I got a call from my friend saying his new Blackberry Curve was receiving duplicate emails. I was confused as he explained how all emails, not just some, were duplicated. My spidey sense started to tingle and I wanted to call shenanigans because the BS meter had reached an all-time high, but I held back. I told him to bring it over and I would take a look at it.
After getting my hands on the phone, the problem was obvious and it had nothing to do with BIS BES, Blackberry, or the Curve 8530. The problem was not a problem at all, but rather a feature of the phone. I never looked at phone features as one of those ‘inside baseball’ things but here we were. Blackberry, like several other smartphones, has a universal or consolidated inbox view. From the application “Messages” you can see all your emails accounts consolidated into one “Inbox”. My friend had one account configured and as he switched from the messages (consolidated inbox) to specific mail account view it appeared that messages got delivered to both locations. I held back my laughter because this was an honest mistake. They are named different and it showed duplicate information.
I know in the “tech circle” or with geeks, we want to know every new feature coming out, but most average users have never heard of a consolidated view of email across multiple accounts. Â Once explained it made sense to him, but he raised some decent questions.
- If I only have a single account why does the phone have a consolidated view?
- Should this only show up when you have multiple accounts?
- Why is it called messages vs all accounts or something more obvious?
I have always liked the option for a consolidated inbox across multiple accounts, but I can understand how this could confuse a person that has never heard of it.
