iPhone + MobileMe + Gmail + Sync?

[iPhone Addict]

Hi guys,

I have a 16 GB 3GS running 3.0

I forward all of my e-mail from my Gmail account to my MobileMe account and then have my iPhone setup for my MobileMe account. This allows me to get instant push e-mail from my Gmail account, which is important to me.

Also, I have my MobileMe account on my iPhone's mail settings set up to use the Gmail smtp server (smtp.gmail.com) so that when I respond from my phone, recipients see the response coming from the same account they e-mailed me at (my gmail account). This also allows the e-mail in Gmail to show up in the threaded conversation view (a nice bonus).

My problem is this: I currently have Gmail set to mark every message that it receives as "Read" before it forwards it onto the MobileMe account. I could choose not to have it do this but what I'm looking for is a way that would allow both inboxes (the one on my phone and the one in my web gmail) to know when an e-mail is read, or if it is still unread.

Now my question for all of the extremely smart people on this forum is: Is there a way I can add another account to my iPhone's mail settings (i've heard the term IMAP thrown around, but don't know much about it) that would allow me to still get the instant push e-mail from my MobileMe account but with an additional mail account, somehow keep a read/unread sync with my Gmail account?

I apologize if this is in any way unclear -- I'm not the best at explaining things. I do hope someone is able to donate some of their time and offer me a response!

Thank you in advance.

 

[BaldiMac]

There is an app called Gmail Push or something similar that will give you push notifications for Gmail. It would allow you to eliminate the second email account entirely.

UPDATE: The app is called GPush.

 

[iPhone Addict]

There is an app called Gmail Push or something similar that will give you push notifications for Gmail. It would allow you to eliminate the second email account entirely.

Thanks for responding!

I see what you mean by eliminating the second account entirely by using the GPush app, but I actually did try that and found it to be pretty buggy. MobileMe has been around for a lot longer and in the past 2 months that I've used it, seems to be VERY quick in pushing e-mails.

Also, one thing that I personally found annoying about GPush is that you still have to go open the Mail app after receiving the push notification to actually download the e-mail.

With my current setup, the e-mail is already downloaded and waiting for me in the inbox when my phone goes off.

Also I use the MobileMe account for syncing contacts + calendars so it seems to be a better option.

I'm hoping there's some other way (besides using GPush and not the MobileMe push) to find a solution to my problem.

Thanks again!

 

[Slooooooow]

I don't understand the benefit you mention about forwarding Gmail to MobileMe.
My iPhone is setup to access my Gmail account directly, and seems to do so very well. It's setup the same way with my MobileMe email address, and that works well too.

What in your setup am I failing to understand? And why have your Gmail account and your MobileMe email account linked at all? Why not just set each one up to use "Mail" on the iPhone?

 

[iPhone Addict]

The reason I have Gmail forwarding to MobileMe is so that I can get instant push email. If I was to setup Gmail to be checked by my iPhone via IMAP, it would not be instant and also in the IMAP setup, the phone would constantly be checking with the server for new mail (I heard it does this every 3 minutes?) which is a significant drain on the battery. Push is nice because the phone is not constantly checking for e-mail and saves battery this way.

Also, I used to have my Gmail set up over the phone via IMAP and I found that after a couple of hours, the connection would die for some reason and then the account would just go to fetching my mail every 15 minutes or 1 hour or whatever it was set to in the Fetch settings.

So the Gmail forwarding to MobileMe gets rid of that unreliability for me of wondering whether me not having any new mail indicator on my phone really means I have no new mail.

 

[twon]

I am assuming you still have your email setup like this? This is also how I have had mine for the past couple months and push has always work great. But in the past two days it stopped pushing my mails. Have you had any problems lately? I haven't changed any settings, it's set to push and i do get mail, but have to check manually. I have this setup on both my phone and my girlfriends phone, they both stopped pushing at the same time.

 

[Fireproof!]

Have you tried nuevasync? I'm a gmail user (a google apps account and a couple gmail accounts) and it handles all my calendaring and contact sync'ing needs flawlessly.

They have a premium paid service for gmail push.

 

[iPhone Addict]

I am assuming you still have your email setup like this? This is also how I have had mine for the past couple months and push has always work great. But in the past two days it stopped pushing my mails. Have you had any problems lately? I haven't changed any settings, it's set to push and i do get mail, but have to check manually. I have this setup on both my phone and my girlfriends phone, they both stopped pushing at the same time.

Hi twon, yes I do still have my email setup as I described above on my iPhone and haven't had any problems lately with push. I'm in Southern California if that makes any difference.

You might try deleting your accounts from your iPhone and recreating them....that might possibly work.

 

[twon]

Have you tried nuevasync? I'm a gmail user (a google apps account and a couple gmail accounts) and it handles all my calendaring and contact sync'ing needs flawlessly.

They have a premium paid service for gmail push.

Thanks, I have looked into nuevasync, but it has been a while. I forget why I chose not to go with them.

Hi twon, yes I do still have my email setup as I described above on my iPhone and haven't had any problems lately with push. I'm in Southern California if that makes any difference.

You might try deleting your accounts from your iPhone and recreating them....that might possibly work.

Thanks, I guess I'll give that a shot, but I think it is odd that mine and my girlfriends stopped working at the same time. That makes me think the problem won't be fixed within the phone.