January 9, 2007
iPhone, Yahoo, IMAP, Push Mail – IDLE?
Congrats to Apple today for introducing the long awaited iPhone. It looks like it’ll be another few months before it gets into the consumer channel – but it looks pretty slick. I’m curious to try it out.
That said, there’s been a lot of hubbub today about how the iPhone will work with Yahoo to deliver push email. Here’s an example:
Business 2.0 Beta: Apple Favors Google and Yahoo, Freezes Out Microsoft
But Apple’s new iPhone was a vivid demonstration of what life in a post-Microsoft world looks like.Google (GOOG) for search, Yahoo (YHOO) for email, iTunes for music, and the Mac’s address book software for contacts – there’s no need for Microsoft software on the Web, on the desktop or even on the back end. Yahoo (YHOO) cofounder Jerry Yang pointedly mentioned that his company’s push-email solution, unlike the competition, doesn’t require installation of a Microsoft Exchange server.
(emphasis mine)
If I read this morning’s news right, the iPhone will be supporting IMAP – and will be communicating with Yahoo Mail via IMAP.
Guess what: IMAP has push capability baked into the protocol. It’s called IDLE, and it appears to have been published around June 1997. Here’s a link to RFC 2177.
Having worked on an e-mail client before, and as one of the few people who use IMAP extensively today – I’m mildly amused that this feature has finally broken through the noise.
It’s only taken 10 years. 
9 Comments to “iPhone, Yahoo, IMAP, Push Mail – IDLE?”
January 10th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
I’ll be interested to see how the billing will work with Cingular. Will it be their horrid nickle-and-dime to death they currently do, or did Steve negotiate something more ‘fair’ like a flat rate? As Gene pointed out recently, Cingular is raising their fee to send and receive text messages from 10¢ to 15¢ each. And what about internet usage if the iPhone can’t find free Wifi… or what if the WiFi drops in and out, will it switch to the Cingular network and start billing you? I was hoping Apple would somehow control this aspect of ‘the experience’ as well. I guess we’ll see.
January 10th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
IMAP requires an internet connection – it doesn’t use SMS.
Currently I have a flat rate data plan with Cingular for my Smartphone. It’s about $2x a month on top.
January 11th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
The question I have is does Exchange 2007 IMAP support push as well… Many enterprises have Exchange and will want to use iPhones… If they enable IMAP on Exchange will it support it ?
January 12th, 2007 at 3:06 am
“It’s only taken 10 years.”
IMAP IDLE got a little push (forgive the pun) last year when the IETF issued updated specs for IMAP and SMTP to make them more suitable for mobile devices. Part of that was including IDLE as part of the new ‘LEMONADE Profile’ (see http://www.lemonadeformobiles.com for more details). It’d be great to see Apple implement support for other parts of the LEMONADE Profile in the iPhone client, like forward without download and quick re-sync. I should decalre an interest here as my company sits on the IETF’s LEMONADE group and released the first fully compatible LEMONADE server last year.
JD asked: “If they enable IMAP on Exchange will it support it ?”
As far as I’m aware the email client on the iPhone is IMAP and it has IDLE support (some IMAP clients don’t). It should connect to any IMAP server regardless of that server’s support for IDLE or for any other part of the LEMONADE profile’s extensions to IMAP. If IDLE isn’t supported on the server then the push part won’t work but the basic IMAP delivery still will.
January 13th, 2007 at 7:44 am
It’s certainly about time – as someone who has more email accounts than I care to remember, I rely on IMAP daily as it allows to me to check and synchronise my mail from numerous machines and locations.
What really surprises me though, is the number of people in this industry who still haven’t heard of IMAP, let alone use it !
January 19th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
The Treo 650 has used IMAP IDLE push for years with Chattermail. It’s how we’ve gotten true push email on the Treo 600 and 650.
I believe Outlook Express also uses IMAP IDLE already and has for years. That’s why if you’re logged in to your IMAP account you get instant notification of your incoming email.
Kudos to Apple for taking advantage of it. And finally Yahoo got off their butts and started implenting IMAP in to their servers, I’ve been wanting this for years. I just hope I don’t have to have an iPhone to use IMAP on Yahoo. I’m not convinced on the iPhone, it feels like a step back from my WM5 Pocket PC phone.
January 24th, 2007 at 1:17 am
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June 12th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
My Windows Pocket PC phone discovered IMAP availability from Yahoo (imap.mail.yahoo.com) last week and it was working great until two days ago. Now the phone can’t log in to the IMAP server anymore.
I was really excited to get IMAP from Yahoo, so I hope this is just an intermittent bug.
June 12th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
That’ll be pretty darn expensive for Yahoo…
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