How to Communicate on Your iPad Using Mail and Messages
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Email is a prime candidate for liberation from the desktop. A lot of what I do occurs via email, whether I’m corresponding with friends and relatives or tossing around ideas for upcoming projects. But there’s no reason all of that has to happen in front of a computer.
Using the Mail app on the iPad, you can quickly read and reply to messages and dash off notes you may have otherwise ignored because of the hassle of doing it on the computer. Mail also handles incoming file attachments, making it a gateway for sending and receiving files.
Sometimes, though, even email is overkill or too slow when you want to just send a quick note to someone. The Messages app brings instant messaging—a feature usually found on cell phones—to the iPad. And as long as the recipient also has a device running Messages, the texts you send are free (not charged the exorbitant rates of SMS messages).
Set Up Mail
Most likely, you already have email accounts set up on the computer you use to sync with the iPad. You can also set up an account on the iPad itself—for example, you may want to use an iCloud account on the iPad for personal mail that isn’t synced to a work computer.
Sync mail accounts from a computer
Mail accounts you’ve set up in Mail on the Mac, or in Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, or Outlook Express under Windows, appear in iTunes.
- With the iPad connected to your computer, select its name in the sidebar and then click the Info tab (Figure 4.1).
Figure 4.1. Mail accounts listed in iTunes
- Click the checkbox for Sync Mail Accounts, and then enable accounts you wish to access on the iPad.
- Click the Sync button. The accounts’ settings are added to the iPad’s Mail app. Syncing transfers only the account settings, not any of the messages on your computer.
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Set up an account on the iPad
If an account isn’t set up on the computer you sync to, it’s easy to add it directly on the iPad. Mail can automatically configure accounts from iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and AOL, as well as Microsoft Exchange accounts, provided you have your account name and password.
- Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
- Under the Accounts heading, tap the Add Account button.
Tap a service name that matches your account.
If you get your email from a different provider, tap the Other button and then tap the Add Mail Account button.
- Enter a name for the account, the email address, and the password (Figure 4.2). The Description field automatically fills in the name of the service, but you can edit it separately if you prefer.
Figure 4.2. Enter account information.
Tap the Next button. The system verifies the information.
If you’re setting up an Other account, enter the account type (IMAP or POP) and the incoming and outgoing mail server information that your provider gave you when you signed up.
- For services that support it, you can also set up over-the-air syncing of contacts, calendars, and bookmarks. Make any of those services available by tapping their On buttons in the next screen. (See Chapter 10 for more on syncing personal information.)
- Tap the Save button to finish setting up the account.
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