Can iOS 9 seriously just support push Gmail already?

[magicMac]

iOS has never supported IMAP idle, that's Mac mail only. iOS has supported IMAPpush since the very first iPhone and this support has not been dropped. In fact iCloud, yahoo and many other providers use it still.

As has been mentioned 1,000 times on this thread, Google dropped support for exchange and don't support IMAPpush (ios) or IMAPidle (Mac). Google want you to use their app with proprietary protocols.

Off topic, IMAP idle is not really suited to mobile devices on cellular because it maintains a constant connection. However, it would be nice if Apple supported it on iOS when connected to wifi only. This won't fix gmail though. Raise your problem with Google or switch to a proper email provider.

 

[Trahearne]

I don’t think iOS ever supported IMAP IDLE. Gmail used Exchange support, which they discontinued, Outlook.com is set up as an Exchange account as well (when you configure it manually as an IMAP account, you won’t receive push either), whereas Yahoo and MobileMe/iCloud use something similar to Push-IMAP, although the implementations seem to vary and have required some more coordination at Apple. For instance, some people discovered that Apple was using XMPP for its own push email.

The push channel to the devices is APNs. Same for iCloud, Yahoo, a few providers in China, and recently FastMail.

The push model in Mail.app is nothing like Push-IMAP, by the way. Push-IMAP (or IMAP IDLE, two different entities though) works with the same IMAP connection, while Mail.app's push model makes use of the system-owned push channel (APNs).

 

[benguild]

Log in to the official Gmail app and turn on its push notifications. (But turn off its badges.) Then turn off the notifications for your gmail account in Apple's Mail.

Then throw the Gmail app into a dark, distant folder with the other apps you don't use.

Now the Gmail app notifies you when there's mail and you can open the Apple Mail app whenever you like.

That's not going to trigger the message's download and caching until Mail happens to refresh, though. Not to say the Gmail app would do this either (I don't think?) but yeah....

 

[MikeyMike01]

I have set up my Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc. to all forward their email to iCloud email address. Then I just log in to my iCloud on my devices and I have all of my email and I don't have to deal with crappy apps like the Gmail app.

Just a suggestion.

 

[hojx]

I have set up my Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc. to all forward their email to iCloud email address. Then I just log in to my iCloud on my devices and I have all of my email and I don't have to deal with crappy apps like the Gmail app.

Just a suggestion.

I have switched from GMail to iCloud Mail for almost two years already and I'm very satisfied with what I have.

After changing the email of significant web services I use to my iCloud email, I set up my old GMail email to forward other mails to my iCloud email.

Since then, I have paused & cleared all my Google usage history and deleted whatever Google services I have. All I'm left is an empty Google+ account for me to comment on YouTube. Soon when the YouTube comment system gets rid of Google+ I'll be able to delete that too.

 

[bgro]

For those using iCloud email exclusively just be careful of the silent filtering (google if don't know what is). I've definitely missed emails that were forwarded from my Gmail account to iCloud (auto forward) because of this silent filtering. Totally unacceptable and the main reason why I still keep the Gmail app on my phone. Every few days I check to make sure that what was sent to my Gmail correctly forwarded to iCloud. 95% of the time it's fine but that's unacceptable for email purposes..

 

[Small White Car]

That's not going to trigger the message's download and caching until Mail happens to refresh, though. Not to say the Gmail app would do this either (I don't think?) but yeah....

So?

When I see the notification I open mail and it downloads it then.

Maybe if you're getting huge emails all the time or checking e-mail on an airplane that might not work, but for me they download in less than 2 seconds so it hasn't proven to be a problem.

 

[KALLT]

iOS has never supported IMAP idle, that's Mac mail only. iOS has supported IMAPpush since the very first iPhone and this support has not been dropped. In fact iCloud, yahoo and many other providers use it still.

As has been mentioned 1,000 times on this thread, Google dropped support for exchange and don't support IMAPpush (ios) or IMAPidle (Mac). Google want you to use their app with proprietary protocols.

iOS doesn’t support P-IMAP, there is nothing for webmasters to implement. The solution is proprietary and requires coordination with Apple, Trahearne says that it is Apple’s regular push notifications backend. When you set up your account, the iPhone will automatically set up the appropriate connection with Apple’s push backend. Which is why only a handful of handpicked services offer push without Exchange ActiveSync. So it’s really: (1) use iCloud or Yahoo!, (2) use an Exchange account like Outlook.com (3) use a third-party app like Gmail. There is nothing else if you want proper push email.

 

[davidcafor]

Download Spark Mail and enjoy reading all your accounts in one app.

 

[benguild]

So?

When I see the notification I open mail and it downloads it then.

Maybe if you're getting huge emails all the time or checking e-mail on an airplane that might not work, but for me they download in less than 2 seconds so it hasn't proven to be a problem.

So why not go with a solution where as soon as your email is received on the server it's downloaded to your phone rather than just described in a push notification?

What you're describing is a delayed substitute for the real thing.

 

[hojx]

So why not go with a solution where as soon as your email is received on the server it's downloaded to your phone rather than just described in a push notification?

What you're describing is a delayed substitute for the real thing.

The problem described has been how GMail does not support Push in iOS Mail. So the workaround given at least provides you with the ability to get real-time notifications.

You asked and he answered.


(You can of course use Fetch at a high refresh rate but this is of course not good for battery life.)

 

[zhenya]

I use Outlook which is a much better email client than the native one, and pushes gmail for me. Best of all, it only alerts me to the stuff that I actually want to see.

 

[benguild]

I use Outlook which is a much better email client than the native one, and pushes gmail for me. Best of all, it only alerts me to the stuff that I actually want to see.

Yeah that's what I've been using.

 

[deep1]

Yeah that's what I've been using.

How's the battery on outlook app? i find it real drainer for me.

At the moment i am forwarding my gmail to outlook and using inbuilt app set up as exchange outlook. getting great battery life too.

 

[sziehr]

Google dropped ActiveSynch in a bid to push you into there app. This was done so they could make money. There are no adds in the native mail client, and having used the gmail client there are clearly adds shoved in the middle of my messages thanks google. They have also made it where you can not just go pro and pay your way out of this mess at least not that ti have found. The pro new wants you to have an @ domain.

Why did google change this so they could make more money off you there product.

Why does apple not support image idle well that is cause it would not work well on a mobile platform as has been said many time here.

Google does not just use Imap idle they use a custom version. I will reference all the issues we had with mac mail a few years back why cause google decided one morning to change the way they did Imap Idle handling and told no one. They just left it up to you to figure out the mess and make it better for your user, but it you would just use the website it is perfect cough more adds google.

In short google has very little incentive to make your gmail that they got your addicted to easy to use out side of there ecosystem.

I love my apple stuff but do i really want to re-commit the offense i did with gmail and migrate to iCloud mail just to one day half a decade from now maybe want to move to another platform and have to change my email address yet again.

So to the OP question it was all for the money not for the user.

 

[zhenya]

How's the battery on outlook app? i find it real drainer for me.

At the moment i am forwarding my gmail to outlook and using inbuilt app set up as exchange outlook. getting great battery life too.

No issues at all for me. I use it with two email accounts on both my iPhone 6 and ipad Air 2 and both get far better than average battery life - especially long-term standby.

 

[KALLT]

I use Outlook which is a much better email client than the native one, and pushes gmail for me. Best of all, it only alerts me to the stuff that I actually want to see.

Note that for this to work, Microsoft needs full access to your Gmail account. Basically, Microsoft is managing your emails on their servers and whenever a new email comes in they can send a regular push notification via Apple to your phone. This is also the reason why many companies and educational institutions have blocked Outlook for iOS for their Exchange servers.

 

[zhenya]

Note that for this to work, Microsoft needs full access to your Gmail account. Basically, Microsoft is managing your emails on their servers and whenever a new email comes in they can send a regular push notification via Apple to your phone. This is also the reason why many companies and educational institutions have blocked Outlook for iOS for their Exchange servers.

This is true, but let's think this through thoroughly. Your email is already stored on Google's servers. To use Outlook, some portion of it is now stored on Microsoft's servers as well. Do I trust Microsoft less with my data than Google? Not at all.

Email isn't a secure means of communication in any way shape or form. Given that I understand that, and treat email as that sort of communication medium, I'm happy to route some of it through Microsoft in order to get a much improved email experience.

 

[KALLT]

This is true, but let's think this through thoroughly. Your email is already stored on Google's servers. To use Outlook, some portion of it is now stored on Microsoft's servers as well. Do I trust Microsoft less with my data than Google? Not at all.

Email isn't a secure means of communication in any way shape or form. Given that I understand that, and treat email as that sort of communication medium, I'm happy to route some of it through Microsoft in order to get a much improved email experience.

In this case it is Microsoft, but there are many other email apps in the App Store and you need to consider to whom you are potentially giving unrestricted access – that’s what it is – to your email account. What happens when some of your emails disappear or are filtered? Who are you going to blame if not yourself?

That email isn’t a secure form of communication – actually that is not true if you are encrypting your mails with PGP or S/MIME – has nothing to do with the integrity of your account. Nobody can access all your mailboxes at once without access, only your provider with whom you have a relationship. With more and more and important correspondence via email, you might want to reconsider that statement.

All I’m saying is: don’t just give your email account credentials to anyone just because they promise you push email. Many people don’t understand how these apps work on iOS and probably presume that they work just like iOS Mail and don’t consider that a third-party server is put in between. Mailbox was a bit obscure about that as well. You might think that you are just entering your credentials so that the app can access the account, not that you are actually handing them over to a third-party server.

 

[benguild]

In this case it is Microsoft, but there are many other email apps in the App Store and you need to consider to whom you are potentially giving unrestricted access – that’s what it is – to your email account. What happens when some of your emails disappear or are filtered? Who are you going to blame if not yourself? This is almost like giving another company access to your letters when they still with

That email isn’t a secure form of communication – actually that is not true if you are encrypting your mails with PGP or S/MIME – has nothing to do with the integrity of your account. Nobody can access all your mailboxes at once without access, only your provider with whom you have a relationship. With more and more and important correspondence via email, you might want to reconsider that statement.

All I’m saying is: don’t just give your email account credentials to anyone just because they promise you push email. Many people don’t understand how these apps work on iOS and probably presume that they work just like iOS Mail and don’t consider that a third-party server is put in between. Mailbox was a bit obscure about that as well. You might think that you are just entering your credentials so that the app can access the account, not that you are actually handing them over to a third-party server.

I agree that it's stupid that you have to use any third-party app just to do push Gmail on iOS. And proxying it through a third-party is unnecessarily complicated.

It'd be nice if Google had grandfathered the accounts that were using Exchange before since that also did push calendar, but no!

 

[magicMac]

Google do not like working with Apple, even if it means googles own customers will end up with an inferior experience.

I'm sure if Google asked Apple if they could participate in the push notification scheme, Apple would allow it just like they do for AOL, Yahoo and many others.

This is also evident with google maps on iOS, yes Apple maps was not good at launch, but Google were leaving out major features on maps for iOS at the time, like turn by turn navigation, in order to make android seem better and leave Google customers with iOS devices with an inferior experience again. So Apple had no choice but to release their own service to stay competitive, it was just unfortunate that it wasn't ready at the time and they underestimated the work involved with creating a world wide reliable mapping service.

iCloud mail on the other hand works with any email application that supports IMAP idle. If there is any company keeping its users locked into its services, then it's Google.

 

[Coupz]

Download Spark Mail and enjoy reading all your accounts in one app.

Another company who saves your account passwords on their servers. Yay -_-

 

[Trahearne]

In this case it is Microsoft, but there are many other email apps in the App Store and you need to consider to whom you are potentially giving unrestricted access – that’s what it is – to your email account.

In fact, every app with push email, if not from the email service provider itself, has a cloud component that unavoidably stores your credentials due to Apple's platform limitations. Either one may hope Apple to build their own "iCloud Email Aggregator". *cough*

 

[campyguy]

Google dropped ActiveSynch in a bid to push you into there app. This was done so they could make money.

I respectfully disagree. At the time of the cutoff - MS was making significant changes to Exchange Server, as 2013 was a significant paradigm shift when Exchange Server 2013 was issued - I've owned Server 2007/2010 and now own a 2013 license.

I'll agree that money was the main issue relevant to eliminating "push" for free-tier users - MS's CAL costs are through-the-roof expensive - but not for the reason you're citing IMO. Google was spending a lot of coin on EAS CALs for all of us "free" users, so they did what they did with Maps - pay for licensing of a solution until they had their own solution up and running, with Google and MS extending from their original cutoff date of 1/31/13 to 7/31/13 so Google could get their IMAP and CalDAV/CardDAV systems up and running. Google wasn't making the switch to "make money" but, rather to cut the costs of doing business with MS. That's my 2¢. Cheers.

 

[sziehr]

I respectfully disagree. At the time of the cutoff - MS was making significant changes to Exchange Server, as 2013 was a significant paradigm shift when Exchange Server 2013 was issued - I've owned Server 2007/2010 and now own a 2013 license.

I'll agree that money was the main issue relevant to eliminating "push" for free-tier users - MS's CAL costs are through-the-roof expensive - but not for the reason you're citing IMO. Google was spending a lot of coin on EAS CALs for all of us "free" users, so they did what they did with Maps - pay for licensing of a solution until they had their own solution up and running, with Google and MS extending from their original cutoff date of 1/31/13 to 7/31/13 so Google could get their IMAP and CalDAV/CardDAV systems up and running. Google wasn't making the switch to "make money" but, rather to cut the costs of doing business with MS. That's my 2¢. Cheers.

This hold water except they no longer even let you pay them for active synch. They don't want to deal with it maybe or they make more money from scanning your email and ads.