IDLE support in iphone semi-confirmed?

[dashiel]

if you take a look at this page about leopard server they have a brief snippet about IDLE support

Mail services

For fast email access while on the go, Leopard Server supports IMAP IDLE to notify Leopard users immediately when new email arrives. For enhanced mail service reliability and scalability, Leopard Server supports Active/Active clustering when used with Xsan.

the important bit isn't the server supporting IDLE, but that they make the distinction that only leopard users get IDLE support. i believe iphone, if not complete based on leopard, certainly has lots of leopard DNA in it (core animation, quick look, etc...).

i know IDLE is specifically push, but from an end user experience it's almost identical.

 

[mkrishnan]

Well...that really just means that Mail.app in Leopard will have IDLE, right? IDLE is IDLE, from what I understand. If Leopard Server serves it, any mail application that supports it (Thunderbird, etc), should be able to make use of it.

Hopefully, you're right, and that implementation made its way to iPhone. However, it's important to note that Leopard Server supporting it is useless. Your IMAP server, which is most likely not running Tiger now and will not be running Leopard next year, has to support it.

How fast / widely is IDLE being rolled out? Do any major commercial e-mail apps, such as Outlook, etc, support it yet?

 

[travishill]

This is how Yahoo's push email is delivered (IMAP w/ IDLE support)- so yes the Mail client in the iPhone definitely supports IMAP w/ IDLE.

Exchange also supports IMAP w/ IDLE, so if your IT dept is cooperative, you can enable that and get push email that way as well...

 

[loudog40]

You're comparing an IMAP client (iPhone) with and IMAP server (Leopard Server). Regardless, it's seems to be common knowledge that iPhone will support IMAP IDLE which has been defined since 1997 (RFC 2177).

 

[dashiel]

You're comparing an IMAP client (iPhone) with and IMAP server (Leopard Server). Regardless, it's seems to be common knowledge that iPhone will support IMAP IDLE which has been defined since 1997 (RFC 2177).

no, i was pointing out that on the leopard server page it specifically states that leopard's client mail.app will support IDLE. tiger's mail.app does not without a plug-in. to this point there has been no confirmation that iphone's mail.app would support IDLE.

as i said you can't draw the direct conclusion that leopard's mail.app is going to be the iphone's mail.app, but based on the other leopard only technologies in iphone it is at least reasonable to conclude IDLE support will be available on the phone.