PUSH IMAP / IMAP IDLE on iOS

[zainjetha]

Hi Guys,

How many of you are frustrated with the lack of Push IMAP / IMAP Idle support on iOS? Really looking at moving to Fastmail from Hosted Exchange as in my opinion, IMAP is a better protocol especially as it supports syncing of drafts and also because it syncs better with Mail.app with IDLE enabled than Exchange accounts with Web Services do. (No EAS Support for Yosemite yet!)

I'd love for us all to tell Apple in this thread how much we want to see push IMAP for our iOS devices, it bugs me that it's not enabled. If it's doable for iCloud and Yahoo accounts, why should everyone else miss out? Unacceptable. And why should Microsoft products behave better on iOS devices than generic, industry-standard protocols such as IMAP. Let's speak up and tell Apple what needs to be done. Frankly I'm pissed off.

 

[LinMac]

I hope this isn't strictly against the rules because I have been curious about it before.

Is there a jailbreak tweak that enables this?

 

[PsyOpWarlord]

I'd love for us all to tell Apple in this thread how much we want to see push IMAP for our iOS devices, it bugs me that it's not enabled. <snip> Let's speak up and tell Apple what needs to be done. Frankly I'm pissed off.

Why would anyone expect Apple to come here and read this specific thread with people upset/ranting and take action?

You are better off just telling everyone to go to Apple's feedback page and post this a feature/enhancement. They are a lot more likely to see and take action if submitted properly.
https://www.apple.com/feedback/

 

[Trahearne]

The reason why Exchange ActiveSync is long lived is because enterprises use it together with Exchange. EAS is more than e-mails, calendar and contacts. IMAP is just about manipulating inboxes in the first place, and frankly speaking EAS is still the best widely-adopted protocol of its class so far, despite not letting you sync drafts.

I am using Exchange Online with Mail.app on iOS and Airmail on my Mac (polling though), and I would say I am happy with this configuration. IMO Push is less a requirement on the Mac, nor I think polling every a couple of minutes is a really bad idea as IM should be a better mean if you need instantaneity. But of course having it is nice.

Having said that, I am also curious to know why IMAP IDLE is not supported. I remember I've read IMAP IDLE has some deficiencies, like one TCP connection per monitored folder, complete list of changes pushed unnecessarily, etc. By the way, for iCloud Mail, I assume it uses APNS nowadays, since it was said to use XMPP instead of IMAP Idle for push e-mails back in iPhone OS 2.0. Not sure about Yahoo!. Perhaps Yahoo! provides mechanisms at their servers to push e-mails through APNS, and let Apple integrate in Mail.app.

P.S. You might want to try APNS-based email apps, like Acompli (part of Microsoft now) or CloudMagic. But you are required to store cerdentials on, or give permissions to, their servers to at least monitor your inboxes...

 

[csixty4]

Push/IDLE would be awesome, but don't let that stop you from switching to Fastmail. It's a great service, even if we're stuck polling our inboxes on iOS.

Totally off-topic, but their spam filtering isn't so hot. I'm looking at using Mailroute to do additional filtering.

 

[zainjetha]

I'm definitely going to move to Fastmail, as I've used them in the past before. My domain for my family has three users (2 of which are Outlook users) but thankfully XLIST is fully supported on Fastmail and Outlook - which means automatic of Sent, Junk, Trash and Drafts folders with. One of the two uses already has an Exchange account for work, so that will suffice for Contacts/Cal/Notes/Reminder syncing between iOS and Outlook and the other doesn't so I will have to find a solution there. And then there's me who uses only the Mail functionality of my Exchange account and iCloud for everything else.

I don't get much spam, so that wouldn't be a major concern to me. I'm thinking Fetch every half hour should be more than sufficient - understandably, battery life is a concern to me, or else I'd opt for every 15 minutes.

 

[zorinlynx]

IDLE IMAP requires a continuously open TCP connection. This is something that Apple has historically been against, as it tends to consume battery for two reasons:

1. Carrier NAT: Most carriers these days place cellular users behind a NAT. NAT requires state information on the carrier's router for every single TCP connection, which expires. This means that an open IDLE IMAP connection has to send keep alive packets periodically to avoid expiration. This wastes battery.

2. Every time you move between networks, from Wifi to cellular, or between two different Wifi networks, the connection has to be re-established due to your IP address changing. This also wastes battery, and can lead to delays in push E-mail.

It makes much more sense to simply check the E-mail box periodically; E-mail isn't a time sensitive communication method for 99% of people.

 

[zainjetha]

So, in essence, what you are saying Zorinlynx, is that I shouldn't hope for IMAP IDLE from Apple.

Emails aren't push - but I'd rather not have to wait half an hour for an email if possible when away from either of my two Macs.

I take it EAS doesn't require an open TCP connection? If it does, and they can implement it for a Microsoft product, it irks me as to why an industry-standard protocol such as IMAP would be 'placed below' a Microsoft-proprietary connection (though, granted, Exchange powers the vast majority of the corporate world).

 

[GreyOS]

So, in essence, what you are saying Zorinlynx, is that I shouldn't hope for IMAP IDLE from Apple.

Emails aren't push - but I'd rather not have to wait half an hour for an email if possible when away from either of my two Macs.

I take it EAS doesn't require an open TCP connection? If it does, and they can implement it for a Microsoft product, it irks me as to why an industry-standard protocol such as IMAP would be 'placed below' a Microsoft-proprietary connection (though, granted, Exchange powers the vast majority of the corporate world).

My understanding is EAS does have an open connection- not sure if TCP though, if that makes a difference.

APNS for ther push notifications requires an open connection.

So not sure how much of an argument that is for them not having IMAP idle on iOS.

I use iCloud email and would like my Mac read status to sync to my iPhone, which is not possible at the moment (only the other way around)