I know this post is over a year old, but I had to comment. I totally agree with doubleaa on this issue. I also sort my Exchange mail using folders and wish the unread count of those folders, not just the Inbox, would be displayed on the Mail app of my iPhone 4S. Apple wouldn't have to make this the default setting, but they should at least allow the user to turn the feature on or off. Ideally, it would be nice to have the feature be available both as a global Mail setting and a per folder setting, so if you didn't want the unread count to increase for some folders but did for others, you could set each folder's preferences as such. This seems like such a basic feature that I'm surprised it's been missing since the iPhone's inception. I will say that I checked with some co-workers who have Android phones and their Mail app doesn't have this option either. I guess I'm just shocked that this issue doesn't draw more attention than it does. I think most people would want to know when they have new Mail without having to open the Mail app and scroll through their folders to find this out. Isn't that the mail reason the unread count appears anyway? Hopefully Apple and/or Google will decide to give us the option sometime soon, but I'm not holding my breath.