Alien Camel – an anagram for ‘clean email’ – has an email service offering for iPhone users (and others of course) that packs a lot of features. And they’re currently looking for iPhone users willing to provide them with some feedback – and offering a year’s free service in return (an $80 value).

I’ve been trying out Alien Camel for a few days and liking it so far. Amongst the key selling points of their service are:

• Unlimited storage and server-based automatic backup
• IMAP mail service – so you can use and manage folders – and it keeps all mail in sync between desktop and your mobile device(s) automatically – you don’t have to select to ‘leave mail on server’ as that’s how it works anyway with IMAP
• Strong and easily managed anti-spam and antivirus features

Read on for some quick early impressions and details on how to sign-up for that free year’s use …

Here’s some initial thoughts and notes on using Alien Camel:

* Setup is simple on the desktop and the iPHone, and you end up with an iPhone mail client, a web-mail interface, and can also add your Alien Camel account easily to Outlook or other desktop email software.

* It’s Fast, Fast, Fast – it is MUCH faster for me than the Gmail mailbox on my iPhone. It updates Inbox and folders in a flash. This is likely due at least in part to the fact it does not have SSL enabled by default, so its ‘security overhead’ is lower.

* The anti-spam features are very handy to work with. By default, it whitelists people you send mail to. When you receive mails from unknown senders (everyone at the outset) they do not arrive in your Inbox. Instead, you get a ‘Pending’ email that shows a listing of all mails that await your decisions. For each mail you can choose to: whitelist it (accept all mail from this sender from now on), mark it as spam (reject all mail from this sender from now on), download it, or trash it. This process it easy to work with and should fairly quickly leave you with all your most frequent good senders whitelisted.

* It’s easy to manage your whitelist and blacklist (for individual senders and entire domains), as well as all your settings and preferences via the webmail interface.

* Alien Camel lets you setup up to 5 disposable email addresses at a time – which is a handy feature when you want to be able to provide a ‘throwaway’ mail address, for limited time or specific purpose use, without giving out your ‘proper’ address.

Here’s a look at the Pending Email Advisory screen:

Alien Camel is worth a look, especially if you’re an iPhone user and you’re willing to give them some feedback in return for a free year of service.  You need to fill out an application on their site to be considered for the free offer – check it out at:

iPhone Users Wanted

For general information on Alien Camel, see their home page.