Does your phone still show “Sent from my xyz device”? Does it bother you that other people want you to know what device they are using? Do you find it pretentious?
I was recently amazed to find out that seeing “Sent from my iPhone” actually annoyed people! Comments I have found by searching Google range from a slight annoyance to outright hatred for the owner of the phone!
Why is this bothersome? It appears that people who are annoyed by this simple little message feel like you are trying to show them up. They feel that by leaving that little message that you are bragging that you have something they don’t.
My first question is: This is 2010. Anyone can own a smartphone, just get one for almost free on your next upgrade renewal with your carrier. Why exactly don’t YOU have a smartphone?
It also turns out that some feel this simple message is not relevant to the conversation and therefore is comment SPAM.
Why “Sent from my iPhone” is a GOOD idea
When I get an email from someone that says “sry runn l8t b there in 1 min”, I am not surprised to see “Sent from my iPhone” or “Sent from my BB Bold” below it. It tells me they were on a mobile device! It tells me why they used misspelled words, and lousy punctuation (in other words SMS Language). I personally find this to be valuable information and far from SPAM or bragging in text.
When I know that an email is being sent from a mobile phone, I find short and to the point emails to be perfectly fine, rather than blunt. I also find it helpful because I know responding to my email was important enough that you took the time to do it from your mobile device, rather than waiting for your return to an office or home computer to respond.
What do you guys think?
Update: Put together a quick how to remove “Sent from my iPhone”.
I agree. I like the fact that the default signature on my iPhone says “send from my iPhone” because I want people to know that I’m out and about somewhere, so I can’t be writing a long elaborate email and may not even be able to talk on the phone.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Hi, I feel it should say, sent by iPhone not
: sent by my iPhone get one you know you want to:
so that it is clear that message is from the phone not the sender.
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If you want to make the point that you’re replying from a mobile device just say “Sent from my mobile/cell phone” at the end of your signature, it doesn’t matter what specific device you’re using, it’s just free advertising that looks cheap. These days most people have either an Android, Apple or BB device, so I don’t think is pretentious anymore, it just looks like you haven’t taken the time to properly configure/customise the software.
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Yes it is pretentious! It is not an “out and about” issue – it could say “sent from my cellphone”. It is not a smartphone issue – or mine would say sent from my Galaxy II. It is pretentious because there is a universal dislike of the attitude (not the person) of the pretentious iPhone users. The ones who see it as a status symbol and thinks the sun shines out of Apple’s behind. What I find hilarious, is not only are these enslaved sheep willing to take being tied into iTunes, the many shortcomings of their phone and the fact that nobody in business will take you seriously. They are willing to leave the pretentious email tags switched on, which amounts to pretty much being the same as writing it yourself. For the record, the Android platform blows them out of the water in almost every area possible, and nearly a year after launch the Galaxy II is still the best smartphone on the market, undisputed by industry experts. Get a life iLosers!
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Why not replace it with “sent from Tim Cook’s anus?”
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Oliver, what I find hilarious is that you’re this passionate about a phone and it’s company. I like what I like and I assume others do too. I bought my 1st Apple product in 2006 and never looked back. Buy what you like and let others do the same. It doesn’t mean anything.
Sent from my iPhone or iMac or iPod or MacBook…choose one.
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I changed mine to “Sent from my ZX Spectrum running Sinclair BASIC”
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Smartphones aren’t almost free, they lock you into an expensive contract. WSJ says “the average cost for owning a smartphone is $3,400 over two years.”
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/18608541/the-real-cost-of-owning-a-smartphone
Some people can wait to respond till they get home or to the office. Its all about priorities. I have no problem with a generic tag saying “sent from my mobile device” but citing the brand is free advertising and bragging.
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Wait wait wait… I want to be sure I understand this. Your feelings about the ‘sent from my whatever phone’ is “Why exactly don’t YOU have a smartphone?”
We’ll skip over the fact that your attitude is exactly the kind of smarmy, snarky, pretentious attitude that some people read into the ‘sent from…’ blurb. We’ll skip over the fact that you believe everyone should be delighted and motivated to pay perhaps $60 more each month for calling and data plans that are tightly bound to smart phones and that we’re all necessarily able to pay that extra cost. We’ll just jump right to the “why” of your question.
I don’t need a smart phone. I would prefer not to even have text, but I have a bunch of 20-something friends who won’t take or make a voice call to save their lives. All I really need is a 100 minute voice plan ($10 a month, about 1/10th of your cell phone bill) for calls like “I’m going to be late” or “Steak is on sale at the supermarket, should we have a barbecue?”
Other commenters make a very good case that the ‘sent from’ blurb can indeed be useful. And as advertising for phone and carrier brands, I’m not moved to complain nor to buy.
But your attitude? If you do the math on mobile device ownership statistics (the Pew web site is a good place to start) you’ll see that significantly fewer than half the people in the US own a smart phone of any kind, ‘sent by’ blurb enabled or not.
So either drop the attitude or crank it into Glenn Beck turbo manic mode. Your vaguely technologically-superior-to-you attitude just makes you look like tragic.
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it’s the equivalent of the flashing 12:00 on people’s VCRs in the old days. A good way to identify the techno dweebs. Don’t know what’s worse, someone that likes to give Apple free advertising, or someone that feels they are cool because they use an iPhone.
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Mine says “Sent from your mom’s iPhone”
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This argument boils down to the utility of the comment versus it being superfluous. The original author states that it is necessary to place a signature as a sort of apology for sloppy or rushed texting usually attributed to smartphones. I disagree. If someone is texting using abbreviations and no punctuation its self-evident they are not at a full keyboard.
The second argument the author makes is the smartphone makes people feel bad because they themselves don’t have one. I think that’s only partially correct. Certainly being poor and seeing the word “iPhone” or “SIII Galaxy” doesn’t help that matter, but I think the real offense is that the smartphone owner is out doing something that is worth more attention than you.
Thus, at its best, the “Sent from X” comment is a redundant commentary on how busy you are, and at its worst it’s a jab at the lower importance of the recipient. If you balance these factors, the signature hardly seems worth its intended value.
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I currently work in a customer service role and I love “sent from my iProduct” signatures.
It helps me immediately identify that the end user is a dumbass and their email can be safely deleted.
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I think sent from my anything is
pretentious
Sent from my Android phone
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For a personal message it really doesn’t matter if you allow the phone provider to advertise on your personal messages its up to you. But for work related messages the reasoning can be very different.
1. Many countries have laws stating that all business messages must contain certain information like company number and registered address, this includes email even if they have been sent from your phone. So the default message should have been replaced with that info or a real signature added when the email passed through the server.
2. Unless you work for the mobile phone company in question they are not part of your company brand and should not feature on your company email.
There are services dedicated to this like Brand and Sign http://www.theemaillaundry.com/content.php?cid=40 or exclaimer. One sits on your server the other is SaaS based.
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