Considering Switch from BlackBerry to G2

[backbeat]

Some missing features rear their head daily - true email spellcheck, deleting email off the device only, assigning buttons to apps or actions of my choosing, and other common issues - but I'm putting up with those oversights and enjoying the upside of Android to the best of my ability.

 

[morphon]

Some missing features rear their head daily - true email spellcheck, deleting email off the device only, assigning buttons to apps or actions of my choosing, and other common issues - but I'm putting up with those oversights and enjoying the upside of Android to the best of my ability.

Email spellcheck and more fine-grained choices on the quick buttons - yeah, those would be nice.

But deleting email off the device only - well, that's against the "spirit" of the thing. The idea behind the blackberry is that it very efficiently syncs your email through specialized servers. Same way that you might sync a portable music player and delete a song off it while knowing that your original on your computer is still there. Blackberry does that with email, over the air.

The idea (imperfect in implementation, but still) for Android is that your email app is a first-class member of the email world. Instead of linking you with your email store on your phone (sync by push), it links you with the actual mail store - just as though you had your email web client there.

Anyway - that's the goal/vision. This may be good or bad depending on the behavior you prefer.

BTW, have you looked into alternate email clients? There are some good ones out there if you need different features.

 

[backbeat]

Email spellcheck and more fine-grained choices on the quick buttons - yeah, those would be nice.

But deleting email off the device only - well, that's against the "spirit" of the thing. The idea behind the blackberry is that it very efficiently syncs your email through specialized servers. Same way that you might sync a portable music player and delete a song off it while knowing that your original on your computer is still there. Blackberry does that with email, over the air.

The idea (imperfect in implementation, but still) for Android is that your email app is a first-class member of the email world. Instead of linking you with your email store on your phone (sync by push), it links you with the actual mail store - just as though you had your email web client there.

Anyway - that's the goal/vision. This may be good or bad depending on the behavior you prefer.

BTW, have you looked into alternate email clients? There are some good ones out there if you need different features.

Being a "first-class member of the email world" heavily suggests that cross-platform support is fully supported. That is clearly not the case, as Gmail is Android's only "strength" in that regard. Not even folder support is available for managing EAS accounts. And regardless of the Google-approved political spin, deleting off deice-only is a standard regarded as fundamentally required for 10 years. If Google has any real interest in moving into RIM's strongholds, they will move - and move fast - in the direction that will allow corporate IT to support it without hesitation. That is not currently happening.

As for the rest of my qualms, button assignment, true email spell-check, and other "fine-grained' needs have long been established on other platforms for the same decade referenced above.

Note to El Goog: Assuming your open-platform is truly open ... Get out of your own damn way where basic functionality is concerned and do NOT follow the M$ method of leaving it up to the 'Market' to implement buggy solutions which, instead, belong in the OS.

 

[morphon]

Being a "first-class member of the email world" heavily suggests that cross-platform support is fully supported. That is clearly not the case, as Gmail is Android's only "strength" in that regard. Not even folder support is available for managing EAS accounts. And regardless of the Google-approved political spin, deleting off deice-only is a standard regarded as fundamentally required for 10 years. If Google has any real interest in moving into RIM's strongholds, they will move - and move fast - in the direction that will allow corporate IT to support it without hesitation. That is not currently happening.

As for the rest of my qualms, button assignment, true email spell-check, and other "fine-grained' needs have long been established on other platforms for the same decade referenced above.

Note to El Goog: Assuming your open-platform is truly open ... Get out of your own damn way where basic functionality is concerned and do NOT follow the M$ method of leaving it up to the 'Market' to implement buggy solutions which, instead, belong in the OS.

I take exception to the "Google-approved political spin" comment. I don't work for Google. And I agree with you about spellcheck and so on.

Being able to move emails from one folder to another is NEEDED. Android's default email client does not have this functionality yet and it should. I'm not saying that their implementation is perfect (far from it). However, stuff like deleting emails off the device only is, you're right, decade-old crap that nobody should have to put up with anymore. My phone shouldn't have different email data than my inbox. I should get the EXACT SAME inbox and folder structure no matter how I access it (Outlook on the desktop for me, Exchange web services, my phone, tablet, whatever). Deleting on one device, having to propagate/sync that deletion back to the server, wondering if my desktop has an old version of my inbox that still has that deleted item or not, which folder it got moved to, and so on - that's like the dark ages when POP3 ruled the world.

Shouldn't we move on?

 

[backbeat]

I take exception to the "Google-approved political spin" comment. I don't work for Google. And I agree with you about spellcheck and so on.

Being able to move emails from one folder to another is NEEDED. Android's default email client does not have this functionality yet and it should. I'm not saying that their implementation is perfect (far from it). However, stuff like deleting emails off the device only is, you're right, decade-old crap that nobody should have to put up with anymore. My phone shouldn't have different email data than my Inbox. I should get the EXACT SAME inbox and folder structure no matter how I access it (Outlook on the desktop for me, Exchange web services, my phone, tablet, whatever). Deleting on one device, having to propagate/sync that deletion back to the server, wondering if my desktop has an old version of my inbox that still has that deleted item or not, which folder it got moved to, and so on - that's like the dark ages when POP3 ruled the world.

Shouldn't we move on?

Not meaning to point fingers at you, particularly, but when I referenced 'Google-approved spin', I was referring to the sometimes posted opinions which sound like canned Marketing Dept corporate BS, regardless of their origin.

I agree fully with your post and the shortcomings Android/Google are choosing not to address. I have no interest in the philosophy of "wait and see" when staring down the blackhole of OS development. When my business relies on my devices' abilities to fully support me, I have little patience for the cause of "hoping" they will remove their cranium from their posterior orifice. I only have one lifetime in which to successfully get it right.

The only exception I would take with your preference is that I'm not as anal about having my Inboxes be identical on every device. I simply do not need my desktop machine to be as clean as my phone because I have much stronger management tools on the desktop for maintaining order. Because of its inherently more limited function, my preference is to keep my phone as slim and trim where Inbox clutter is concerned. To accomplish that, I need folder management, flag for follow-up (with schedule), and the ability to delete off device only. For starters. And without having to look to a buggy 3rd-party solution where even more "patience" is required.

Not meaning to beat a dead horse, but to further clarify, the above is stated with respect to the difference in Blackberry and Android, the original question posed in this thread.