Apple and Microsoft Team Up to Fix Hotmail for iPad

Mike Schackwitz, program manager, Windows Live Hotmail team, has confirmed on the 'Inside Windows Live' blog that Microsoft and Apple have teamed up to address the problems iPad users have had with Windows Live Hotmail.

The move comes in response to iPad users complaining about problems with Microsoft's web-based email service on the Apple Discussions forums. Issues range from Safari freezing to an inability to compose new messages or to reply to received mail.

"I can read mail but I can't compose a new message or reply to a message," a person identified as 'mitchgrrt' said on Apple's support forum on April 6. "iPad won't let me type in the message input area, and Safari hangs," the user wrote just three days after the tablet had launched in The States.

Apple itself hasn’t actually confirmed any ongoing efforts to address these issues, but Microsoft has, via a blog post by one of its program managers. Entitled "Hotmail on the iPad," the blog post has Mike Schackwitz acknowledging that, "Unfortunately, we’ve seen some issues with using Hotmail on the new Apple iPad. Specifically, composing and replying to an email is not working for some of our users."

"Rest assured that we’re working with Apple to understand the issues, and we’ll fix them as quickly as possible," the Program Manager (on the Windows Live Hotmail team) says. "In the meantime, we have directed all iPad traffic to our mobile Hotmail website. Alternatively, you can set up the iPad email client to use POP to download your Hotmail," the Microsoft staffer adds, and then signs off.

Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group. It features 5GB of (expandable) storage. It integrates with Windows Live Messenger, Spaces, Calendar, and Contacts and currently serves over 343 million users worldwide.