I've been looking around and can't find one...has anyone or can someone do a side by side test of the two in regards to batter life? I've only found theories and would like to see real world test on this.
It depends a little on what kind of push-enabled mail account you are using. If it's iCloud mail or gmail using the Gmail app, using push causes very little additional overhead, since it's handled over the same TCP connection as all the other services using Apple Push Notifications. If it's an Exchange account, the overhead will be a little higher since that uses a separate connection.
My guess would be that push is more efficient for most users than fetch with a small(ish) interval (less than an hour or so).
No, it uses APN. IMAP Idle is much too wasteful for mobile devices.I thought iCloud mail is pushed via IMAP IDLE, not Apple push notifications.
No, it uses APN. IMAP Idle is much too wasteful for mobile devices.