Apple Working on Redesigned iCloud Mail for Web

[DeepIn2U]

It horrible and the reason why my personal email is on Outlook.com. Microsoft IMHO has the best webmail. Their webmail is better than Outlook for the Mac.

outlook has its own issues:
Up until last week enforced pop-ups for emails to reply.
Focused inbox is on by default which is terrible - they should just kill it.
selection of emails within any inbox or sub folder beyond 12 lines or 5 lines out of view forces previous multiple selections in a row to be UNselected WTH?!

taut last part alone should be a reason that NOBODY says Outlook.com is better. Period.

 

[DeepIn2U]

That's a function of Apple's half-baked push notifications in iCloud Mail.

Basically, because Apple Mail relies on push notifications when using any push-enabled account (iCloud, Fastmail, OS X Mail on your own Mac server, and maybe still Yahoo?), it will never actually fetch email in the background. It assumes that if it doesn't get a push notification, then there's no reason to update the mailbox.

Unfortunately, iCloud only sends push notifications when new messages are received. This means that your iCloud account in the iPhone/iPad Mail app only gets updated when either: (a) new mail comes in, or (b) you open the Mail app to refresh it manually.

Non-push accounts (pretty much everything else), can be set to poll on a 15-minute interval. This means that your badge counts will update every at least every 15 minutes. Accounts that support push never fetch email by default — you can set them to do use "Fetch" instead of "Push" in your iOS Mail settings, but then of course you'll lose all push notifications.

It's always boggled my mind that Apple doesn't seem to care about fixing this seemingly minor issue, especially when Fastmail worked with Apple to add full iOS push notifications to its service six years ago, and did it entirely right — when I read an email on my Mac, the badge count on my iPhone updates almost immediately. It's also not rocket science, as I managed to hack this capability onto my own OS X Server back in 2012.

Perhaps Apple is concerned about the server and network load of sending out a substantially higher number of push notifications. This seems unlikely, since the APNS system is used by thousands of other apps, and of course Fastmail has been doing it for email years. However, it may be a mail server side issue rather than a push notification issue, and to be fair, I'd imagine that iCloud has far more users than Fastmail does.

false.

yes the icon count has its bugs.

push notification means any changes is pushed. You can clearly see this when moving or deleting emails or flagging or marking as unread.

if your device is in idle it may take a second for that apps threads to process from an ideal state. You see this more when doing such things in iOS Mail or iPadOS Mail and takes a few moments to respond on MacOS when Mail has been left in the background. The OS will not continue to dedicate CPU cycles for processing of the UI is not ever present and the app hasn’t been initiated from a minimized state (as if it’s dormant).

Mae also have to consider OS doesn’t continue to use internet as often (macOS) as Windows does which loves to use data consistently like nobody’s business or OS.

 

[jhollington]

push notification means any changes is pushed. You can clearly see this when moving or deleting emails or flagging or marking as unread.

Well, I've tested this many times over the years, and double-checked it when we were having this discussion last week, so unless Apple just changed it in the past few days, or unless some iCloud Mail accounts work differently than others, that doesn't seem to be the case. At least it definitely hasn't been my experience — and as I said, it's one of the big reasons I'm on Fastmail (Update: Sorry, I got my threads mixed up — that conversation was actually over here).

In fact, years ago I had to write my own code for OS X Mail Server to make push notifications work properly, since it suffers from the same problem as iCloud. New messages are pushed, but changes are not pushed to iOS devices.

Note that macOS Mail works differently, as it supports IMAP IDLE. This allows it to pick up changes immediately, since, (as you note), it is "using data consistently." Technically speaking, IMAP IDLE (which isn't an Apple thing, but rather an open standard defined in RFC 2177) maintains a persistent connection to the mail server, so when things change, those get pushed over that active pipe.

This isn't practical on mobile devices for a whole lot of reasons, not the least of which is battery life. I used IMAP clients way back in the days before the iPhone (on systems like Symbian and Palm OS) that used IMAP IDLE and it would outright kill the battery in no time flat.

Hence, Apple came up with a better way in the form of its Apple Push Notification Service, which is designed to use a connectionless protocol to advise iOS of notifications, saving the need for a persistent data connection. These power all notifications on iOS devices, but this is how iOS Mail receives notifications of new mail in iCloud and OS X Server accounts (and probably still Yahoo Mail — I don't know what the status of that is these days, but it was actually the very first push-enabled mail service when Apple first launched the iPhone in 2007 — Apple's didn't come along with push email until a year later when .Mac became MobileMe).

The failing in the case of iCloud, however, is that Apple still only sends push notifications for new messages.

Now, to be fair, what actually happens when these push notifications are received is that Mail app simply refreshes the inbox. This is why I say that "Apple only sends push notifications for new messages" and not "Apple only pushes new mail," since there's a subtle but important difference here.

In other words, you will see mailbox updates whenever any new messages come in. For example:

1. A new message arrives. A push notification gets sent to your iPhone. Your badge count updates to show the new message.
2. You read that message on another device, and also delete a couple of messages, and flag a couple of others.
3. The badge count on your iPhone remains the same after this.
4. Another new message comes in. The Mail app refreshes, and picks up ALL of the changes made in step #2, updating the badge count as appropriate.

In other words, your entire mailbox will update whenever any new messages come in, because the push notifications sent by Apple merely trigger the Mail app to update the entire mailbox — in much the same way that opening the Mail app also does. That's why I was able to easily solve this on my own OS X Mail Server. I didn't need to worry about figuring out what changes were made in my mailbox, I simply had to find a way to trigger a generic push notification for my account whenever ANY changes occurred, regardless of what they were. The Mail app would take care of the rest.

In my experience, however, iCloud does not update the mailbox or the badge count unless either: a) new mail comes in, or (b) you open the mail app (including waking your iPhone from sleep while it's open) or refresh it manually.

Again, maybe this does work differently for you. I certainly can't rule that out. Perhaps Apple is finally fixing this in preparation for iCloud+ Mail (I really hope so), but I have three iCloud accounts and none of them act the way you describe, and they never have. Further, based on some of the other comments in this thread, it sounds like my experience is not unique.

I also just tested this before responding, to make absolutely certain it has not changed for me. It's still working the way that it always has. Apple Push Notifications are only sent by iCloud when new messages are received. Yes, macOS Mail will reconcile changes made from iOS devices, but that's because it uses a totally different protocol, and it's also not iCloud specific; IMAP IDLE works with just about any IMAP mail service — even Gmail's half-assed implementation of IMAP.

if your device is in idle it may take a second for that apps threads to process from an ideal state. You see this more when doing such things in iOS Mail or iPadOS Mail and takes a few moments to respond on MacOS when Mail has been left in the background. The OS will not continue to dedicate CPU cycles for processing of the UI is not ever present and the app hasn’t been initiated from a minimized state (as if it’s dormant).

Again, I suspect you may be seeing the behaviour described above — either seeing near-real-time updates on macOS Mail or your iPhone and iPad Mail app fully updating whenever new mail comes in or you refresh it in some other way.

In both my own implementation years ago, and Fastmail (which I switched to as soon as it began supporting native Apple Push Notifications back in 2015), it doesn't take a few moments to respond on the iOS side. The badge almost always updates almost immediately. At most, it may sometimes take a second or two depending on what else the iPhone is doing.

 

[SBacklin]

Well, I've tested this many times over the years, and double-checked it when we were having this discussion last week, so unless Apple just changed it in the past few days, or unless some iCloud Mail accounts work differently than others, that doesn't seem to be the case. At least it definitely hasn't been my experience — and as I said, it's one of the big reasons I'm on Fastmail (Update: Sorry, I got my threads mixed up — that conversation was actually over here).

In fact, years ago I had to write my own code for OS X Mail Server to make push notifications work properly, since it suffers from the same problem as iCloud. New messages are pushed, but changes are not pushed to iOS devices.

Note that macOS Mail works differently, as it supports IMAP IDLE. This allows it to pick up changes immediately, since, (as you note), it is "using data consistently." Technically speaking, IMAP IDLE (which isn't an Apple thing, but rather an open standard defined in RFC 2177) maintains a persistent connection to the mail server, so when things change, those get pushed over that active pipe.

This isn't practical on mobile devices for a whole lot of reasons, not the least of which is battery life. I used IMAP clients way back in the days before the iPhone (on systems like Symbian and Palm OS) that used IMAP IDLE and it would outright kill the battery in no time flat.

Hence, Apple came up with a better way in the form of its Apple Push Notification Service, which is designed to use a connectionless protocol to advise iOS of notifications, saving the need for a persistent data connection. These power all notifications on iOS devices, but this is how iOS Mail receives notifications of new mail in iCloud and OS X Server accounts (and probably still Yahoo Mail — I don't know what the status of that is these days, but it was actually the very first push-enabled mail service when Apple first launched the iPhone in 2007 — Apple's didn't come along with push email until a year later when .Mac became MobileMe).

The failing in the case of iCloud, however, is that Apple still only sends push notifications for new messages.

Now, to be fair, what actually happens when these push notifications are received is that Mail app simply refreshes the inbox. This is why I say that "Apple only sends push notifications for new messages" and not "Apple only pushes new mail," since there's a subtle but important difference here.

In other words, you will see mailbox updates whenever any new messages come in. For example:

1. A new message arrives. A push notification gets sent to your iPhone. Your badge count updates to show the new message.
2. You read that message on another device, and also delete a couple of messages, and flag a couple of others.
3. The badge count on your iPhone remains the same after this.
4. Another new message comes in. The Mail app refreshes, and picks up ALL of the changes made in step #2, updating the badge count as appropriate.

In other words, your entire mailbox will update whenever any new messages come in, because the push notifications sent by Apple merely trigger the Mail app to update the entire mailbox — in much the same way that opening the Mail app also does. That's why I was able to easily solve this on my own OS X Mail Server. I didn't need to worry about figuring out what changes were made in my mailbox, I simply had to find a way to trigger a generic push notification for my account whenever ANY changes occurred, regardless of what they were. The Mail app would take care of the rest.

In my experience, however, iCloud does not update the mailbox or the badge count unless either: a) new mail comes in, or (b) you open the mail app (including waking your iPhone from sleep while it's open) or refresh it manually.

Again, maybe this does work differently for you. I certainly can't rule that out. Perhaps Apple is finally fixing this in preparation for iCloud+ Mail (I really hope so), but I have three iCloud accounts and none of them act the way you describe, and they never have. Further, based on some of the other comments in this thread, it sounds like my experience is not unique.

I also just tested this before responding, to make absolutely certain it has not changed for me. It's still working the way that it always has. Apple Push Notifications are only sent by iCloud when new messages are received. Yes, macOS Mail will reconcile changes made from iOS devices, but that's because it uses a totally different protocol, and it's also not iCloud specific; IMAP IDLE works with just about any IMAP mail service — even Gmail's half-assed implementation of IMAP.


Again, I suspect you may be seeing the behaviour described above — either seeing near-real-time updates on macOS Mail or your iPhone and iPad Mail app fully updating whenever new mail comes in or you refresh it in some other way.

In both my own implementation years ago, and Fastmail (which I switched to as soon as it began supporting native Apple Push Notifications back in 2015), it doesn't take a few moments to respond on the iOS side. The badge almost always updates almost immediately. At most, it may sometimes take a second or two depending on what else the iPhone is doing.

Over the years when using iCloud mail, I would notice that the updating of iOS badge counts after reading mail on my Mac would be totally inconsistent. Sometimes the changes would filter down but, most of the time, it wouldn't. It wouldn't change most of the time unless I opened up mail or a new message came in.

 

[Glennster]

I am so glad they are updating this interface. Hope Calender is next.

 

[debardik]

Apple has begun testing a major redesign to the iCloud Mail experience on the web, bringing its webmail service more in line with recent design changes made in macOS Big Sur.

The new design, currently in beta, reported first by 9to5mac, features a cleaner overall design and feel than the current public experience of iCloud Mail for the web. The current, soon-to-be previous version features thin typography, lighter colors, and design elements from iOS 7. Additionally, the new design allows users to compose emails in a smaller window in the middle of the screen, compared to opening an entirely new window.

As the new design is in beta testing alongside iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, macOS Monterey, and tvOS 15, it will likely be made available for all iCloud web users later this fall. Users wanting to try the new iCloud Mail design can check out the beta website for iCloud.

Article Link: Apple Working on Redesigned iCloud Mail for Web

Does anyone else have issues with the print feature ?? It's now gone...

 

[Danie10]

I wonder how many people use the web interface on a regular basis. With all the different devices available for use at any given time, I find that method of use quicker. The only time I access my iCloud online, is to checkbook make sure my contacts sync is accurate.

I have to use it daily as my main desktop is Linux. Just noticed that the web interface stopped working for me with Brave browser as Apple deemed it "incompatible". Had to use a spoofer to make Apple think it was Firefox browser. But what really bugs me still with the web interface for Reminders, is we cannot set or change dates for Reminders on the web interface. Really seems as if Apple has made very little effort on the web interface, and does not seem to acknowledge we also use other OS's to access our services.

 

[zarathu]

The major redesign which they implemented on my computer is just awful. There are so many steps back that its often clunky and difficult to use. I cannot copy email addressed from another source because they clump them into one long unbroken phrase. The app doesn’t have any way to add emails directly unless I go through the laborously manual way of adding each one to the address book. It lost all my old addresses that it automatically put in when I typed a name, and the list goes on. If you open an new email, its a window in the center of the screen that cannot be moved or enlarged or made smaller, and you cannot open anything else in the program(like another email for addresses or copying text) without opening another tab the icloud to get it.

Its the worst upgrade I have ever seen Apple do in 35 years of using apple products.