LinkedIn Intro Pulls Profiles Into iPhone Mail

iPhone users who also rely heavily on LinkedIn are getting a welcome new feature today. With the new LinkedIn Intro, an email on your iPhone will display a picture of the sender, with useful profile info only a tap away. That’s handy for sorting spam from legitimate email, but more importantly, it gives you a face to go with the name.

The iPhone Mail app displaying profile pictures from LinkedIn via LinkedIn Intro.
Emails are more interesting when you can see the person you're conversing with. Being able to quickly look up their background is icing on the cake.

Pulling photos from contact lists into emails isn’t new, of course, but the LinkedIn Intro is the first to put LinkedIn pictures in your iPhone Mail app. And, it gives you the sender’s name and company right off the bat. Tap the person’s info bar, and you’ll see even more information. LinkedIn Intro shows you photos of LinkedIn senders even if they’re not in your network, but only if their photos are publicly available on LinkedIn – the app isn’t a way to get around LinkedIn’s privacy policies.



According to Rahul Vohra, the driving force behind LinkedIn Intro (and co-founder of Rapportive, which LinkedIn acquired last year), the tool supports all the popular email services you’re likely to use with your iPhone Mail app, including Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. To install it, visit the LinkedIn Intro page on your iPhone. If you visit it on a PC, you’ll need to enter your phone number to get a text message for the installation.