CONFIRMED - MobileMe Push Not Really/Always Push to iPhone

[ITGuy]

Hello,

I have been comparing my MobileMe web Inbox with my iPhone for quite some time and I have consistently observed the following behavior:

1) Mail read/unread count and status do not always match on the MobileMe web interface and on the iPhone.
2) Every time I enter the Mail application on the iPhone, network activity is triggered.
3) Every time I enter the Mail application on the iPhone, any new mail that has been sitting in the MobileMe web Inbox for quite a while is finally delivered the iPhone, and the bad read/unread count and status are corrected. This is Fetch, not Push.

I thought to myself that none of this should be happening if Push email was actually occurring 100% of the time. I contacted Apple to report this behavior and to find out what was going on.

The email I received from Apple explained exactly how MobileMe Push works with iPhone:

"The PUSH option is fully functional and updates as emails come in while the mail application is open and should have fairly instant updates. However, while the mail program is closed, the updates are not instant, so it is not unlikely that you will see those numbers inconsistent with what actually comes up when you open the mail program."​

So there you have it right from Apple. Immediate MobileMe Push to iPhone only happens when the Mail application is open, and a delayed Push or Fetch occurs when Mail isn't running. It may also appear that Fetch is triggered when you launch the Mail application on the iPhone.

It is not unreasonable to expect that Push email, calendar, and contact updates must occur fairly instantly AT ALL TIMES, no matter what application may or may not be currently running on the iPhone. Hopefully this will all work instantly as expected just like on a BlackBerry when Apple deploys the Push notification services, along with an updated iPhone Firmware.

For the most part, this is not the end of the world. I am VERY happy that I can simulate Push Gmail with the iPhone using MobileMe to accomplish this. I am using a Gmail Filter rule to forward all non-spam messages to MobileMe. All messages sent from the iPhone appear as if they were sent from my Gmail account, and the messages also appear in my Gmail Sent items and Gmail conversation threads. Steps to accomplish this: 1) Configure your Gmail Account on the iPhone and confirm that you can send/receive mail, 2) Disable your Gmail Account on the iPhone, 3) Configure your MobileMe Account on the iPhone with Push settings enabled and confirm you can send/receive mail, 4) Under your MobileMe account settings, disable the MobileMe Outgoing SMTP Mail Server, 5) Under your MobileMe account Outgoing SMTP Mail Server settings, enable the Gmail SMTP Server (smtp.gmail.com), 6) Sign into Gmail and create a Gmail Filter rule (-subject:"Quarantined Spam Messages") to forward all your non-spam messages from your Gmail account to your MobileMe email address. You may need to ensure this rule is the first Filter rule if you want all messages sent to MobileMe. Enjoy!

Once Apple gets this Push technology working 100% as expected, this will all be perfect. Lets hope that happens sooner than later.

Cheers,

ITGuy

 

[d21mike]

The email I received from Apple explained exactly how MobileMe Push works with iPhone:

"The PUSH option is fully functional and updates as emails come in while the mail application is open and should have fairly instant updates. However, while the mail program is closed, the updates are not instant, so it is not unlikely that you will see those numbers inconsistent with what actually comes up when you open the mail program."​

This is not correct. In the past I have contacted many customer service reps from different companys and I normally take the stand of "trust but verify".

Push Email is Instant (within seconds) when it works properly. The problem is that Push has not been working very well for some customers, including you. But this answer is simply not how PUSH Email works on the iPhone.

For me and others, most of the time PUSH Email works very well.

 

[robanga]

I get push all of the time without the mail app being open- I can hear the chime of mail coming in. This is both via exchange server push and MobileMe push to my .mac/.me box.

I think your support person was confused.

 

[southerndoc]

Although push is a nice feature to have, for most of us it's not a necessity. Apple is targeting the average consumer, not the time-critical business person in its marketing of MobileMe.

Most consumers are understanding when push doesn't work 100% of the time.

 

[ITGuy]

Hi,

The response I quoted verbatim above was received after several days of escalation within Apple. I didn't deal with a first level support rep. This response came directly from a Customer Relations officer at Apple Headquarters who has access to all appropriate groups, including Engineering. He got back to me after several days after I explained what I was seeing.

Based upon my observations noticed still to this day, I would have to agree with the explanation that was provided after escalation. Yes, new mail is delivered to the phone when the Mail application is not running. It is not 100% immediate Push. Launch the Mail application and you will observe network traffic, just like when Mail is configured for a Fetch based POP mail account. This will cause any mail that has been sitting in the web interface to be delivered, and read/unread counts and status will be corrected when this occurs. Push means that mail delivery is always initiated from the cloud (in near realtime), not from the handheld. The read/unread status and count should also always remain synchronized in near realtime. This is corrected only when new mail arrives on the iPhone or when you initiate the connection to MobileMe by launching the Mail application. This behavior is a combination of Push and Fetch as was communicated to me by Apple Customer Relations.

As I mentioned, I am happy with how things are working. Don't get me wrong on that count.

-ITG

 

[ITGuy]

Hi Robanga,

What you are experiencing falls in line with what was communicated to me. Yes, new MobileMe mail is Pushed to your iPhone and you hear the chime. It however could potentially be Delayed Push. As the Customer Relations officer mentioned, "However, while the mail program is closed, the updates are not instant."

-ITG

 

[kevin512]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

I get instant push MM email to my iPhone with the mail.app closed. I just tested this and it took 2-3 seconds.

 

[d21mike]

Hi,

The response I quoted verbatim above was received after several days of escalation within Apple. I didn't deal with a first level support rep. This response came directly from a Customer Relations officer at Apple Headquarters who has access to all appropriate groups, including Engineering. He got back to me after several days after I explained what I was seeing.

Based upon my observations noticed still to this day, I would have to agree with the explanation that was provided after escalation. Yes, new mail is delivered to the phone when the Mail application is not running. It is not 100% immediate Push. Launch the Mail application and you will observe network traffic, just like when Mail is configured for a Fetch based POP mail account. This will cause any mail that has been sitting in the web interface to be delivered, and read/unread counts and status will be corrected when this occurs. Push means that mail delivery is always initiated from the cloud (in near realtime), not from the handheld. The read/unread status and count should also always remain synchronized in near realtime. This is corrected only when new mail arrives on the iPhone or when you initiate the connection to MobileMe by launching the Mail application. This behavior is a combination of Push and Fetch as was communicated to me by Apple Customer Relations.

As I mentioned, I am happy with how things are working. Don't get me wrong on that count.

-ITG

Again, the support rep is mistaken. You can believe that 1 person if you want. However, that means you have to ignore all of us here that are using the same product every day with a different experience.

Push Email means that the email is PUSHED to your phone as soon as possible after the server receives the mail. This has nothing to do with you other mail applications on the desktop. Of course if the server is busy or down then you would not get it immedicately.

However, I believe that there may be other aspects that are not considered Push that maybe the support rep is referring to. Like maybe deleted mail. Lets say you delete a mail message on anther mail client, I don't believe that a Push is sent to your phone to indicate that the mail was deleted. I believe you may have to enter your mail application to see this. I gave this example just to say that maybe there are other aspects of mail that is not instant push. For me, I am only concerned that mail is pushed. These other updates are not that important to me.

As far as Push not being important to people other then business people. I prefer that my phone does not connect to the server unless it needs to download mail. This is why I prefer Push over Fetch which requires a connection every 15 min or so just to check and see if I have any mail to be download.

 

[kvasir]

I'm going to have to agree with everyone else here. I sent myself an email from my gmail account to my MobileMe account...2 seconds after I hit send. Mail was not open on my iPhone and I hadn't touched it in hours.

I've never had any issues with push email on the iPhone. Looks like your experience doesn't jive with what others are saying.

 

[tallyho]

I've never had any issues with push email on the iPhone. Looks like your experience doesn't jive with what others are saying.

Good for you. I think the annoying thing is the unpredictable nature of push email at the moment. If I send myself a test email then sometimes it will arrive literally after only a couple of seconds. However, a lot of the time my phone will show no new mails, but when I open iPhone's mail app it connects to the server (and tells me that that is what it is doing) and suddenly I have several new emails, some of which were sent hours ago. I've tried all the ideas mentioned on these forums (removing my mobileme account from my phone, restoring, etc etc etc) and the fact remains that sometimes push email is instant and a lot of the time it simply is not, and that opening the mail app seems to initiate a fetch, and the arrival of emails that have not been pushed. The same goes for calendars - I can add an event to iCal and it gets synced upwards to the cloud (if I open the .me web app it will be there), but it will often take hours to appear on my iPhone. The difference is that there is no refresh or fetch button in the iphone's calendar app. Very annoying!

 

[TLewis]

It however could potentially be Delayed Push. As the Customer Relations officer mentioned, "However, while the mail program is closed, the updates are not instant."

I'm sure that's what you were told, but the support guy really is confused.

For example, some of us do NOT run a mail program (like me), yet we get "instant" push to the iPhone. I've gotten push email in less than a minute. I think one or two messages even arrived in under 10 seconds. (On the other hand, push has sometimes taken hours. )

 

[stonedgrace]

I think they might be saying that the notification is pushed instantly, but the actual email is not received until the mail program is opened.

I get my notification almost instantly, but i have to wait for the email to load.

 

[tallyho]

I'm sure that's what you were told, but the support guy really is confused.

For example, some of us do NOT run a mail program (like me), yet we get "instant" push to the iPhone.

How do you read your mail on your iPhone then? The "mail program" they are talking about is the iPhone's mail app, not a mail app on a desktop/notebook mac or pc...

 

[TLewis]

How do you read your mail on your iPhone then? The "mail program" they are talking about is the iPhone's mail app, not a mail app on a desktop/notebook mac or pc...

Bleh, you're right. I kept on reading that as "mail.app". My bad.

Anyway, stonedgrace has it right.