iPhone 2.0 Exchange email not tracking read/unread status properly

[mrJnC]

I did a quick search and didn't see this one covered.

If I have the iPhone with 2.0 software synced to a Microsoft Exchange email account, synced as an Exchange account (not IMAP, not POP).

Mail I read/unread on the iPhone shows up as read/unread on the desktop clients. This is expected behavior.

Mail I read/unread on the desktop doesn't affect the status on the iPhone. This isn't good.

It acts like an IMAP device when I read mail elsewhere and like a POP device when I read it from the phone.

 

[TEG]

Actually, it acts like an IMAP when you work on the phone, and POP when you check on a computer. However, calendar updates on either device are instantaneous. I believe the limitation is Exchange's ActiveSync not pushing.

TEG

 

[clayj]

Try this as a test: When you mark something read on your desktop, go to the Mail app on the iPhone and tell it to refresh. If the message changes from unread to read on the iPhone, then the problem is that your Direct Push is not functioning 100% correctly.

Basically, anything you do in the Mail app on the iPhone can cause it to communicate with the Exchange Server... but the reverse is not true: Changing something in Outlook does not cause anything to ping the iPhone. The above test will let you know if information is being synced, but not being synced automagically.

 

[mrJnC]

Try this as a test: When you mark something read on your desktop, go to the Mail app on the iPhone and tell it to refresh.

Oh, I hadn't tried that check. The forced update works. Thanks!

Is this a valid explanation then: My default global fetch interval is set to 1 hour. So while new Exchange email and invites arrives automagically as well as causes the server to respond instantly, the status of all email isn't updated until the next hourly fetch by the iPhone?