“Windows Mobile Gmail fans are getting antsy about a known glitch in the mobile e-mail offering that hasn’t been fixed by Google in about a month,” Nancy Gohring reports for IDG News Service.
“In October Google began supporting IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) for Gmail… Shortly after the IMAP capability was activated, users of Windows Mobile phones began complaining in online forums about problems. Some of them said that HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) e-mails showed up blank on their phones. Others said that message headers appeared on their phones but not the messages themselves,” Gohring reports.
“In late October, one user complained to Google about the problem with Windows Mobile and got a reply saying that Google hadn’t had the chance to test the Windows Mobile mail client,” Gohring reports. “‘Why would Google make this work with the iPhone and not WM devices?’ another user wrote in the forum after reading the letter that was purportedly from Google.”
“On Nov. 16, a Google employee posted a note acknowledging the problem. Google has added the issue on its Gmail known issues page, where users can report their experiences. Google says it is working to address the issue,” Gohring reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Carlos” for the heads up.]
Windows Mobile? Sheesh. Get a real smartphone.
Why is this a Google bug – I think that they are adhering to standards and the email reader on the Windows mobile device is probably at fault..
I don’t think this has to do with completely with Google. Seems the reader software has issues to me.
Funny to see the tables turned.
How often in the past have I fumed when I see some web page fail to load and pop up the text “your browser is not supported” or try to watch a video only to find out quicktime isn’t an option.
To quote Nelson- Ha ha.
It’s a good question. Where is the fault, either, or both?
Even if the fault is with the Mobile product, Google could get it to work, as long as the problem isn’t too basic to the operation.
If it’s Google’s fault, then they would also be expected to fix it. MS moves glacially.
Heh! From an Apple stockholders perspective, I hope it can’t be fixed from Google’s side.
Well, well- now we see that Windows Mobile is not perceived as the future. It will be the past, unless Microsoft gets on the ball and update to more open standards.
The future rolled-in with the iPhone. All others phone manufacturers will adjust to the new standards that will come from new competition from Apple and other that will follow.
So Window Mobile users will soon be eclipsed in numbers soon and will have to fall in line with the rest and wait.
GOOGLE will support Android first and others next.
My 2.0025 percent
Umm Google. Don’t even worry about it. It’s not worth the effort to fix for those Windows Mobile users. Or just send them a note to get an iPhone instead.
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Microsoft has been hostile to IMAP since the days of Exchange Server 5. At the same time they have kept the wire protocols used by MAPI closely guarded so that it cannot be easily used outside Microsoft products (hence the incredibly silly workaround used by the BlackBerry). As a result there is no industry-standard messaging protocol that is well-supported by Microsoft, leaving email in the same kind of Dark Age that the Web was in back in 1999.
In other words, serves them right.
Agreed. Notice how the M$ folks blame everyone but the elephant in the room for the damage in their apartment. Duh guys.
@MDN take:
F**k off!!! I really would get a real smartphone, if I could…
But iPhone in Italy is getting late… And I have to stick to my hated, idiot, not syncing with Leopard Windows Mobile…
ARG!
@Ozz
http://cell-phones.search.ebay.com/apple-i-phone_Smartphones_W0QQfromZR34QQsacatZ32233
Chill dude.
I think steev got it right in quoting Nelson
“haha”
pwnd
> Why would Google make this work with the iPhone and not WM devices?
Because iPhone uses Safari. Google does not need to do anything other than making sure it works with Safari, the same Safari that is the default browser on Macs. Web developers can make special web pages optimized for iPhone, but the fact that iPhone does not require any special “mobile” treatment will become more and more of an advantage over time, as web content becomes ever more complex.
You win some, you lose some. Google’s Picasa image hosting is still only available for Windows and Linux(!)
ken1w:
> Why would Google make this work with the iPhone and not WM devices?
Because iPhone uses Safari
Bzzzzt!
This is setting up Gmail in the mail application. Mail in the case of the iPhone and Mobile Outlook in the case of the WM phones.
Gee, OutPuke is broken. Whatta surprise.
“In late October, one user complained to Google about the problem with Windows Mobile and got a reply saying that Google hadn’t had the chance to test the Windows Mobile mail client,” Gohring reports. “‘Why would Google make this work with the iPhone and not WM devices?’
Because very shortly, WinCE phones will be a marginalised minority, unworthy of development time.