Hi all,

It the yahoo push mail carrier dependant. I think it might be in which is wont work here anyone??

also why the hell isn't their a gmail app for the phone???? there is for nearly all other phones. pop/smtp is a poor subsitituion. no conversations. have to mark as read on phone and on computer, message dont skip inbox.

if this had a proper gmail app i would be very happy. surely even if google dont release one soon someone else will!!?!?

Yeah, That would be good.

I should have my iphone within two and a half weeks and I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about the whole email thing. You see I have three email addresses, a GMail for my personal use, a Yahoo! for my eBay needs (so that my personal and business one's dont get more spam, they get enough as it is) and a JaffComputing email for my business, and I am trying to figure out how I'm going to sync it all up and all that :S

this helps a little in the meantime.
http://www.naan.net/trac/wiki/igmail

Well I can't answer for the gmail app, but I can say that the yahoo push works well, BUT remember you MUST sign up for yahoo.com NOT yahoo.com.au email. The yahoo site normally directs you to the local one.

I am using yahoo push on vodafone, so its NOT carrier dependent.

I must say the email app needs more polish, but it is ok for casual emailing.

Does anyone know if a generic cPanel installation with IMAP mail used as the transfer protocol supports push email? I have been researching to find out if it does or not and have not been able to find a concrete answer to this question...

Cheers,

Jeff

I'm hoping Yahoo push mail will be available Down Under as well - I have my .com.au address in readiness ...

From what I heard the AU Yahoo servers dont support it only the .COM ones do... I could be wrong tho...

jaffa standard IMAP isnt push. i'm not sure what exactly yahoo have done with their mail.

also gmail now works properly in the iphone browser as of late september update. so does google calendar and google docs

So how does push email work with GPRS? Would it result in the phone constantly polling, and therefore using data throughout the day?

I've always wondered (even after consulting for a billion-dollar IT security company that lived on its Blackberries) why people want (need?) a PUSH email client as opposed to a regularly-scheduled PULL email client?

On all the 'smartphones' I've owned over the last 18 months (including a few Windows Mobile devices, a Nokia N95 and now the iPhone), I configured the phone's email client to access my standard IMAP mailboxes and use a fairly regular (normally 15 minutes) interval for automatic updating of the mailboxes. With this configuration, any email sent to one of my email addresses is downloaded to the device within 15 minutes of being received at my email server.

If I'm expecting an email and need it in a more timely manner, simply forcing the mail client to update manually does the trick.

If I'm not expecting an email but someone sends something that is *urgent*, either I receive it within 15 minutes or they'll just have to call me if it really is urgent.

I'm happy to hear other thoughts from Blackberry-addicts, but I've found that if you replace 'PUSH email' with 'email available from my mobile device' then a standard IMAP client on that device works perfectly.

I *believe* (but don't know for sure) that this type of system uses a TCP keep-alive connection (similar to a MJPEG stream for instance), in which the mail client initiates a connection to the mail server but never terminates it. The server sends a brief 'email notification' to the IP address of the mobile device as new messages arrive at the server; upon receiving this 'notification' the client initiates a separate request to download the mail header / content.

Because the connection is never 'closed', the server simply sends down packets whenever it needs to, knowing that the client will recognise the packets belong to the open connection and treat them accordingly.

If you don't receive too many emails each day, the big advantage of this system is that you're not using your data limits by constantly asking the server for new messages when none have arrived.

If you receive enough emails such that each server poll results in at least 1 new message being downloaded, then the overhead of the 'is there new mail' query isn't as relevant considering the data used to download the message header / content.

Pretty much. The phone's not constantly polling the service but there is high GPRS usage.

I am aware of this, but there is a new protocol that is not part of most leading IMAP portions of popular mail servers called P-IMAP. (more info here) and I have been researching to find out if the mail server within a cpanel installation supports the P-IMAP protocol. Some sites say it does, others say it doesnt...

The version of cPanel used on my web server is 11.15.0-CURRENT 17483 if that helps...

Jeff

Not sure how this works with the iPhone but...

The main thing you need to look for is IMAP-Idle support (as per RFC2177). In this mode a connection is established to the IMAP server and the client tells the server it is open for updates, but doesn't actively poll the server. When a mail hits the server the client is instantly notified.

I've used it on Windows Mobile Smartphones, but most recently have it running extremely well on my Nokia N95 (for those that want to do this on an N-Series handset I'll put that in the addendum to my post below).

For me this does everything I need of "Push Email", and so far has very minimal impact on my phone's battery life.

Addendum: Nokia N-Series "Push Email"
1. Make sure your email server supports IMAP.
2. Most should support IMAP Idle - best to try and see if it works.
3. On the phone, in Messaging/Settings/Email/Mailboxes, setup your IMAP settings.
4. In "Automatic Retrieval", disable E-mail notifications.
5. Set E-mail retrieval" to "Only in Home Network" to ensure no roaming data charges (especially on 3)
6. Set your Retrieval Days and Retrieval Hours to whatever you want.
7. The important setting - set Retrieval Interval to "30 minutes". Nothing else or it won't work.

Whilst it looks like your phone will be polling, behind the scenes it's actually just terminating the IDLE command and re-issuing it so the server doesn't log it off.

Test it out! Send yourself an email and watch as you (more often than not) get emails faster than if you were sitting at your desk!

Note: The 30mins setting is pretty important for IMAP-Idle, as it's the standard timeframe for when the IMAP server will classify the client as disconnected and log it off. iPhone users, try setting your mail check to be 30mins and see if the iPhone is working with IMAP-Idle like the N95.

Regards,
Shane.

thats awesome re p-imap. i had no idea. will test