iPhone mail all over the place

Order of need

1) Mail Search

2) Distinction between "new" emails and "unopened" emails (BB does this very nicely and I miss it greatly). I share a home email account with my wife and I don’t want to “open” her emails, but when I don’t it is difficult to know that you have new emails without searching all the different accounts

3) ability to set different icons to directly open to different email inboxes (each with its own new/unopened counter) This would speed switching between inboxes and it would allow me to focus on the work inbox during work and personal at other times.

4) Some indication on the locked wallpaper page that a new email has arrived. I dislike having to unlock the phone just to see if the email number has increased. Conversely, it would be cool to have an indication of missed calls or new email without having to light up the screen. I know it’s very BB, but does anyone know what the lights/holes under the glass on the left side of the earpiece? A very small light or such (different for different things maybe) would be great in my opinion.

5) unified inbox, but without some of the above notification enhancements this would still be clumsy. (I’m confused about some of the responses about disliking the unified BB listing. On all my past BBs I had to “hide” the individual email icons and just have the unified one visible. It would have been just as easy to hide the unified and only use the separated individual mailboxes.)

@john
swiping in the mail app already is a function: delete an email
i like the idea of hold down back button and a small menu of other email addresses appears and you can slide down and release on the one you want
that would be one tap to change inboxes :)

Did anyone read Chris's Post? He hit the nail on the head. If you want to unify any or all of your email accounts into the one inbox just go to Google Mail and create an IMAP account. You can then set this account to collect messages from up to 5 of your other email accounts. Not only are ALL messages listed in the inbox but a seperate folder will be created for each account listing only mail retrieved from that account. The beauty of IMAP is that your email will always stay in sync no matter where you view it. Yes, it's a Gem! Then of course, you will need to add this Google account to Mail on your iPhone. Good Luck & Merry Christmas from DownUnder.

For those complaining about "one inbox", I think your missing the point. I think this "inbox" is nothing more than a view that contains all new email from one or more email accounts. The emails still reside in their respective inboxes.

For those that are forwarding email to their gmail account as a workaround, please note that Google saves EVERYTHING. Having business email on their server would violate many companies security policies.

I disagree. I like my 3 mail boxes separated.

I'd settle for search. That little missing feature, no landscape mode for composing, and the general sluggishness has pushed me to just keep a gmail page up in safari.

I've taken to using gmail through a browser on the desktop as well. I guess I have too much mail coming through for Mail.app to perform reasonably well. But a browser-based app out-performs a desktop app? Sounds like shoddy engineering to me.

I would love to have a unified mailbox. I have three accounts with my phone and it is annoying to keep having to tap back. The thing i find most annoying is the ability to only have one signature for all my mail accounts. my personal and two business accounts all need separate signatures. currently i just have my name.

I strongly disagree. I LOVE the fact that Mail on the iPhone keeps my Inboxes separate, and I wouldn't have it any other way. It's the whole point of having separate email accounts, in my mind. Why separate accounts if all the mail comes to one inbox anyway? I hated this about BlackBerry, and I LOVE the way the iPhone handles it. My brother recently got a BlackBerry (his first smartphone) and after about 2 months he's returning it and getting a new phone because he absolutely hates how his work email, Gmail, and text messages all show up in the same inbox. He and I agree: we have separate email accounts for a reason, and they should be kept separate.

Well, not one unified mailbox per-se but at least one button saying "back to account list" or something like that (or a swipe bottom->up to go to "top" or whatever action they can come up with). so you won't have to click 4x just to go back to your account list.
easy to implement, I guess.

wouldn't mind unification, but easier switching is a must.