iPhones and Email Marketing

I took a quick walk over to the Apple Store at Lenox Square Mall in Atlanta today to check out the scene before the iPhone launch. At 1 p.m. there were upwards of 185 people there – and it was growing by the minute. I just purchased a new phone (a Moto Q) a few weeks ago and have no plans to switch to AT&T. So I was merely there to gawk at the crazies who were at the mall before dawn to be the first in line.

At 11:51 a.m. today I got an email from Apple announcing the iPhone (see the picture at right). This week I've been talking with a colleague about email marketing, specifically viewing messages on PDAs. When I tried to view the same message on my Q, it came through as a garbled mess. (I'll try to post a photo of that.) For all the talk about how important email marketing is, we had trouble finding best practices on viewing emails on a mobile platform. I am anxious to see how HTML emails are rendered on an iPhone. It struck me as funny though that I couldn't use my Moto Q (a Windows Mobile Device) to read an email promoting the arrival of the iPhone. I guess Apple hasn't figured out how to send text-based emails.

This segues into what my next post will be about – email marketing and reaching those who read their messages in platforms other than the web and Outlook.

UPDATE: I've added the photo of how Apple's lovely HTML email became garbled on my phone. How/where do you read your email?