The iOS update brought with it easier setup with the Mail app for Hotmail, which in turn has led to a huge spike in activations according to a report on AppleInsider. Microsoft have said they are receiving just under 100,000 new iOS 5 devices logging in to its email service each day. Chris Jones of Microsoft announced the news in an official blog post, and it now has more than 2 million iOS 5 users.

This comes after an official Gmail application was finally released for the iOS platform before being pulled because of some issues. The majority of the new activations are from users with iPhones, with 40% using the iPhone 4, while the iPhone 4S sits on 24%. Users who have the iPhone 3GS running iOS 5 make up another 12%.

Devices running older iOS software can still set up a Hotmail account, but the process is slightly more complicated. Users who had already downloaded the Gmail app before it was pulled have said it was unusable and disappointing.

Hot mail is reportedly the biggest web-based email service in the world followed by Yahoo Mail, and Gmail currently sits third. We reported recently that an update was currently being rolled out for the Gmail service, and has received mixed comments from users so far.

Do you use Hotmail?

Owners of the Android platform have been able to download an application for Hotmail for their smartphone or tablet device. But now according to Pocket-lint instead of having to download an application, iPhone and iPad users will have the ability to select Hotmail as an option from iOS 5 once it has been released.

Hotmail product manager Bryan Saftler confirmed the Hotmail service will be contained within the soon to be released operating system. He stated “We’re going to be native on iOS 5, which is going to be released momentarily”.

It will be a move by the company to try and bring the Hotmail service back into the limelight since it has lost ground to the likes of Gmail from Google. The service will then be available on all major smartphone platforms, which already includes BlackBerry, Nokia, and Windows Phone Mango.

When the service is available via iOS 5 users will be able to easily configure it just like any other email service, and have calendar, contacts, and push features available. The Android application also allows users to send and receive images and attachments, and is available free from the Android Market. It runs on all Android versions from 2.1 all the way through to 2.3.3.

Will you be using the Hotmail service once iOS 5 is released?

If we analyse the current market, we see that the E-mail services currently out there are dominated by the big companies, namely Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and AOL.

Microsoft have recently updated their Hotmail service, and being one of the first to offer a free e-mail service, Microsoft were always the ‘go-to’ solution for your free e-mail address.

Since the revolution of e-mail, more and more companies hoped aboard, and with AOL also being there from day one, Google also tried it’s hand at offering free web-based e-mail, albeit invitation at first.

Gmail then went live in 2007, and was upgraded from beta in July of 2009 to which it has around 193.3 million monthly users, according to Wikipedia.

But if we were to contrast this with Facebook, who have over 500 million worldwide users, it makes sense for them to turn their current messaging service into a fully fledged web-based e-mail product that fan pages, companies, groups and individuals can use for their day to day communicating.

The new service, I am told is said to resemble that of the big three services already on offer, but the reason behind this may actually be down to Google themselves as they have recently had a falling out with Facebook over “data hoarding.”

In short, Facebook will not allow users to export contact lists to Google’s email system, and Google retaliated by blocking users from adding Gmail contacts to Facebook. But Facebook found a loop-hole, and did it anyway.

Have we really come to a point in time where web-based e-mail is outdated and we have to settle with social networking, combined with it’s own e-mail service?

Think about all the privacy issues Facebook has had to put up with in past. Can you honestly say that this can be used as a platform for sending and receiving important, sensitive data? I’m not convinced myself. Especially in the last vein. Imagine being hacked, or duped into clicking one of those fake wall posts or ads (who clicks them anyway!?), and having not just your social networking profile, but every single email contained in it open to the hacker. And lets not even get in to talking about spam emails. That is another kettle of fish.

As you can see, there is plenty to debate when talking about an e-mail service that is integrated with a social networking platform, especially as big as Facebook. In our previous article, where we broke the news about Facebook’s suspected new service, we had a few comments regarding Facebook e-mail, and here is what a few of you had to say.

Jim said: – No. They have zero respect for privacy and I don’t want them in my personal business that deeply

Mary said: - Email needs to be reliable. Facebook doesnt know how to run a reliable sevice

Dilly said: – I have trust issues with Facebook and would never have an e-mail account with them.

As you can see, the outlook does not immediately look good for Facebook, so we thought we’d knock up a little poll for you to take part in. We also want your views on this, and ask you what things you want Facebook to include in their new mail service, when it goes live.
[poll id="280"]

The service is expected to be announced at a Facebook press conference this evening in San Francisco, where they will talk about and unveil a fully-fleged web-based email product, that will provide every single one of the 500 million users with an @facebook.com email address.

The project, known as ‘Project Titan’ is being labelled as a ‘Gmail-killer’ and will be the replacement service for the current messaging system that allows users to privately message one-another from their Facebook accounts.

A Facebook Email service, does make sense considering the amount of users it has, and according to Eden Zoller, principal analyst at Ovum, he thinks that Facebook is “giving them (users) richer ways to do this (to share and communicate) through virtual gifts, games, location and even voice thanks to the recent integration deal with Skype.”

Add Email to the mix, and you can expect to see Facbook tap into a market that is currently dominated by web email products such as AOL, Yahoo, Google and Microsoft.

The question is, will you use Facebook email?

Source: Daily Mail

Hotmail still serves the highest user base worldwide than any other online email service, and has over 360 million users (360 seems to be a good number for Microsoft). But Google’s Gmail is creeping up, and is in third place among webmail providers.

With Google’s surge to the top, Microsoft took a look at their Hotmail project and realized it was missing some key features, which has prompted them to revamp and rehash the system to make sure they still remain the number one to-go-to webmail service.

According to Wired, users will start noticing changes in July and August. More information on what these changes are can be found here.

Personally I find junk mail a huge problem with Hotmail, therefore I prefer Gmail. What email service do you use? Will you be interested to see what Hotmail has to offer this summer? Will it make you convert or leave for good? What changes do Microsoft need to make to Hotmail? Feel free to answer these questions in the comments section below.

Source: Wired