It’s stuff like this Steve, stuff like this.

Scenario – customer purchases a brand spanking new iPad, sets up his Roadrunner email, and, wait for it… doesn’t work, sort of. Apparently Apple implemented it’s email client slightly differently on the iPad compared to the iPhone (this problem was verified with Roadrunner national tech help). Setting up your RR account using the same settings you use in Outlook or Thunderbird or whatever, only works over 3G and not over your RR connection.

The problem, as explained to me, is that the iPad doesn’t give you an option to not use SMTP (outgoing server) authentication. In other words, the iPad forces you to use password or other forms of SMTP authentication, which the RR servers don’t like. Another frustrated iPad user figured out a workaround/glitch/hack which allows the RR account to authenticate whether on 3G or WiFi.

Here are the settings that worked.

smtp-server.hawaii.rr.com (use the appropriate server for your city)
SMTP user ID and password set to <blank>
SSL set to “off”
Authentication set to “MD5 Challenge-Response”
Server port to 587

Other SMTP servers:
Set “AT&T SMTP Server” = “On”

This worked on the iPad that I set up, but you may experience different results. And if you do, we would love to hear about it.

[Apple Support Forums]