press the trackball

press "select text"

use fingers or trackball to select desired text

tap and hold or press the trackball

Select copy/cut

--------------

select the field where you want the copied/cut text

tap and hold or press the trackball

press paste

 

[nyfinest32]

My mistake i thought it was a limitation to emails as well

 

[NexusMMM]

1 - Folder syncing as well as the ability to move messages to specific Outlook folders.

2 - E-mail forwarding: Forwarded e-mails are attached as .eml files instead of in-line forwarding. This is not only awkward but can cause problems if your are forwarding an e-mail to someone who can't view attachments.

3 - Corporate global address lookup. Being mobile means being away from your computer and other tech. What good is it if you can't look up corportate contacts that are not stored in your contacts.

4 - Integration with Outlook invitations. The ability to accept or decline invites is not available.

Note that the iPhone is able to do all of these things. I love my Nexus, I just don't want to be in a situation that may compromise my ability to do my job because of it.

I completely agree. Also have a couple additions:

5 - Unreliable push functionality

6 - Notification tray does not update to reflect when messages are read on the Outlook client (i.e. the alert remains despite no longer having unread Exchange e-mail).

 

[jameskk]

you need to download TouchDown from the Market. It will give you all of this and more!

 

[CAL7]

I have a gmail account and an exchange account. Inline HTML shows great from the gmail account, but just as links in my exchange account.

Is this a limitation, or is there some (to me, obscure) setting I need to change?

 

[gibson6594]

you need to download TouchDown from the Market. It will give you all of this and more!

Not really the solution I want. There is no reason Android can't include these features nativly.

 

[gibson6594]

Is anyone else having these problems? I can't be the only one using an exchange account.

 

[rookie1082]

Is anyone else having these problems? I can't be the only one using an exchange account.

I heard the Rogers ROM for one of the Android phones includes better E-Mail integration... I'm sure someone will add the functionality you desire!

 

[pips]

K9 email for market seems to work nice...Free too...

 

[NexusMMM]

K9 email for market seems to work nice...Free too...

K9 has extremely sub-par Exchange support via WebDAV (OWA) with IMAP IDLE Push. Not a reliable solution. K9 does appear to be great for imap though...

 

[NexusMMM]

Is anyone else having these problems? I can't be the only one using an exchange account.

Really surprised by the lack of business users on this platform. This forum, along with the others (including Google's Nexus One help forums) only have a handful of posts regarding advanced exchange issues & support.

I feel your pain & It's frustrating to say the least...

 

[AgentCooper]

Really surprised by the lack of business users on this platform. This forum, along with the others (including Google's Nexus One help forums) only have a handful of posts regarding advanced exchange issues & support.

I feel your pain & It's frustrating to say the least...

Before I post regarding "advaced exchange issues", I'd like them to fix their basic exchange issues. ;-)

 

[gibson6594]

Before I post regarding "advaced exchange issues", I'd like them to fix their basic exchange issues. ;-)

Yea, I'd like to know if exchange support improvements are even on the radar. I like to hope so with the rumored Nexus 2's apparent business user focus.

 

[AgentCooper]

I actually find it interesting that the Exchange support is lacking so much.

IIRC, Google Sync uses Exchange Activesync and they seem to have done a pretty darn good implementation within the GMail application. Now if they could just match that functionality/reliabilty with all other Exchange connections/accounts.

 

[NexusMMM]

Before I post regarding "advaced exchange issues", I'd like them to fix their basic exchange issues. ;-)

Haha, very true.

In this forum, advanced seems to be anything beyond putting a widget on the homescreen. I'm stuck somewhere between pre-k and graduate comp. sci. boucing between this place and the developer forums looking for some basic answers to some pretty silly issues on this phone...

 

[ChrisFix]

Really surprised by the lack of business users on this platform. This forum, along with the others (including Google's Nexus One help forums) only have a handful of posts regarding advanced exchange issues & support.

I feel your pain & It's frustrating to say the least...

Fellow business exchange user here (and new to Android) with the N1...I was pretty underwhelmed and disappointed with the native support and bought Touchdown, which works well enough, but I feel I shouldn't have to spend an additional $20 on a $530 phone. I'm unclear what Google is thinking here...

 

[jameskk]

Not really the solution I want. There is no reason Android can't include these features nativly.

ah, but it IS the solution you are looking for... you are just too stubborn to try it.. I was the same way until I finally made the jump. As for native apps.. they are nothing more than app files located in a directory.. same as Touchdown.. in other words... there really isn't any native apps in Android for the most part. An app is an app... at least Touchdown adds practically every feature you could want from an Exchange client, even some that iPhone doesn't offer like Peak schedules for push/polling. And the developer offers stellar support of this product. I have sent him about 20 emails and I always get a response in less than 5 min.

 

[gibson6594]

ah, but it IS the solution you are looking for... you are just too stubborn to try it.. I was the same way until I finally made the jump. As for native apps.. they are nothing more than app files located in a directory.. same as Touchdown.. in other words... there really isn't any native apps in Android for the most part. An app is an app... at least Touchdown adds practically every feature you could want from an Exchange client, even some that iPhone doesn't offer like Peak schedules for push/polling. And the developer offers stellar support of this product. I have sent him about 20 emails and I always get a response in less than 5 min.

What I am looking for is an answer as to why Google made the Gmail app rock solid and left the exchange people hanging in the wind, almost forced to buy a third party app.

 

[ryanc2]

These are the reasons I'll probably pass on the N1. IIt looks like a fun phone to use, but certainly not a business phone. My Eris has bitten me one too many times when away from the office and need power user Exchange features. Touchdown interface is too bloated for me - just my .02.

Can't believe 2.1 hasn't done anything to improve this.

 

[jameskk]

These are the reasons I'll probably pass on the N1. IIt looks like a fun phone to use, but certainly not a business phone. My Eris has bitten me one too many times when away from the office and need power user Exchange features. Touchdown interface is too bloated for me - just my .02.

Can't believe 2.1 hasn't done anything to improve this.

have you actually downloaded Touchdown?? don't judge it by those crappy looking screen shots on the android market... it's not bloated imho. I mean, I still like the iPhone's integration better, but Touchdown is way better than anything on Windows Mobile devices.

 

[gibson6594]

After a bit of playing around, I've noticed that the problem with push only lies with syncing of changes in outlook replicating on the phone. Anything you do on the phone will replicate in outlook (mark as unread/read, delete). Doing these things in outlook and waiting for them to happen on the phone results in no replication. Herein lies the nuisance. Message alerts persist, notifications remain. To the phone, it's as if you didn't read the mail unless you manually refresh or clear them out.

Seems like a simple fix too, a data input that something has changed on the server that causes an inbox refresh would do the trick.

Also, if texts, gmail, gchat all can scroll the message in the notification bar, why not other e-mail.

This all really baffles me. This could be such an amazing device if they made some small and simple updates.

 

[ryanc2]

have you actually downloaded Touchdown?? don't judge it by those crappy looking screen shots on the android market... it's not bloated imho. I mean, I still like the iPhone's integration better, but Touchdown is way better than anything on Windows Mobile devices.

Yep. Tried on my Eris and never converted from the trial version. Couldn't get used to the email interface - too much going on, at least in the small Eris screen.

Just my .02

 

[MisterSlanky]

What I am looking for is an answer as to why Google made the Gmail app rock solid and left the exchange people hanging in the wind, almost forced to buy a third party app.

I don't understand why this is so hard to comprehend. Google runs a business in direct competition with Exchange. It's business mail service is one of its pay services which it's actively trying to sell. Bundling in a built-in client for Exchange that is better than their GMail client isn't going to be in their best interest.

Saying that the N1 is somehow fatally flawed for missing an application that's not only easily available on the market, but also works better than any other Exchange sync app on any phone I've used is what I don't understand. Complaining about the 3G coverage dropping, or that it's on T-Mobile and therefore doesn't meet your needs are valid complaints to why the N1 is a poor choice, saying it's a poor choice for this reason is just silly.