Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone
iMapIdle simulates push email on the iPhone
The IMAP IDLE protocol allows an IMAP email server to send out notification of new emails to a client. This means its a great way to implement a "push" email system that automatically sends messages out, instead of having to wait for the email client to poll the server (this is what happens, for example, when you set the "Check for new mail" interval in Mail.app). A new application called iMapIdle partially brings this functionality to the iPhone. Basically iMapIdle sits in the background listening for the IDLE commands ("even if you are in sleep/standby mode") and pops up an alert to tell you that email has arrived. You can then use the iPhone's built-in email application actually to get the mail.Needless to say, this requires a hacked iPhone, and since it uses more data transfer it may negatively affect battery life (that said, the IDLE protocol is very bandwidth efficient). The other consideration is that not all IMAP servers are set up with the IDLE protocol enabled. Many are, however, and I've used IDLE based push email on my Treo for quite some time via ChatterEmail. Furthermore, iMapIdle has specific support for Gmail. I should note, however, that I have not actually tested this myself.
iMapIdle is a free download (donations requested).
[via UNEASYsilence]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Evan Adnams said 2:41PM on 11-07-2007
Is it in any of the Sources in Installer? I dont like mucking around in SSH/ftp.
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Eric M. said 3:03PM on 11-07-2007
Another issue to remember is that an application that keeps the data link up will prevent you from receiving calls (on most parts of the ATT network)
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Kevin Barmish said 3:04PM on 11-07-2007
Touché this seems awesome would love if it came Installer.app
On another note, if we are using this should we disable the iPhone autocheck feature to eliminate redundancy?
Kevin
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Kevin Barmish said 3:05PM on 11-07-2007
Oh bummer, I'd love push, but need to get my calls!
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davpel said 3:51PM on 11-07-2007
I've been using this application for a few weeks and haven't experienced any problems receiving calls. Keep in mind that the constant connection is also part of Apollo, and there haven't been any reports of call problems with that app, either.
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jgjay said 4:16PM on 11-07-2007
WTF? Forgive my British non-iphone owning self, but I thought the iPhone already supported IMAP IDLE? If not, what was all this about Yahoo! offering "push email" for the iPhone - and how does that work if being continuously connected prevents calls from coming through.
I am very confused.
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PSM said 4:26PM on 11-07-2007
When exactly is .Mac going to support IDLE, anyway? Why do we pay $100/yr for second-rate e-mail services?
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JP said 4:38PM on 11-07-2007
i spend $100/year on second rate email, for the same reason I bought a $600 phone on opening night. . .because i'm stupid
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felix said 5:18PM on 11-07-2007
The annoying thing is the mail already supports IDLE on the iPhone, but Apple has seen fit to only enable it for Yahoo accounts instead of allowing it to work across IMAP accounts. Awesome.
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Joe Maller said 6:29PM on 11-07-2007
iPhone has supported IMAP Idle from day one, but only on wifi connections.
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davpel said 6:53PM on 11-07-2007
The iPhone does not support IDLE natively. Yahoo! "push" is accomplished by a sideband SMS triggering mail.app to do a pull.
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oshawapilot said 7:40PM on 11-07-2007
Can anyone give me an idea what sort of bandwidth I'd be looking at on a daily basis if I utilized this?
Thanks to our assinine data plans here in Canada I'm doing my best on 200 megs per month. If this is going to cost me a meg per day for the privlege then I'll pass.
If we're talking 50K or less, then I'll bite...it would be an awesome feature, and after having transitioned from a Hiptop/Sidekick (which had native push email) it would be nice to have it back again.
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ranova said 7:44PM on 11-07-2007
has anyone tried emoze on the iphone?
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/11/07/emoze-to-launch-pro-and-enterprise-push-email
I cant get emoze to work :/
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ranova said 7:47PM on 11-07-2007
also, anyone know how adversely this affects battery life since its a service running all the time in the background
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Greg Hartstein said 11:33PM on 11-07-2007
Since we're looking at email on the iPhone...is there any way to port a mail server to that platform? Postfix? A localhost mail stmp would be a huge benefit when on the move.
Anybody got any ideas on this one?
Greg
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Harry said 7:51AM on 11-08-2007
Hi,
maybe i am missing something here and it's a stupid question, but, for a service to 'push' mails to your phone, doesn't the service need to know your phonenumber ? so far i found no way of telling gmail my phone nummber, so, how does it know where to push it ?
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Shai said 1:54PM on 11-08-2007
add http://ride4.org/shai.xml to your installer sources. Check under Shai's Apps and you'll be able to install this of installer.app!
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ranova said 12:27PM on 11-08-2007
@16, you should read the article :)
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Harry said 7:07AM on 11-09-2007
@16:
:-) got it, as i said, it was probably a stupid question ;-)
application seem to work fine, would be nice if it would transfer the header of the mail also and not only a notification that you have new mail..but i'm not complaining :-)
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carlos oliva said 10:39PM on 11-12-2007
is there any way to contact the developer of this software? I just enabled IDLE support on my server and I've been playing around a little with it. Any chance for it to be opensourced? Also why is the keyboard input to sluggish on TUAW over the iPhone sometimes? It doesn't appear to happen on any other site
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