Okay. Fine. Our bestest buddies over at PreCentral.net are crowing over the rumor-revelation that the Palm Pre will support “push” Gmail via IMAP IDLE [Wikipedia link]. Not as robust as BlackBerry or Microsoft ActiveSync, they say, but yarly enough. And good for them.
Of course Google’s own mobile OS, Android, also enjoys push Gmail. Also fine and good and all that.
But where’s ours?
Gmail has been on the iPhone since day one — when Yahoo! offered push email to the iPhone — and has trucked along through year 2 — when Apple offered MobileMe and ActiveSync push in iPhone 2.0, and even Google offered ActiveSync for everything except Gmail (?!).
We’ve been patient. We’ve been true. We’ve used the freebie and the paid Google Accounts version. We’ve suffered Gmail’s ludicrous 10 simultaneous connection limits, its certificate errors, its “unknown email box (Inbox)” shenanigans. We’ve earned it, Google.
So, how about Apple board member Eric Schmidt stroll up on the WWDC stage — just like he did at Macworld 2007 — and announce push Gmail over either ActiveSync or IMAP IDLE (for those of us who already use our only ActiveSync account for a work-related Exchange server). Or put it out in a press release, or one line throw-away from Joz or Forstall. Really, we don’t care. Just give it to us.
Macworld is reporting that Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 will finally get IBM off of their current WebMail solution (see video above) and onto real support for real push email to the iPhone:
Early last year, Apple licensed ActiveSync so that businesses could push their corporate Exchange e-mail messages to iPhones. Since the ActiveSync client is already embedded in the iPhone, adding ActiveSync to the Traveler product was a good way to enable push Notes e-mail to the iPhone, [Ed Brill, director of end-user messaging and collaboration for IBM Lotus software] said.
Good on IBM.
We only have one question — hey, Google, if they above is true and ActiveSync client is just sitting there waiting, where’s our push Gmail?
Ask and ye shall receive, dig deep into the code and ye shall find fresh-baked Apple-y goodness.
No sooner did Apple drop iPhone 2.0 SDK Beta 5, than the developers began scouring it for any hint of what’s to come, and as usually TUAW serves up what they found:
A certain, unnamed individual sent us some pictures of the latest build of the iPhone firmware showing .Mac push e-mail. The picture shows the main Settings page with a new button: “Fetch new data.” When you click the button, you are taken to a list of your mail accounts, where you can choose between either “fetch” or “push.” According to Mr. Anonymous, while .Mac is offering push e-mail, you are currently not able to do contact or calendar syncing.
Boy, Apple is pushing the features fast and furiously. We already knew about “push” via the Microsoft licensed ActiveSync, which offers full Exchange support, but complementing that with .Mac for non-Exchange users? Very nice!
(Of course, much as I love Back-to-My-Mac, iSync, iDisk, and other .Mac features, it really needs a more competitive feature-set upgrade — Imagine Google-like offerings and capacities with Apple’s ease of use and integration! — especially for the rather steep $100 a year.)
