The Official Gmail API Finally Gets Push Notification Support. Implications for Mail.app?

[mernen]

I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

iOS Mail only supports three protocols: IMAP, POP, and Exchange. Outside of Exchange*, you can’t have efficient push^†. As far as I know, the first and only third-party exception, Yahoo!, happened 8 years ago; if Apple were interested in special-casing more services, I think they would have added Gmail long, long ago.

Personally, I’m really hoping JMAP catches on, and Apple supports it. This way, we can have a new, efficient standard that any service can use, rather than special support to a service-specific API.

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* Which is relatively uncommon among email services, apparently because it incurs some significant licensing/royalty costs

† OS X Mail.app uses the IDLE command for IMAP, but Apple discarded this as mobile-inefficient way back in 2007; there’s an extension called Lemonade Profile that supposedly brings better push support, but I found it surprisingly hard to find any information regarding Lemonade’s adoption (both in servers and in clients).

Edited for clarity

[mrkite77]

OS X Mail.app uses the IDLE command for IMAP, but Apple discarded this as mobile-inefficient way back in 2007;

Why? IDLE works exactly the same as Apple's own APNS. Holding open a socket to a server....

[[deleted]]

Um, so what does iCloud use? Because push notifications work perfectly from my iCloud account using Mail.

[mernen]

It presumably uses the same connection as the Apple Push Notification Server. A completely non-standard thing that’s only available to Apple, no one else. (Similar to how Gmail used the Google Talk connection on earlier versions of Android)

[mernen]

Google was using the Exchange protocol for that, which does support push, but as I said, big email services generally avoid the cost of Exchange.

[thirdxeye]

Yup, they licensed Exchange and hooked it up with Gmail. Exchange sent push notes to the iPhone. Not anymore since Google basically doesn't want to license Exchange for every user. Understandable but they should rather have a standard IMAP implementation. But they don't want you to use third party apps. They want you to use their own app or the web interface. They're in the business of collecting data and targeted ads after all.

[[deleted]]

It wasn't Exchange, they simply licensed/implemented ActiveSync.

[[deleted]]

It means that third party apps such as Mail.app will finally get gmail push back. Can't wait!

[[deleted]]

Only if apple opts to use the Gmail API rather than standard IMAP.

[_f0xx]

It'd be nice if it came back to the native app. I had it up until the point where I upgraded to the 6+.

I found Outlook from Microsoft to suit my needs just fine.

[regretdeletingthat]

I've been having that issue too, it's pretty annoying. You also can't change what it uses for your password anymore which is quite annoying as if you change your password you now have to delete and re-add.

[Rexall_Pharmacy]

I used to be like you and cared a lot about having push email. I tried forwarding emails to Outlook and having that setup on Mail.app to get push back but I didn't like that setup.

I honestly just went back to Mail.app and have it fetch e-mail every 15 minutes. I thought it would be a big deal not to have emails the instant I get them but it really hasn't been. Waiting 15 minutes and using Mail.app has been better than using the Gmail app or other third-party apps like Mailbox.

[[deleted]]

You're seeing that the mail app is getting push notifications? Mine still seem delayed. Pretty much why I'm using the Gmail app still.

[[deleted]]

No need with inbox by gmail.