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Push Gmail to iphone?
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There are two types of "push" imap. IDLE and P-IMAP.
Gmail does support PUSH IDLE. I know mail.app on the full blown OSX uses this feature. IDLE is battery intensive as it requires a persistent connection to work making it's use on mobile devices worthless. If the BB service used the IDLE command to retrieve messages then the service would be near real-time.
What gmail does not support is Push-IMAP (P-IMAP) that is used by mobile devices. P-IMAP requires a 3rd party solution to notify the phone of a message and is usually done via WAP-Push or SMS which would require AT&T to be involved.
I am by no means claiming to know what I'm talking about, but I'm pretty sure, at least with exchange using activesync, since exchange 2003 SP2 there is no SMS or anything. There is just a connection that is left open and then when a mail comes in it sends a signal over this connection to the phone. Just because a connection is open doesn't mean that its wasting battery. The only waste of battery is infrequent "heart beats" between the phone and server and if you lose connection and need to recreate this persistent connection.
Any idea how ymail push is working?
I spent the last couple days trying to find or figure out a free or inexpensive way to get push Gmail on the iPhone without having two mail accounts to deal with (ie, Gmail and Mail2Web or Gmail and MobileMe) or using a different "From" address. In the end, I found that Mail2Web's free service would not work for me, but their $5 per month Personal Exchange account works very well. I blogged a step-by-step set of instructions in case anyone wants to try this solution.
I wrote up a similar post on my blog using Ymail (free) to push my gmail. This works better for me since it's free and I already use an exchange connection for my contacts, cal, and work email.
The nice thing about your method is you can get your contacts and cal pushed as well, but now google is offering that for free (http://www.google.com/mobile/apple/sync.html). Although currently the google sync is just for contacts and cal, so email would only be able to be pushed via Ymail or MobileMe.
The nice thing about your method is you can get your contacts and cal pushed as well, but now google is offering that for free (http://www.google.com/mobile/apple/sync.html). Although currently the google sync is just for contacts and cal, so email would only be able to be pushed via Ymail or MobileMe.
I tried forwarding to Ymail also, but there were three problems with that: 1) It requires having both Gmail and Ymail accounts on the iPhone to have the option of using the Gmail address as the "From" email; 2) One has to manually change the "From" address with every email in order to have the email look like it's coming from the Gmail address; and 3) Messages sent from the iPhone were not archived in Gmail, and there was no way to forward them from Yahoo to Gmail without paying the $20 upgrade to Yahoo Plus.
Google's Sync service offers Exchange support for calendar and contact sync only. There are several ways to have push Gmail, but all involve forwarding the Gmail in some fashion. The Mail2Web Personal Exchange service is nice because it lets you have push Gmail on the iPhone without having more than one mail account on the phone, plus it uses your Gmail address as the "From" address for outgoing mail and, using a workaround, allows you to backup sent mail to your Gmail account.
Not through any direct means no. The new google sync is just for cal and contacts, not email (yet). If you want push gmail you will need to either do what arnin has suggested above or...
MobileMe method
http://notratched.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/trick-your-iphone-and-yourself-into-gmail-push/
Ymail method (my way)
http://whenwillapple.com/saywhy/2008/07/23/my-iphone-gmail-push-work-aroundthanks-ymail/
The good thing about arnin's method is having an exchange account (if you don't already) is really nice. Although mobileme gives you basically the same features of exchange, but it's $99 a year vs $60
Yes, but I see it as Ymail is the alert, not that I need gmail to get the FROM address. Either way you look at it you need both accounts on the phone. My solution to this was to have google mark stuff that was forwarded as read so it would only show new messages in Ymail so I wouldn't have the mail app badge showing me 2x as many emails as actually exist
Yes, if you are responding to messages directly from Ymail you will need to change the from message for each message. This only takes about 5 seconds, but if someone needs to send a lot of emails on the phone they can always read the messages in Ymail and then go back to gmail and respond right from there.
Not sure what you mean here? I have all my emails sitting in my gmail account and are duplicated in my ymail account. I basically just clear you my ymail account every once in a while because I have all the emails stored in gmail arleady.
The MobileMe method still requires having two mail accounts on the iPhone, with twice the alerts.
What I mean is this: With your method, you can either get the Ymail notification, look at that email to clear the mail.app badge number, and switch to Gmail for a response (in which case your reply message is backed up to your Gmail account) or you can reply directly from Ymail and take a few seconds to switch the "From" address in which case your sent message is backed up to your Ymail account only. I want my sent messages backed up to Gmail, and there is no way to get them from Ymail to Gmail without paying Yahoo $20.
My method backs up everything to Gmail and doesn't require any switching accounts or fields on the iPhone. The advantage of your method is that using Gmail directly on the iPhone gives you all the IMAP niceties, so you can add labels, delete, etc, in the phone. My way leaves everything alone in my Gmail Inbox, so periodically I need to go clean that out (usually just a select all and archive).
Actually, it doesn't work like this. When you change the FROM address you change the server which is doing the sending, not just the name. When I reply to an email directly from Ymail and change the FROM to Gmail it is in my sent items in Gmail, not Ymail.
I think what we can all agree on is gmail should offer PUSH itself just like ymail
That's great! Didn't realize that. I also like the part about Google marking forwarded messages as read. Maybe I'll do it your way and save myself $5 a month!
I think what we can all agree on is gmail should offer PUSH itself just like ymail
For sure
.And to think, this could all be avoided if Apple would just implement IDLE in their mail client instead of requiring us to do all these workarounds...
ActiveSync uses a long-lived HTTP(S) connection. It works in a similar manner to IMAP IDLE in that "heartbeat"/keep-alive data is sent periodically.
Oh, and despite common perceptions IMAP IDLE can actually be very power efficient -- assuming that it has a stable connection, the phone need only send the IDLE command every 29 minutes.
ActiveSync uses a long-lived HTTP(S) connection. It works in a similar manner to IMAP IDLE in that "heartbeat"/keep-alive data is sent periodically.
Oh, and despite common perceptions IMAP IDLE can actually be very power efficient -- assuming that it has a stable connection, the phone need only send the IDLE command every 29 minutes.
Why not just use your exchange account?
Dizzy,
Kudos on your workaround! I think it is a very slick method. I just have one question. If you already have an exchange account for your calander and contacts, i'm sure you get emails as well. Why not just use those filters you set up to send directly to your exchange email? At least it will eliminate a 3rd email account...
J
Dizzy,
Kudos on your workaround! I think it is a very slick method. I just have one question. If you already have an exchange account for your calander and contacts, i'm sure you get emails as well. Why not just use those filters you set up to send directly to your exchange email? At least it will eliminate a 3rd email account...
J
Glad you like the work around! Been using it for months now and still love it!
This really just boils down to personal preference. My exchange server is for my work email and gmail is for personal. So basically I just wanted to keep them separate.
Some other benefits are that my ymail account is unknown so it never gets any spam, the only messages in there are the ones that get forwarded from gmail. Another nice thing is I don't forward all my emails, just ones I want to get "pushed". With exchange it's all or none.
This really just boils down to personal preference. My exchange server is for my work email and gmail is for personal. So basically I just wanted to keep them separate.
Some other benefits are that my ymail account is unknown so it never gets any spam, the only messages in there are the ones that get forwarded from gmail. Another nice thing is I don't forward all my emails, just ones I want to get "pushed". With exchange it's all or none.
It makes sense if you want to keep them separate, and i guess makes it easier for deleting the forwarded copies since they're not intermixed with your work emails.
I guess i don't understand this statement since the filters on gmail would send only those emails to your exchange account that you are filtering to your ymail anyway. So it wouldn't be all of them, could you clarify on "all or none"?
I guess i don't understand this statement since the filters on gmail would send only those emails to your exchange account that you are filtering to your ymail anyway. So it wouldn't be all of them, could you clarify on "all or none"?
Yeah, you're right, that sentence didn't make sense the way I wrote it
I was just trying to say I actually like the gmail to ymail better than the exchange since I can pick and choose what I want pushed form gmail and what I want to check manually by using the filters. With exchange you either have push on or you don't, but yeah, if I was using exchange to replace ymail, it wouldn't change anything as far as all or none.