Hi,

I have recently purchased an iphone and I am keen to set up email (through gmail). I can see it's set up so that it's push email. I have a phone plan that allows 250mb of data. Just want to know that if I have my email set up with push email, will i be using my data constantly?? Or will it only use my data when i recieve a notification and I check the email? I'm wanting to set it up, but I am concerned that push email will be costly on the data plan. Can anyone help me???

Thanks

Definitely alot of threads already on data usage, but since I'm too lazy to find them for you.

Yes, setting up the phone to fetch email (push) for you uses data whenever you set it to check (15, 30, 60 minutes), obviously the more frequent it checks, the more data it would use (along with battery).

But with 250mb... not sure what else you plan to do, but you could fetch emails all month without really coming close to that. It's really the streaming video and things that burn through the data.

If you want.. just make sure to monitor your usage in the settings. It's pretty accurate on data transferred.

On my phone, the option for every 15 min, 30 mins or hourly is the "fetch" option and is only used when push is off. Thats why i am confused. So if push is on, will it 'constantly' check? I am so confused.

If push is on the phone checks constantly if its off it checks every 15,30,60 mins or manually

Push should be on, and the fetch schedule is for apps that don't support push, like gmail. It's not getting pushed like a native email program should (hopefully later), so for now you have to settle for it automatically "fetching" your emails at whatever interval you pick.

If you pick 30 mins, it will check your gmail account for emails every 30 minutes... until you tell it otherwise.. so yes, it will constantly check... but checking email doesn't use up as much data as you may think.

Ok thanks for that. So that means my data is constantly being used? Will this use my 250mb of data really quickly? Thats what i need to know.

Thanks

NO. just keep an eye on your usage
Settings,General,Usage

Check your usage statistics after a day, two days, etc.

Then gauge it.

Settings > General > Usage > Cellular Network Data

If this amount is exceeding your estimated daily average (250MB per month equates to 'x' MB per day) then change your settings.

Or change your usage.
Or go on a higher data plan.
Or <insert other solution here> such as Wi-Fi.

EDIT
What gareth said.

Try it... set your phone to check say, every 15 minutes. Send yourself an email to test it. After about an hour... go to Settings>General>Usage... on the bottom you'll see your received data.

As long as you monitor your data, you'll be fine. Just remember to reset it alongside with your billing cycle as the iPhone doesn't reset the counters for you.

I've been using the phone for heavy email, checking every 30 minutes, since I picked up the phone on the 11th. I've also been browsing on the web, chatting, using the GPS, and whatever else I've needed to do on the phone. My total data out is just a bit over 8MB's (just to give you an idea).

Gmail doesn't natively support Push Mail but if you would like Push Gmail try this
Lifehacker - Set up Push Email, Contacts and Calenders on your iPhone for free
It involves forwarding your emails from google to a free exchange push email service called mail2web. Of course you would have to respond on your Gmail account but it is working for me.

Personally I wouldn't want my mail being forwarded to a 3rd party first before forwarding to me. I rather all my mail stay with gmail, and just have it fetched every 15 minutes if I needed it that often.

I'm sure Google will roll out a native app by September once everyone else starts getting the push services setup. No biggie.

Very clever way of doing it though I must say!

You could open a free Yahoo! Mail account for true push e-mail. The downside is, the reliability is patchy at the moment.