Push Email Support for .Mac Accounts on iPhone 2.0

[MacRumors]

TUAW reports that the latest iPhone 2.0 beta that was just released added the ability to provide "Push" email services from your .Mac account.

"Push" email allows the server to push email down to your phone when it arrives. The alternative method involves the iPhone itself polling the server at regular intervals, resulting in a significant battery drain over time.


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[NP3]

Interesting! I knew the basics of Push...but somehow missed the battery benefits of it.

[illitrate23]

Originally Posted by NP3

Interesting! I knew the basics of Push...but somehow missed the battery benefits of it.

i'd have thought the battery benefits are dependant upon the amount of email you recieve, no?
if you recieve 10 emails every 30 minutes, then surely it's more cost effective to just poll every 30 minutes and get those ten in a batch, no?

whereas if you recieve 10 emails throughout the whole day, then push is better i guess.
how does it work? are emails sent over the phone network then? or is a signal sent to the phone to tell it to connect to the email server?

[macduke]

wow, a reason to actually buy a .mac account. throw in at least 60gb of storage for the iDisk and i might go for it. for now i will use gmail and use my wd passport drive.

push would be useful. i rarely get more than 10 emails a day. i keep my gmail account a secret so that it doesn't get whored out to a million businesses with spam. that's what my yahoo account is for.

it would be nice to get emails pushed over. my iPhone likes to fetch my emails on some days, but most of the time it doesn't auto download and i have to manually check. this has caused me to show up to several cancelled classes. suck.

so my school email, when i go to log in on the web, says "provided by microsoft exchange server 2003." isn't the iphone software 2.0 supposed to support push with exchange?

[BVGuitarPlayer]

If the cost of .Mac is a concern. Walk into an Apple Store, look for any of the 5-20 people buying a Mac at the same time, give them 70 bucks, (remember, buy a Mac save 30% on .Mac.). Go upgrade your storage to 60 gb with the money you saved and a bit more and begin the painfully slow backup of your entire music library or iBook HD (I'm guessing). All you need is 10, you should just back up documents, host websites with a few pictures, use it as a flash drive and you're all set.

[sir42]

This is great. I'd love to see gmail/google apps push email support as well, since I have both .mac and a google apps email accounts.

[wildcardd]

It unfortunately doesn't support contacts and iCal...yet. I think that would be a plus to be able to push sync those items. I think I might spend the money for a .mac account just for that.

Walk into an Apple Store, look for any of the 5-20 people buying a Mac at the same time, give them 70 bucks, (remember, buy a Mac save 30% on .Mac.).

Or you could go to Amazon.com and buy it for $70. That way, you don't look like the cheap bastard standing outside an Apple store trying to save $30.

[mdwsta4]

what's the big deal if you have IMAP or POP set up to check every 5 minutes?
*edit* just realized the iphone only allows you 15, 30, or every hour. if it was every 5 minutes i think that'd be fine.

[PlaceofDis]

Originally Posted by mdwsta4

what's the big deal if you have IMAP or POP set up to check every 5 minutes?
*edit* just realized the iphone only allows you 15, 30, or every hour. if it was every 5 minutes i think that'd be fine.

if it was every five minutes it'd give you horrid battery life. push helps conserve the battery life since it doesn't have to check the server.

glad i have a .mac account, might actually be useful now.

[stockscalper]

Worthless since it only works with a .mac account, but typical of Apple to keep us on the money leash.

[jasonfj]

I've never understood why contacts and calendar aren't synced over the air. Even my rusty old Sidekick syncs OTA.

[megfilmworks]

Originally Posted by stockscalper

Worthless since it only works with a .mac account, but typical of Apple to keep us on the money leash.

What makes you think this will only work with .mac?
Have you missed the other announcements?

[Transeau]

Originally Posted by stockscalper

Worthless since it only works with a .mac account, but typical of Apple to keep us on the money leash.

Uh, you forget about Exchange support?

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Originally Posted by stockscalper

Worthless since it only works with a .mac account, but typical of Apple to keep us on the money leash.

obviously you have no idea what's going on.
The email service must also allow for push email. Apple is just adding a feature to .Mac, they are in no way crippling other email services.

Also they are supporting Microsoft exchange which has this very feature.

[twoodcc]

i really hope that this means new features for .mac at wwdc

[sneaky squirrel]

Im really confused about this push mail thing..

at the moment as im just starting out with the iphone (and as Ive found out ive used $90 of data usage already)! i'm limiting my internet usage to keep my bill down.. will this push email service mean it will cost more in terms of downloads? does it mean its always busy doing something in the background all the time?

can i disconnect/connect from push mail whenever i want?

and i know this is a dumb qn, but if i sign up for .mac can i access my .mac account over the internet? sorry im a newbie!

[zed2]

Originally Posted by sneaky squirrel

Im really confused about this push mail thing..

at the moment as im just starting out with the iphone (and as Ive found out ive used $90 of data usage already)! i'm limiting my internet usage to keep my bill down.. will this push email service mean it will cost more in terms of downloads? does it mean its always busy doing something in the background all the time?

can i disconnect/connect from push mail whenever i want?

and i know this is a dumb qn, but if i sign up for .mac can i access my .mac account over the internet? sorry im a newbie!

OK so you've a jailbroken phone then ...

Well push requires that the phone keeps an open connection back to the server, in this case Apple. Now you are billing for bytes send and not time connected (I hope)... in which case push should be low on your billing as you will be sending/receiving very low amounts of data. Unless you get lots of mail :P

I don't think you can turn off the push mail on iphone 2 short of disabling the e-mail account in the preferences of the phone.

Yes mobileMe and in fact .mac allow you to access your e-mail via a web browser, so you can read/file/reply your mail from any internet connected system using almost any web browswer.

--Zed

[bytethese]

Originally Posted by sneaky squirrel

Im really confused about this push mail thing..

at the moment as im just starting out with the iphone (and as Ive found out ive used $90 of data usage already)! i'm limiting my internet usage to keep my bill down.. will this push email service mean it will cost more in terms of downloads? does it mean its always busy doing something in the background all the time?

can i disconnect/connect from push mail whenever i want?

and i know this is a dumb qn, but if i sign up for .mac can i access my .mac account over the internet? sorry im a newbie!

I'm really confused about this $90 for data thing. In the US, iPhone's all should have an unlimited data plan with AT&T for $20. How are you getting charged extra?

As for .Mac, yes, you can check using a browser if you like along with checking on the iPhone.