My Genius Appointment at Apple

[kcmo]

Hi Guys/Gals,

I recently went to Apple to speak to a 'Genius' about the issues I have been having with my new iphone 4S. I started a thread here about the subject recently.

The 'Genius' told me that my issues with my email crashing have to do with how I set up my Gmail account on my phone. I had the sync limit set to 'no limit' and he said this was the issue...that all of my issues (mail app crashing, delayed delivery of mail, deleted mail being re-delivered) were the cause of this and that I should set the sync limit to '3 days'.

Apparently the phone was processing too much and bogging down the connection when I had it set to 'no limit'. I find this hard to believe.

He ran a bunch of diagnostic tests too and said the phone tested as normal so there was no need for a replacement.

Have any of you who have Gmail set up as Exchange (I do this for true push and for syncing of my contacts and calendar too) had issues?

I can't stand having the limit set to 3 days because it's deleting emails on my phone that are more than 3 days old (I like to keep emails on there until I deal with them)! I did try the '1 month' setting but I still had some crashes.

[TSW]

Karis,

Sorry to hear about your troubles with your e-mail.
Currently i have 3 different e-mail accounts running on my iPhone, They are gmail(gmail setting), me.com and a Exchange and having zero issues.

I can highly recommend getting a me.com account for push and syncing, works flawless!

Thomas

[z32turbo]

Can't really help as my gmail account is set up thru the gmail option sorry.

[rr-nyc]

That genius has no idea what he's talking about and you should be pissed he wasted your time with lies. Apple has a funny way of blaming everyone but them for a fault

I've had every generation iPhone made that all used gmail set up through exchange (not the gmail setup or app). I have it set to no limit of days to synch, set on push and showing the last 1000 messages. I have synched gmails calendar but recently stopped because MobileMe (now iCloud) is a better calendar. I can say 1000000000% that there is no issue with it.

I do have occasional deleted mail that is also removed from the trash bin mysteriously show up again in the trash bin but it never bothered me. Thats an IMAP issue but again, it doesn't bother me

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by rr-nyc

That genius has not idea what he's talking about and you should be pissed he wasted your time with lies.

I've had every generation iPhone made and all used gmail set up through exchange. I have it set to no limit of days to synch, set on push and showing the last 1000 messages. I have synched gmails calendar but recently stopped because MobileMe (now iCloud) is a better calendar. I can say 1000000000% that there is no issue with it.

Thanks Renato. Makes me so mad. Not sure what to try next. Kind of missing my old Blackberry.

[rr-nyc]

Originally Posted by kcmo

Thanks Renato. Makes me so mad. Not sure what to try next. Kind of missing my old Blackberry.

An iphone isn't a blackberry replacement. There are things that blackberry does better, which is being a business phone. The iPhone can do everything a blackberry does but sometimes its not as straight forward.

Unfortunately, I don't have any advice on what to try other than plugging it into your computer and do a full restore. It will do an automatic backup and follow the prompts. If you've never done this before, just pay attention during the restore because it sometimes prompts you if you have multiple backups and you obviously want to choose the latest.

That has removed any little bugs I've had. Plug your phone into iTunes and under the summary tab, look to see how much "other" memory is being used. I notice that when that goes above 1.3gb, there is unnecessary crap on my phone and that may be causing you problems or conflicts

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by rr-nyc

An iphone isn't a blackberry replacement. There are things that blackberry does better, which is being a business phone. The iPhone can do everything a blackberry does but sometimes its not as straight forward.

Unfortunately, I don't have any advice on what to try other than plugging it into your computer and do a full restore. It will do an automatic backup and follow the prompts. If you've never done this before, just pay attention during the restore because it sometimes prompts you if you have multiple backups and you obviously want to choose the latest.

That has removed any little bugs I've had. Plug your phone into iTunes and under the summary tab, look to see how much "other" memory is being used. I notice that when that goes above 1.3gb, there is unnecessary crap on my phone and that may be causing you problems or conflicts

Thanks. May be worth a try. A restore makes me a bit nervous since I've never done one before but if it might fix my issues it's worth it. It won't downgrade my OS will it? I'm on 5.0.1 now.

[rolexgiants]

Originally Posted by kcmo

Thanks Renato. Makes me so mad. Not sure what to try next. Kind of missing my old Blackberry.

Of course u miss the blackberry!!! Both are excellent devices.... I am going to solve this problem again for u.... Carry both of them in ur Chanel bag!!!!

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by rolexgiants

Of course u miss the blackberry!!! Both are excellent devices.... I am going to solve this problem again for u.... Carry both of them in ur Chanel bag!!!!

Marc, you are nuts!

[kcmo]

Thanks guys

[BarkMaster]

I sometimes have old Hotmail reappear in my Blackberry inbox.

None of the other accounts I have it connected to do that.

It does not, however, crash the mail application.

[FNFZ4]

May I ask some questions

How many emails are currently in your gmail account? Do you have I cloud setup? Have you done a clean install of iOS?

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by FNFZ4

May I ask some questions

How many emails are currently in your gmail account? Do you have I cloud setup? Have you done a clean install of iOS?

About 10 to 15 in my inbox

Yes I use iCloud but not to sync email since Exchange does this

Have not done a restore

[FNFZ4]

Originally Posted by kcmo

About 10 to 15 in my inbox

Yes I use iCloud but not to sync email since Exchange does this

Have not done a restore

15 emails only in the inbox? thats it? when you log into the web portal gmail you only have 15?

i ask about icloud because it affects the push operation which crashes the mail. it affects our Exchange here at FNF.

best thing to do is to do a clean restore of the phone. backup everything on the PC and restore to factory. let me know if that does not work or if you need help how to properly restore.

[rr-nyc]

I don't think the number of email in your mailbox has any effect on your phone. I dont delete my email because I like to document all communication and be able to search through them. That being said, I have over 8k sitting in my gmail account and still no problems with using it or searching them from my iPhone

[FNFZ4]

Originally Posted by rr-nyc

I don't think the number of email in your mailbox has any effect on your phone. I dont delete my email because I like to document all communication and be able to search through them. That being said, I have over 8k sitting in my gmail account and still no problems with using it or searching them from my iPhone

True.

To rule out the IOS corruption, he should restore to factory settings by downloading and reinstalling IOS

[SPARTAN2161]

Total B.S. you should be able to hold as many emails as you want in the phone. I would go back and demand a replacement

[Mike B]

Originally Posted by SPARTAN2161

Total B.S. you should be able to hold as many emails as you want in the phone. I would go back and demand a replacement

THIS.

I have over 50+ saved E-mail messages on my iPhone 4 at all times, and I've NEVER had an issue. I also have my messages pulled ( AKA "fetched" ) on a constant basis, and the phone runs 100% without issue.

Go back and ream em' a new one !

[kcmo]

I did a restore yesterday and then installed my latest back-up....was actually a fairly easy process. Once my phone was up and running again, I went into my email settings and set the sync limit back to 'no limit'.

Phone was fine yesterday afternoon....about an hour ago I tried opening the mail app and got a white screen of NOTHING. I couldn't do anything and was dumped back to the homescreen. Then I hit the mail app again and it opened, dumping back 3 emails that I deleted earlier this morning.

WHAT A PIA!

Thanks everyone for your help BTW....I'm just frustrated.

[FNFZ4]

Originally Posted by kcmo

I did a restore yesterday and then installed my latest back-up....was actually a fairly easy process. Once my phone was up and running again, I went into my email settings and set the sync limit back to 'no limit'.

Phone was fine yesterday afternoon....about an hour ago I tried opening the mail app and got a white screen of NOTHING. I couldn't do anything and was dumped back to the homescreen. Then I hit the mail app again and it opened, dumping back 3 emails that I deleted earlier this morning.

WHAT A PIA!

Thanks everyone for your help BTW....I'm just frustrated.

do you know someone who has an iphone too that you can setup gmail sync just to test. i have seen this before with an employee drove me nuts really and it turns out there was one email in his inbox that was doing the crash.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by FNFZ4

do you know someone who has an iphone too that you can setup gmail sync just to test. i have seen this before with an employee drove me nuts really and it turns out there was one email in his inbox that was doing the crash.

Yes I do and I can arrange that but say she doesn't have any issues...still begs the question as to what MY issue is...an email? Software glitch? Etc.

[SLRdude]

I had troubles at some point with Gmail, when it was set up as an exchange server. It's never worked right when set up that way, regardless of what operating systems I had it on.

Once I got rid of that crap and used the standard Gmail set up through the iPhone settings, everything worked just fine, regardless of the number of emails in there.

[FremStar]

Karis since you use gmail have you looked into acquiring an Android device? I have yet to experience any issues using gmail with it. I keep my music on a 64gb itouch and my phone/email on an Android...

[GerardoG]

I am a BB user but everyone else in family is on iPhone, they do ot have issues but all age that BB is more 'business oriented' as mentioned here.

15 emails should not mess up your iPhone, I agree with doing factory reset.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by SLRdude

I had troubles at some point with Gmail, when it was set up as an exchange server. It's never worked right when set up that way, regardless of what operating systems I had it on.

Once I got rid of that crap and used the standard Gmail set up through the iPhone settings, everything worked just fine, regardless of the number of emails in there.

But I need my contacts and calendar synced to Gmail as well...and want true PUSH email. Appreciate the feedback though.

Originally Posted by FremStar

Karis since you use gmail have you looked into acquiring an Android device? I have yet to experience any issues using gmail with it. I keep my music on a 64gb itouch and my phone/email on an Android...

I tried out an Android device a year or so back...that lasted a week! Maybe it was the device...I don't know. I wasn't blown away by Android to be honest. Found it to be a bit too much for me...needing a task killer, battery life, etc...

Originally Posted by GerardoG

I am a BB user but everyone else in family is on iPhone, they do ot have issues but all age that BB is more 'business oriented' as mentioned here.

15 emails should not mess up your iPhone, I agree with doing factory reset.

Well G, I did the factory reset on Sunday and since then it's crashed 3 times. Not the end of the world but at the same time, it's souring my experience with the iPhone especially since it's my first one....

[daveathall]

I would ring Apple support and have a word with them Karis.

[FNFZ4]

have you tried to setup your email the way you want with another apple device so you can isolate if its a hardware issue or a software issue?

[watchboy]

Hi Karis! How are you? :)

Okie, will email you for other OT subjects.

First I have the iPhone 4 for more than a year now and have no issues with Gmails. I set it to 50 msgs but it does allow me to fetch more msgs if I want to. I am running of iOS 4.3.5 though. However I do not think there should be any issue with setting up Gmail from iOS 5 onwards.

Doing a restore I do not think will help much, but instead try deleting your gmail account and set it up again. Just click next next next.....etc
(liuterally default settings). But I personally set up my Gmail to FETCH instead of PUSH. As you might know, PUSH notice also drain your battery faster. And PUSH only works if you have your 3G on all the time or whenever you have WIFI signal.

[TheDude]

Just seeing this. Isn't there a period of time greater than 3 days?? Something like a week, 10 days, or a month??

That shouldn't kill the EAS client. You can search the remote server, so you still have on demand access to messages that aren't in your phone inbox.

I hate to say it (since this is an Apple thread) but if you are using Gmail for business, Android is far more streamlined and reliable for getting all your groupware stuff to sync.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[kcmo]

An update....

I went to see another 'genius' over the weekend and got another mouthful of BS. This guy basically told me, after he sat there and googled 'mail app crashing on iPhone' that lots of people have issues and I should wait to see if Apple releases an update. Unbelievable!

He said I could try another restore but this time not to do a restore from backup but rather to start fresh after the wipe. I did mention that I know of at least two other people who have gmail set up as Exchange and who don't have the problems I've had. He ignored me and said unless we're twins, we all use our phones differently and that I shouldn't surmise anything from that! Crazy.

I asked about a device replacement and he said if he gave me another phone that Apple wouldn't be able to offer me any support on the phone and it would be likely that I'd still have issues. WTH?

I came home frustrated and did another restore. Then started fresh setting everything up again. No crashes in the last two days. Will see what happens.

Thanks everyone!