Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me Google?

October 25, 2007 by Josh · 3 Comments
Filed under: Phone PDA, Tech 

In case you missed it Google’s Gmail rolled out IMAP yesterday to the rejoicing of Geeks worldwide. I even wrote a picture guide for setting up Gmail on your Windows Mobile 6 device. I finally had the service added to my main account this evening and quickly went about downloading the last 3 days worth of mail.

Much to my dismay many of my messages were coming up blank! After checking that the messages were in fact not blank I hit up Pdaphonehome to see if others were having the same problem. Indeed the problem of blank messages when checking Gmail via IMAP is widespread.

I was so excited to finally have this basic and overdue functionality on my Gmail account. After all of the resources Google has poured into the cell phone market and the favor shown to the iPhone with this IMAP announcement, I am saddened by the lack of support for Windows Mobile. It didn’t bother me so much once I saw the IMAP announcement because IMAP has standards and I thought that this meant something. You can’t tell me that Nobody at Google has a Windows Mobile 6 phone.

Even if the issue sits in the Windows Mobile 6 messaging client wanting some “optional” part of the encoding I have to place the blame on not adding this bit to the IMAP service, since the devices have been out there and in use.

I am going to be looking for a way to use IMAP on WM6 devices to check Gmail and I will report back if a solution is found.

In conclusion I understand that Gmail is free, without obligation to me, I can get IMAP from other places, but I am selfish and I want this to work.

Does anyone have an email or support request page?  The best I can find is Google groups and Suggest a feature. I guess I could Suggest that Google not deliver me blank emails but I am thinking this email would be better sent elsewhere.