Blackberry Curve 8900 new GROUP features for contacts

(DISCLAIMER: Anything to do with my new BlackBerry may be old news for some, but since I've moved from an 8707v to an 8900 the leap has been massive. I'm presuming this is all around new stuff, but if not, don't flame me)

Sweet BlackBerry goodness!

When I ran my import from my old BlackBerry 8707v to my new BlackBerry 8900 Curve, I didn't get my mailing lists / groups imported, and to my frustration I had no idea why.

Having attempted to create a new group / list today, I have now got a better idea as to why it may not have worked, and I can assure you it's more for good reason than for bad reason.

When I started my new group, I opted to add a contact, and was very surprised to discover that I could add either their number or a PIN or an email address. That got me thinking, and I tried to add the same contact twice, once with email, and once with a cell number, and voila! It worked!

This means with the new BB OS v4.6 I can have one mailing list, and if I choose to compose an email to the group, it ONLY sends to the valid email addresses, and if I send an SMS, only to the valid SMS recipients, and a PIN only to the valid PIN recipients. What a joy!

Upon trying this out, I noticed that the group SMS service also shows individual progress meters for each recipient of an SMS - so you know who's getting it as they get it - SWEET!

I've now managed to send an email to my group, and it says "not everyone can receive an email" and I click OK, and it sends out the email, IGNORING the SMS recipients. Vice versa for sending an SMS to email addresses in the list.

Some may argue that it should be smart and send it all at once to the proper recipient, but I prefer it this way. Now I can have one mailing list which has everyone's contact details and depending on how I want to contact the people, I can reach them via PIN, SMS, or email. The only snag is that you have to manually capture a single contact multiple times if you want to add their various contact details - not so bad because then at least if they have three cellphone numbers attached to their contact details, you only need to add the one you SMS, and not have the phone think it should SMS them three times (once to each number).