iPhone and Yahoo Business Email: The Low-Down

(Photo of ants, pouring out of their enormous ant-hill, desperately crawling over each other in piles to escape the inevitable collapse of their domain; searching, searching, searching.....chaos trumps order)

Here's another iPhone tip, in case you pay for a Yahoo Business Email account (yes, I know you HATE it, but that's another story) and are becoming homicidal trying to make it work properly on your iPhone.

Like me, you probably had a Blackberry before, which syncs seamlessly with your email like a hand in a glove. Or perhaps the Treo, which seemed to be magnetically drawn to the Yahoo Bizmail, working flawlessly whenever the operating system wasn't crashing.

However, the allure of the iPhone overpowers us, doesn't it? Apple is so cocky about user-friendly simplicity that no user-manual is included....or is it a brilliant ploy to save money on printing costs for the manual. hmmm....

Anyway, rest assured, the Yahoo Business Email, which is used by A LOT of people out there, is not simple to set-up. Below is the email from the Yahoo Web-hosting Support team, giving the directions. Your eyes do not deceive you...there are FIFTEEN steps!!

I only post this here because I actually went to the Genius Bar in the Apple Store for tech support on this issue, and the GENIUS was utterly incompetent and had never heard of Yahoo Business Email, and most certainly was incapable of figuring out these FIFTEEN steps.

Yes, you can google this and probably figure it out eventually, but hopefully this saves you about FIFTEEN hours of effort.
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Hello,

Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Small Business Support.

I understand you are having trouble sending email from your iphone and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
To send and receive Business Email messages on your iPhone, you'll need to set up a new POP account in your iPhone settings. (Please note that the instructions below may vary slightly depending on the version of software running on your iPhone.)
To add your Business Email account to your iPhone:
1. On the iPhone's Home screen, select Settings, then Mail, Contacts,
Calendars.
2. In the Accounts section, select Add Account....
3. You'll see a list of the types of accounts you can add. Don't select
Yahoo! Mail — instead choose Other, then select Add Mail Account.
4. You'll be prompted to add your account information. Enter your name,
the email address for the account you are adding, your Business Email
password, and a description of the account (by default the description
will appear as the email address you entered in the Address field).
5. You'll return to the New Account screen. Near the top of the screen,
you'll see an IMAP and a POP button. Select POP.
6. Now look partway down the screen to the Incoming Mail Server section.
In this area you'll need to type the POP (incoming mail) settings for
your Business Email account.
Host name: pop.bizmail.yahoo.com
User name: your Business Email address, such as you@widgetdesigns.com
Password: your Business Email password (the password field will have
been completed when you entered your account information)
7. Below the Incoming Mail Server section, in the Outgoing Mail Server
section, enter your SMTP (outgoing mail) settings.
Host name: smtp.bizmail.yahoo.com
User name: your Business Email address, such as you@widgetdesigns.com
Password: your Business Email password
8. Press the Save button near the top of your screen to save your settings. Your iPhone will attempt to verify your POP and SMTP settings. If you see an error and a message asking, "Do you want to try setting up the account without SSL?" select Yes.
9. Save your work so far by pressing Save. You'll return to the Mail,
Contacts, Calendars screen.
10. Select the account you just created (such as you@widgetdesigns.com).
11. Scroll to the bottom of the screen, past the account information you
entered already, and select SMTP.
12. On the SMTP screen, select your primary server
(smtp.bizmail.yahoo.com).
13. On the following screen, confirm that both Server and Use SSL are set to "On," then change the Server Port setting (at the bottom of the screen) from 25 or 587 to 465.
14. Press the SMTP button at the top of the screen to save your change and return to the previous screen. It is advised that the AT&T SMTP Server is also turned on.
15. Select Advanced, and ensure that SSL is on, using port 995.
Your account is now ready to send and receive mail on your iPhone.
Return to your Home screen and select Mail to begin using your account.
Suggested Configuration: Using Fetch instead of Push.
If you return to Settings: Mail, Contacts & Calendars, you will see the button for Fetch New Data. We do not suggest turning Push off in general, as the customer may have other push-dependant applications or services. From this menu, select Advanced.

You now have the ability to select the account, and specify Fetch or
Manual for data retrieval. Fetch will follow the schedule set forth on
the previous screen.

Please be aware, SSL is not supported by all ISP’s and carriers. While
it’s useful to have in general, it may be necessary to disable SSL for
the incoming and outgoing servers if the customer is having a hard time
with these functions. Remember to verify the port settings are back to
proper non-SSL standards, 110 for incoming, 25/587 for outgoing.

Please do not hesitate to reply if you need further assistance.

********************************************************************************

After following all FIFTEEN steps, my email does work, but the interesting/odd thing is that the folders I use to organize my read emails do not appear on my iPhone. Not a deal-breaker, but annoying because I can't file emails while reading them on my phone but instead, have to go through all of my emails a second time and file from my laptop. Isn't technology supposed to save us time???