So you’ve just bought a new iPhone. Whatever your reasons for owning one, whether bragging rights or more practical purposes, one of the advantages in owning a smartphone is getting or sending e-mail wherever you are. However, if you’re a technophobe or just plain clueless, setting up that e-mail account might be easier said than done. Fret not! It’s easy. Here is how it’s done:

Before anything else, you will need the following information:

• You need to know what kind of e-mail you have. Is it from Yahoo, Gmail, MobileMe (another name for .Mac) or AOL? If not, is it from your internet service provider or any other Web-based e-mail service?
• The full e-mail address. For example: in yourname@yourdomain.com, where ‘yourdomain.com’ is usually the domain of the e-mail service provider and ‘yourname’ is usually your username.
• If your e-mail is not from Yahoo, Gmail, MobileMe or AOL, you need to know its username, password and e-mail settings, particularly the incoming mail server (either POP or IMAP) and outgoing mail server (SMTP) addresses. If you don’t know what your mail server settings are, contact your e-mail service provider and ask them. The difference between POP and IMAP is that POP downloads your e-mail messages from the server to your phone, and then erases the messages on the server. IMAP downloads your e-mail from the server to the phone, but does not delete them from the server.

Remember: the information asked here is vital—you won’t be able to set up your iPhone’s e-mail without them.

Once you have everything, it’s time to begin.

1.    Open ‘Settings’ on the Home screen of your iPhone.
2.    Select ‘Mail, Contacts, Calendars’.
3.    Select ‘Add Account…’ and this will bring you to the ‘Welcome to Mail’ screen, which lets you choose your e-mail provider.
4.    If you select Yahoo, Gmail, MobileMe or AOL, all you need to do is input your name, e-mail address and password, click ‘Add’, and you’re done. However, if you select ‘Other’, you need to keep going.
5.    Select ‘Add Mail Account’.
6.    Enter your name, e-mail address, password and a description of your e-mail account. Click ‘Next’ when you’re done inputting.
7.    Select the type of e-mail account you’re setting up, whether it’s POP or IMAP. IMAP is the default.
8.    In the ‘Incoming Mail Server’ screen, enter your host name (i.e. your POP or IMAP server) and username. This is where the information you gathered above becomes crucial, because that is what you will enter here.
9.    In the ‘Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP)’ screen, enter your host name and username. The username should be the same, but the host name is most likely different because this pertains to your SMTP server.
10.    You will be prompted to configure other settings, particularly if you want to turn your Mail ‘off’ or switch your Notes ‘on’. If you don’t want to save notes in this e-mail account, leave the option at ‘off’.
11.    Click the ‘Save’ button to finish.