“Did u get my email?”
That was the whole test, followed by “Hows work” and the automatic signature:
“Sent on the go from my Peek.”
I had joined Peek as Director of Technical Operations earlier in the month. The company made a dedicated mobile email device. It was deliberately narrower than a smartphone. The product was for people who wanted email and messaging without buying a larger, more expensive device and data plan.
The simple experience depended on a messy system. Peek had to connect to Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Exchange, POP, IMAP, mobile carriers, and its own application. A person holding the device did not see any of that. They wrote a message and expected it to arrive.
So I sent tests.
The archive from that afternoon has a series of short subjects and bodies. Some went to my personal address. Some went to people close to me. A few were no more than “hello,” “test,” or a question about whether the last message showed up.
This one mattered because it came back into ordinary life. I was not sending a formal test plan. I was asking somebody how work was while checking the device I was now responsible for keeping online.
Email signatures used to be a small product billboard. My iPhone announced itself. The Peek did too. The line made the device feel like something a person could carry around New York instead of a system with queues, providers, and nodes behind it.
The message arrived in Gmail at 4:31 in the afternoon.
That answered my first question.
I still wanted a reply to the second one.