Cell Phones: Push email to your phone as a text message with FlipMail

posted by  david (61)  12 months ago (lifehacker.com)

Teleflip, the people who made it really easy to email any cell phone, have unleashed a new service called FlipMail, designed to forward emails to your cell phone as text messages.

Here's how it works: You sign up for FlipMail, giving them your phone number, email address, and email password (not easy to do, I know). Then you give FlipMail the email address you want to receive email from, and only those messages will be forwarded to your phone. We first covered how you can forward Gmail messages to your phone forever ago, and if you're not keen on passing out your info to a third party, that's a smart way to go. On the other hand, FlipMail's service offers innovative control and customization for how your email is delivered, and you can even reply to the emails you receive via SMS... in theory, at least.

Much to my frustration, I had trouble getting FlipMail working with my phone and Gmail account (even after following these instructions), so your mileage may vary. The ability to not only push the email to your phone, but also to reply, could be a really useful feature for anyone who wants email push capabilities for their cell phone but doesn't want to shell out for a spendy data plan. If you give FlipMail a try, let us know how it works for you in the comments.