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Is There a Combined Inbox? If Not, Is It a Problem?

ejchis

Well-Known Member
May 12, 2010
109
7
MI
Hello All,

I'm a brand new member here. I am a long-time and loyal Blackberry user. While several people over at the Crackberry forums are anxiously and excitedly awaiting the "new" CDMA device coming from RIM, I'm a little bored by the release of My Current Phone v.1.1. I like MCP v1.0 quite a bit, but I'm losing faith in RIM's ability to set an industry standard.

Anyway, I'm almost certain I'm going to be picking up the EVO when it's released next month. I've been doing lots of research lately, and I'm pretty excited about all that this phone and the Android OS have to offer.

One feature that I absolutely love and worry I won't be able to live without is my universal or combined--or whatever you want to call it--inbox. In terms of my interactions with my contacts on my blackberry, I do one of two things:

1. I start typing their name, hit menu when I've get their name highlighted, and select the action I want to do (call, sms, mms, instant message, facebook, etc.), or

2. I open my inbox where absolutely anything of any type incoming from anyone is located.

I really like having that very simplistic operation, and I'm not sure I could give it up.

I did some searches, and there are some conversations about this, but I wasn't able to find a definitive answer. There are actually quite a few threads where people asked this and didn't get a response. I'm hoping someone with some in-depth knowledge of the Android software can provide an answer.

Can I set up the Android 2.1 OS to receive all types of messages (visual voicemail, texts, emails, gchats, mms, facebooks notifications, etc.) in one centralized location? Also, I will want to be using the gmail application. I rely pretty heavily on google services, and that is one of the reasons the EVO is particularly intriguing to me. I wouldn't want to give up that functionality.

Then, if the answer is that this cannot be done, I would love to hear about how much of a drawback it is. Have other blackberry users adjusted okay? Is it not too much of a hassle to have to go through different applications to get your incoming correspondences? Or is it a total pain that maybe should indicate to me that the EVO isn't really for me?

Okay, sorry for the long post. I'm looking forward to hearing all of your feedback, and I really appreciate the help.

Eric
 
htc sense ui i think comes close to what you're looking for. contact integration?

Maybe. I hope so. I understood contact integration to mean the first part of the two things I listed that I do with contacts, meaning that I could select a contact and have all of those features available right from the contact card or whatever. The name "contact integration" doesn't suggest to me that it includes mailbox integration, although that would be great.
 
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Oh how we differ. I can't stand the combined inbox on my blackberry. At any given moment I have incoming personal SMS messages, personal email, work email, separate email for notifications/subscriptions/junk.

Having separate inboxes is much more organized for me. But it would be nice to have the combined option for those who like that functionality.
 
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I had the privledge of using an android phone for a week last week.

To answer your question directly NO , no integrated inbox. (doesnt mean there isnt or wont be an app to do that)

But, there is a notification area at the top that you "pull" down, and it will take you to your idividual notifications. It will also tell you what type it is as well. Took me about 3 days to really get the hang of all that. It also took me about 3-4 days to ditch the physical keyboard and go with the predictive text on the on screen keyboard.

*this is all based on my 7 day test drive W/ a Samsung Moment (unmodified)
 
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htc sense ui i think comes close to what you're looking for. contact integration?


That is actually quite different than the blackberry, when I went back to the berry, I had several duplicate names that were empty. when on the Android, it was one contact with as many different options as you could think of

This does not consolodate the Inbox so to speak...


you get close with the top bar notifications, not the same, but not hard to adapt to...if you learned to master the Berry , you will do fine with the Android !
 
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Thank you all for the quick replies. This really caught my attention:

But, there is a notification area at the top that you "pull" down, and it will take you to your idividual notifications. It will also tell you what type it is as well. Took me about 3 days to really get the hang of all that.

(unmodified)

Does this effectively provide what I'm looking for? Is this a single drop-down--or something of the like--that has any new notifications that I can then tap directly into? For example, will it show an email from Alison and a text from Mike that I can access directly? I don't need a mailbox per se, just a centralized place.

What I don't want to do (I'm seeing this in Blackberry OS, so pardon me if I'm way off) is to get a little gchat or new mail, etc., notifier on my screen and have to flip over to another screen to open the app that corresponds with that notification icon in order to access the new item.

cesjr, I used to keep my items separate. I switched about two years ago and fell in love with doing it this way. Do you have experience with Android? If so, how would you compare accessing your items on Android to the separate inbox setup on the Blackberry?
 
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when you get notifications, they will "park" along the top of screen with the rest of the service icons ( bluetooth, service indicator etc...) You can then "pull down" and choose which notification you want. If it is an SMS from someone , it will appear in a threaded format. If it is an email it will display a little @, if you hav several , you can touch the one you want and go to it.

My biggest beef was: I could not assign different notifications for each little thing. (I think there ARE apps to help with that but, I didnt spend enough time looking since I knew I couldn't keep the device)
 
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when you get notifications, they will "park" along the top of screen with the rest of the service icons ( bluetooth, service indicator etc...) You can then "pull down" and choose which notification you want. If it is an SMS from someone , it will appear in a threaded format. If it is an email it will display a little @, if you hav several , you can touch the one you want and go to it.

My biggest beef was: I could not assign different notifications for each little thing. (I think there ARE apps to help with that but, I didnt spend enough time looking since I knew I couldn't keep the device)

Thank you so much for this information and explanation. That news is actually very relieving to me. I was wondering if I was going to be able to handle it. This sounds like it will work perfectly for me. I think I can be excited about this phone again.

I'm going to look for some videos that show this functionality. If anyone has one or knows where to find one, I would love to be pointed in the right direction.

Thanks again.

EDIT: actually even just a picture of what the drop-down looks like would be great too.
 
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434458d1267640713-android-style-sbssettings-theme-top-android-app-quick-settings-notification-access.png


Tweet%20Notification%20Screen%20m.png


notfications.jpg





It even shows you progression of certain things.




Bip4.jpg
 
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Looks great. Thank you, Gibson.

I'm also glad to see this seems to be a great, responsive community. Looking forward to getting officially on-board with the Android community in less than a month.

My only remaining concern is battery life, and that's something I intend to make work. I don't see it being a deal-breaker.
 
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