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July 27, 2007

Give me my account list

I monitor four email accounts with my iPhone: .Mac, my account here at niherlas.com, my Gmail account, and my work email.

When my iPhone gives me a happy bleep to tell me that new email has arrived, the Mail app icon on the home screen just tells me how many unread messages I have. That’s cool, I don’t want it to even try to tell me what account(s) those messages are in. The home screen for Mail does that quite nicely - listing all my accounts and letting me how many unread messages there are in each.

But here’s the situation: I get that happy “you have mail” beep, and pick up my iPhone. I unlock it, tap Mail. Looky here, I’m still at the last message I was reading in Mail. Tap top-left, wait for transition to message list. Tap top-left, wait for transition to folder list. Tap top-left, wait for transition to account list. Now, and only now, can I see which accounts have new email and navigate to those new messages.

Awkward. I want a shortcut - double-tapping the top-left for example - that take me directly to Mail’s account list regardless of where I currently am in Mail.

Posted by jim at July 27, 2007 09:24 AM