Email on BlackBerry and Android Dec 10, 2009
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Android has a lot of things going for it right now including its web browser, sleek UI, integrated application store, and integration with Google. As a BlackBerry power user there is one thing they missed: email. I can check my email and browse my Gmail on my device but email is just another application on Android.
Email on a BlackBerry Device
BlackBerry is an email centric platform. Any BlackBerry user will have email as the first icon on their home screen and probably have multiple email accounts configured. Push email is a given from corporate email as well as from Gmail and Yahoo. Third-party applications can listen for incoming and outgoing email and also integrate with the message inbox. They can even be as clever as Facebook and consume notification emails. Multiple email accounts can be viewed in the same inbox or in separate inboxes. Each email address can have its own notification preferences. With 5.0 you can even set up various notifications per contact from the address book.
Email on Android
On Android email is an application with the same level of integration as any third party application. Actually two applications: Gmail and Mail. The Gmail application supports push email but only supports a single account. In the newer OSes it can support multiple accounts but switching between them requires at least two clicks. I still have to enter a single application and it does not support a mixed inbox view. There is also the Mail application. It supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, POP3, and IMAP. The Mail application can setup multiple accounts but it does not support push email so it has to check with the server at regular intervals. Neither applications support filtering which messages get to my device. Gmail supports filters but a filter on the inbox also applies to my web mail. I can't even configure notifications
on a per-contact level.
Another piece of functionality which is missing completely is the ability to interact with email as a third party application. I have noticed this as a developer and as a user. There is no Email Received Intent or Gmail Received Intent. Essentially on Android there is no way to perform the functionality of RIM's Email Listener, remove certain messages, or provide custom views for messages. That means an application can't consume an email or use it as a trigger like the Facebook BlackBerry application. You can't use an application to enhance the email viewing experience. You also cannot create an application for custom email notifications. On BlackBerry I could easily make an important alert from my data center buzz and wake me up in the middle of the night while a newsletter from LinkedIn was either silent or completely filtered from my phone until I looked at my inbox on my PC. With 5.0 I can do this with a Contact's profile. With pre-5.0 devices I could configure it through the notifications application. In Android, if I want something to notify me I have to forward it to SMS.
Android may have some shiny applications that are tempting to a BlackBerry user but to get to the next level Android is going to have to figure out email.
