I can't find an answer to this one here or elsewhere, so here goes. I have a friend who would like to maintain some school-based email lists using an iPad. She doesn't use any computers for this purpose and would like to keep it that way. As one of the people who organises social activities and volunteers among the school community it is often necessary to send an email to a group of people. The groups are typically between three and 20 people – think "3rd grade mothers jogging group" or "classroom volunteers".
Ideally the groups would
- be created on the iPad through Contacts, from existing Contacts
- send email without exposing the complete distribution list in the To: line
- easily add or remove recipients as required
Group features provided by software like majordomo (self-subscribe, list digests etc.) are a little beyond what we want here. I just can't see how to make Contacts create a list of people and easily send an email to them without including a huge To: line in each email. Nobody is that paranoid about their emails being exposed but it seems like best practise not to, there's always that person who thinks everyone wants to be on their "funny" picture mailing list, some addresses will be corporate and that kind of thing can cause problems for the recipient.
It's fine if there's a free or paid app you can suggest, ease of use is the number one requirement.
Best Answer
May I suggest our unique "MailShot Pro" app, which is the ONLY app on the store that lets you create contact groups in your address book that you can use from any app to send email, just as you would use a single contact.
We have tens of thousands of users using it for exactly the sort of thing you describe
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mailshot-pro-group-email-done/id445996226?ls=1&mt=8. (A free trial version is also available.)
Peter
Soluble Apps
Full Disclosure:I am the developer of MailShot and will benefit from its sale, but so might you :)