Let me start by saying that I’m an email junkie. I have six email accounts, three of which that I have to check on a daily, if not an hourly, basis. I don’t travel that much, but I don’t want to be chained to a desk all day either. So when the Kyocera 7135 came into my life I started looking around for the best wireless email solution. SnapperMail almost immediately proved itself to be so capable and so robust a solution that the other Palm OS email applications out there just didn’t stand a chance.
Starting to see what I mean? Let’s start at the beginning though, instead of just talking about specific features. For starters, you’ll need a wireless device with Palm OS 3.5 or higher and at least 320K of memory for the SnapperMail application, plus a bit more room for your messages and attachments. Wireless device can mean many things: a Palm OS smartphone such as the Kyocera 7135 or HandSpring Treo; a Tungsten T with a Bluetooth connection to a wireless phone, a Tungsten C with 802.11, etc. If you plan to send/receive lots of attachments, you’ll probably want a memory expansion card. And you might need some extra room for applications that work with SnapperMail, but I’ll explain more about that in just a bit.
After you install SnapperMail you’ll need to set up your email accounts. The process is relatively painless, though just as on the desktop you will need to know your username, password, server info, etc. Some of the special features to note are on the “Fetch” tab of the setup screen, where you are able to select the amount of each message to download. This is a superb feature that can really save time and bytes/minutes when you’re on the road (depending on how your wireless carrier bills you for data). You can choose to download just the headers, a certain portion of the message, or the whole thing. I’ve found that 8K is good for all of my accounts, allowing me to get the substantive portion without all of the ads, signatures, etc. at the end of the message. If you find that isn’t enough for any particular message, it’s very easy to get the rest by telling SnapperMail to download the entire message the next time you check mail. The next important feature is folder support–in version 1.8 you are now able to download each account into a separate folder. That’s great for someone like me, trying to juggle mutliple accounts. One of the reasons I have so many is so that I can keep the various “hats” I wear straight–founder and editor of this site, mailing lists, business for the Palm OS User Council, etc. It’s more difficult to do that when all of the mail gets dropped into the same Inbox, so I’m really glad to see this feature.
Once you get all of your accounts set up, actually getting your mail is a snap. You can choose to get messages from one account at a time, or you can send/receive for all accounts at once. You can even set up periodic mail fetching, so that SnapperMail will automatically get all of your messages at predetermined intervals. Having an alert tone go off when you get messages is also an option, as is disconnecting after manual send/receive operations and allowing “one button” send and fetch, where all you have to do is hold down the button assigned to SnapperMail to launch it and cause the application to retrieve your mail. Another option relates to deletion of messages– you can choose to delete messages from the server when they have been fully retrieved, when they’re moved to the Trash folder, when emptied from the trash, or after a set number of days have passed. There are also two navigation options, depending on whether you’d rather use the stylus (as with a Tungsten T connected to a mobile phone via Bluetooth) or your finger (which is typically easier with a smartphone). If you choose finger navigation, everything is enlarged to make things easier to tap–a fingertip isn’t generally as accurate as the rather small point of a stylus, after all.
Where SnapperMail really shines though, is in all of the “extras”–things that you would normally expect from a desktop email application. The application is bundled with several extra utilities, including JpegWatch Lite, HandZipper Lite, and DiddleBug. They allow SnapperMail to do some pretty amazing things, like view image attachments, handle zip files, and send handwritten notes. There’s also a trial version of Quickoffice Premier, which allows SnapperMail users to receive, edit, and send Office files such as Word documents and Excel spreadsheets in their native desktop formats–no conversion required. It’s a pretty amazing thing when you think about it, and opens up new possibilities for students, business travelers, and anyone else who aspires to the mobile life but can’t seem to cut their ties to the desktop. With SnapperMail and Quickoffice, it is possible to receive a zipped message attachment, unzip it with HandZipper Lite, view and edit the file in Quickword or QuickSheet, and send it back to the recipient wirelessly.
Several other programs also work with SnapperMail to provide complete solutions for almost any conceivable situation. WAV files can be played by the Voice Memo application on Tungsten devices, and MIDI attachments can be played with Botzam Midi Player Pro. If image viewing is important, AcidImage might be the best solution. While JPEGWatch Lite can handle JPEG files, if you need to view BMP, GIF, or TIFF (fax) files then AcidImage is the answer. The built-in Notepad on Tungsten devices allows you to view PNG files. And the Memo Pad can be used to view TXT attachments as well. In other words, if someone can send it as an attachment, there’s probably already been a solution implemented via SnapperMail’s Exchange API and a third party program.
Of course the last question is the most important one: how well does SnapperMail work during the daily grind? I’ve been using it for several months now, and the answer is a simple one: flawlessly. I have three POP accounts that I have to check often on my Kyocera 7135, and SnapperMail has never disappointed me or crashed. It’s amazinglyly fast as well–it actually faster to check my mail on the phone instead of booting up the home computer, dialing in the ISP, starting up my web browser, and reading my mail. And I’m much more secure when I actually do travel for business or pleasure, because I know that I can always ask a colleague to send me any files I may have forgotten–no more worries! But most of all, I’m impressed with the fact that SnapperMail is constantly adding new features while still providing top notch service and support (not that I’ve needed much support, since the application is so easy to use). Version 1.7 added rendering for HTML messages, which is nice so that you don’t have to see all of the “gibberish” associated with unrendered HTML tags in email. You can see the sender’s intended font size and color, as well as bold text and bulleted and numbered lists. Version 1.8, released Tuesday, adds a major speed boost to message display. It wasn’t slow before, by any means, but the speed improvement in 1.8 is really quite amazing. I also really like being able to tap on a phone number in a message to dial it with my phone, tap on an email address to create a new message, or a tap on a URL to open it in my choice of web browsers on my Kyocera.
So that’s why, in my opinion, you need SnapperMail if you have a wireless device– especially if you’re an email junkie like me. If you’d like a free trial, you can get one at the developer’s web site. The standard edition of SnapperMail is $34.95, and the Premier version (with SSL encryption) is $44.95. As far as I’m concerned, they could charge twice as much and I’d still think it’s a good value, but thankfully they don’t. For that and many other reasons, SnapperMail is the first application to join the PocketGoddess Hall of Fame with a “Perfect 10″ rating.
PocketGoddess Rating for SnapperMail: 
