Missing Option: I WOULD love Push email except that I use Gmail which doesn't yet support it.

moo083

@thadude: OK. So it is kind of IM-ish for you, part of an ongoing present conversation.

The thing is, as you suggest, there is this weird email phenomenon, a kind of Law Of Second Response, that's set as soon as a person who receives a first email replies. The time period to the second response tells the original sender how long they have to respond back.

So, for example, if I email someone and they respond in half an hour, I feel compelled to respond in around half an hour.

However, if I email someone and they respond in 3 days, I know I have around 3 days to respond to their email.

In reverse, I've noticed that the time interval I take to respond to someone's initial email often determines the time interval of their reply.

Therefore, by their response, the second person sets the rule for how long both parties generally have to respond to each other's emails for all eternity.

frigg

Am I the only one that doesn't think the whole mobile me push email system isn't working that great. I don't seem to get email instantly if I test it and I can't get my iCal to sync to my phone.

Is anyone else having probs?

IrritatedJones

I just turn off the email alert on my Palm Centro.

Razta

@kickassy: I'm confused... what does that have to do with battery life? o_O

cloudnine

@mullingitover: That's assuming that everyone can get/send email on their phone. Not everyone can. But everyone can send/receive SMS...

anti-hello-kitty

Pass on push. I know some people, like my fiance, who loves receiving emails all the time. I would rather check on my own time, not all day long.

innout3x3

@cloudnine: Look at the pic carefully. Fetch is only activated if push is off. People turn push off if like Mr. Fallon here who finds a constant stream of emails every day soul killing so he likes to have 15 minute breaks. :)

kickassy

Oh, btw, reminds me of this soong whenever people mentions Push to me...

+ Watch video

Noobs-R-Us

Push email is an absolute deal breaker for me and it is really pissing me off that the iPhone does not support it. Because I want one. And I am trying to rationalize losing all the Blackberry email features and can't.

Shit Apple should just buy RIM.

noamjamski

@thadude: Sure if it is a yes/no reply but if a message requires quick discussion which most do, can you really type quicker on your iphone than you can speak?

kickassy

Push sucks up a lot of juice on my Touch. Even when it's in sleep mode. So I keep it turned off now. I use it as a Pull device now, much better.

Noobs-R-Us

@mullingitover: Amen, and well said! I feel the same way, and I always thought that was Apple's whole MO behind the iPhone not supporting MMS.

SuperCollider

@stokessd:

I thought the idea of Push was that email was sent to you instantly from the server instead of you having to check... ergo, it was easier on the battery than manually checking?

But feel free to slap my ass and call me crazy if I'm wrong. Just make sure to do it hard.

cloudnine

@frigg: It becomes both, once both parties know you can respond immediatly it becomes the expectation. In my case I need it immediatly because in 15 minutes 20 people could have responded and I would be completely out of sync with whats going on. If you called someone would you expect to wait 15 minutes to talk to them? When you have push email it replaces the phone and allows you to multi task. I personally hate using the phone because an email would suffice and take up less of my time and let me do other things.

thadude

I don't like push email. Push implies aggression. I don't want aggressive people sending files to my phone. People pushing their way into my life and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Sure, there's filters, but they break through that barrier. Pushing? Push off is all I got to say. No thanks.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

I haven't gotten onboard Push yet. I don't want my life to become a work zombie.

I like enjoying my social life without checking e-mails or writing them on the fly all the time

CutePuppyz

@thadude: I'll take your word for that. I guess. But how much of that is expectation vs. actual use. In other words, do you actually need to receive a constantly flow of immediate emails as they're sent, or do you just expect it because you're used to it, and with few exceptions would be perfectly fine getting email harvests every 15 minutes?

On the other hand, I guess it's almost like push email becomes IM-ish.

frigg

That is to say I configured it for push during business hours, pull after hours.

Just out of curiosity can you schedule push/pull on the iphone?

BaseVilliN

I like push. I like to respond quickly most of the time. After work I have it set to fetch every 15 mins. (Treo)

BaseVilliN

@frigg: anyone that uses email for business.. which happens to be a very large part of the smartphone market..

thadude

I like it, but it's eating the battery on my first gen phone. So I do manual checks.

stokessd

As I'm addicted to email, the Internet, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. it's hard not to go 5 minutes without hitting the update button anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter too much.

GeekyNerdGuy

@nutbastard: I. A. Gree.

Also, why is everyone all up in arms cause it's not real push since it takes 15 minutes instead of 15 seconds from the computer side? How many people can't want 14 minutes and 45 seconds for an email (or retrieve it manually if urgent)?

frigg

Email is far superior to SMS, and it's free. Push email makes email a replacement for SMS. No-brainer. I wish everyone would quit using retarded, 150-character-limit SMS and use email. Screw the ridiculous ten cents per message fee, and you can attach photos too so it's better than MMS.

Death to SMS, viva push email.

mullingitover

couldn't care less. if i want to see if someone emailed me, i'll go check my email.

nutbastard

Push email is an absolute requirement in a corporate requirement, it is useful everywhere else as well. People who either hate push email or think they don't need it either are bad at managing their time or really don't have the true experience of push on a bberry. Push email is no different than polled email (pull) except that you have some idea ahead of the time you actually want to check your email, that email is there waiting for you (bing!). Its that simple, just because the alarm goes off doesn't mean you have to read it right away.

As much as I want to love the iphone 3g, its crappy email support just keeps it in the bush leagues of useful tools. I for one love and use push email all the time, it brings email closer to the experience of IM but without the risks of IM (information loss). I can get emails, filter them, respond when I want, and create new collaborations on the fly (starting new meetings, etc) all while NOT being at my desk. Many of the conversations that I have in email could not be had any other way as either one of the parties always seems to be tied up in meetings, other phone calls, etc. Being able to bang out an email, get an answer, and respond all without the hassle of *having* to check my email makes it completely indispensable.

earthling

I have to be on top of every email I receive as a national sales manager. I am constantly seen with my phone in my hand checking emails. My friends hate me because of it. but they aren't making a fraction of my salary, so it all works out in the end.

g2drummman

@Aubin: That is completly wrong. With filters you can setup every situation possible. Modify your profile and you can control even more.

thadude

I just don't need business emails pushed to me immediately. If something is urgent, I'll get a call. No one relies on email for time sensitive matters, do they?

Totorototoro

I stopped using push because it seemed to be overheating my 1st gen iphone. Whenever I have it on, the phone gets abnormally hot.

CColdsmoke

So why does it matter if you see the email immediately or not? I would rather have real time sync b/t my device and the exchange server.

alexh123

Oh Go to many answers i don't know what to choose!

Mike918

It's all about the phantom vibrations...hate it.

capitalass

I use it selectively; I use push (via mobileme) for certain things, but I use manual checks when I just want to keep up. The one thing that bugged me about my BlackBerry was that there was no way to maintain a "hybrid" setup; you either push out everything, important or not, or nothing.

At least here, I can have emergencies/high priority/lawyers go to Push and check everything else when I feel like it.

Aubin

every 15 minutes is enough for me. if someone needs to talk to me RIGHT NOW they should friggin' call me.

lostarchitect

Thats what filters are for..oh wait.. iphones dont have filters..

thadude

@g2drummman: if your friends hate you, are they your friends? Or do they just tolerate your presence? (which is more than I could probably manage)

bpapa9013

I'm pissed, it takes around 15 min for my "push" messages to get to my phone!

danmandle

It's not even that I like push e-mail, but I LOVE push contacts and push calendar. I pretty much never have to sync my phone anymore. And either way, I have e-mail notification chimes shut off, so I just look when I need to.

ScottyF311

I like push mainly because when I'm doing something time consuming (commuting, waiting in line) it reminds me that I can be keeping up with my inbox.

phlavor

I manually check it so much it doesn't even matter. Seriously, the iPhone gives me internet everywhere I go. I haven't yet water-proofed my iPhone and started checking it while in the shower, or doing it with my wife. That would probably mean I have a problem.

mykalt45

I have NO idea what push is, all I know is that I have my iphone set to fetch and to check for new mail every 30min and it works for me.

gamecrazychris

@kickassy: I use a blackberry..

thadude

@mullingitover: Amen.

schwnj

I got mine on hourly on my iPod or else I would forget I had email lol

SDreamer

Push e-mail is great for those bathroom breaks you take at work.

Nothing like getting your e-mails pushed when you're "pushin 'em out." :-)

djkibblesnbits

I want it for push CALENDAR and CONTACTS, not email... but that's not in the survey.

With my old Nokia e62, circa 2007, when I walked into my office, it synced via Bluetooth. My calendar was always up to date. I only had to plug it in to charge it. I want to be able to edit my calendar on my PC and have it sync w/ my iPhone, and vice versa. Email is secondary.

MacTodd

"No one relies on email for time sensitive matters, do they?"

99.9% of all e-mails arrive within seconds if not less. Damn right people rely on e-mail for time sensitive matters.

regexp

It's all about options. Rather, it's all about having less limitations on the device. More options=better but you don't have to use it if it doesn't suit you. I don't use my .me account for anything but it's nice to know I can forward other accounts to that address if I'm waiting on something and have to leave the home office for a while.

To the SMS/MMS point, I agree email is the nicer, better alternative but if the folks I regularly communicate with don't have the same capabilities in their device as I do then I'm assed out when it comes to the drunk MMS'ing. I miss being able to send bar pics to friends at home in effort to entice them out and vise-versa.

Push=good. Exchange support=awesome. My company is now quasi supporting the iPhone so I'm completely stoked on that point.

virtualmatt

Love, Love, Love. Everything is working for me know.

CEOself

There's two options missing from this poll.

1) I love push email (I have a LOT of email)
2) Push is great, having options is GREATER!!! I use both!

I use both. I have it off for the most part and turn it on when I need to stay on top of emails.

JEmlay

Can someone tell me the difference between MoMe's PUSH email and just setting up GMail to run IMAP??

So far, it seems the same to me. Actually GMail works better.

homerjay

+ Watch video

BostonPimpDaddy

@Noobs-R-Us: This Push It video is better:

BostonPimpDaddy

1) Push email tells you that you have a mail message, instantly. Great.
2) You then have to click on "mail" to read that email. Fine.
3) When you click on mail (on an iPhone at least) it fetches your mail at that moment. So once you go into mail, it was irrelevant whether you had push or not as your going to now get your email either way.

So push email does NOT allow you to be more/less lazy in terms of button pushes and such. Push email comes down to one thing and one thing only: can you wait (at most) 15 minutes before knowing you have an email? If you can, then push email is absolutely useless to you. If you can't, well, that's a whole other discussion of SMS vs. email....

Padriac

@anti-hello-kitty: That's true, some of my friends are still using crippled phones, which is why I'm happy to see the iphone setting the new standard. In a couple years from now smartphones will be the norm.

mullingitover

I love push for my business email, but what I don't like on the iPhone is that even if I set my other spammy personal accounts to "manual", every time I check my business email it downloads mail to all my other accounts.

So I either have to do the iPhone email folder dance and manage those other accounts 30 times a day or I have to live with a mail icon that always says I have 40 unread messages (which makes it worthless).

Why can't "manual" actually mean manual? If I want to check that account, I'll open the inbox and hit the refresh/check mail button...

How about a "check once a day" option for interval?

GenericWhiteGuy

i switched from push to once an hour. it seems to have improved my 3g battery life noticeably but can't tell if i've just been using my phone less

ny_effect

@thadude: What do you mean it doesnt have filters. I use 4smartphone.net and create the "rules" within Entourage to have EMAIL X always go in a particular folder. This way all my important emails are sent to my inbox which will trigger a noise/vibrate.

@noamjamski: What do you mean the iPhone doesnt support it? If you're being sarcastic I didnt get the joke.

I love push email because I am lazy. The phone does all the work for me. I just pick it up and the email is there, no need to press refresh/update. The fetch thing is cool but wouldnt be better to get the email as soon as it is sent to you?

I think alot of the iPhone users should check out www.4smartphone.net. It costs money but after hearing how bad of experience you all are having with Mobile Me its worth a try.

pdditty

i hate people who obsess over push e-mail to the point where they stop mid-sentence to check they're fucking iPhone for the unimportant message they just received. while some folks may need it more than others, it made the average joe become more obsessed with their phone because of the the auto-notification e-mails being sent from their facebook and myspapace pages on how their friends changed their mood. what a bunch of crap.

while it has its use, and I have my non-jesus-phone t-mobile crapness dash checking during business hours when i'm typically in front of my machine anyway. it then becomes useful to me when i'm on the road at a meeting.

sometimes i think we're all just way too connected and have nothing to say to each other when we meet face to face.

livin1984

I like the idea of push, but I really don't need it. Actually, for some reason, Gmail has been getting to my phone almost instantaneously lately - I have it set to check every 15 minutes, but for some reason it's crazy fast. I saw somebody bring up "idle" the other day and thought maybe that has something to do with it.

itchytooth

@Sean Fellon:

"I don't know about you, but I receive far too many emails to be messing around with push email."

You're joking right? That's why it's there. That's why Blackberrys were invented. Because people get tons of emails and they want them right away.

What the hell is the matter with you?

eighteesix

Push email is one of the primary reasons I did not make the switch to the first-generation iPhone. I absolutely loathe the idea of having to sit there and download my messages, especially on a cell phone.

I personally receive quite a bit of email coming from a number of sources from personal accounts to business accounts. I usually don't mind the constant chime at all. When I do mind it, however, I simply put my phone on silent. I care much less about phone calls than I do emails.

Gilbert

HA HA "cheeper"@willyboy:

willyboy

@mullingitover: I agree... Plus, I use Skype for most of my phone calls through Fring on the 1 gen iPhone.... I am near a wifi connection 90 percent of my waking day...Cheeper than a phone plan...

willyboy

@BostonPimpDaddy: Sorry, no homo necro action for me thanks...

Noobs-R-Us

Being accustomed to Japan's MMS, Push Mail to me is just a replacement. And that's important 'cos Japan doesn't allow cross provider SMS. I just wished that Push Mail alerts could be customised.

AnakChan

I actually turned it off day 1 and forgot it existed.
I'm afraid it may lower battery life...

ocha

On my ipod touch (with 2.0 installed) it only lets me choose fetch or manual for email (gmail) :(

SkipBlue

I love push email for business...I hate push email for personal email accounts.

JPropaganda

@eighteesix: When you get tons of spam for one thing. Some people don't have to jump on every email right away and I would rather not be a douche that checks his email every five seconds.

Sean Fallon

@Padriac:
Not quite so true on a BlackBerry. When a message is received (and alert if desired), if you draw your BB from the holster, it will automatically pull up the message. IM, PIN, and SMS/MMS is handled the same way.

ConstyXIV

I have a BlackBerry. It has four email addresses on it:
1) My GMail, pushed. General stuff. Vibe and blinker
2) School email. Done however the hell it handles OWA. Blinker only, because I rarely get important stuffs through it
3) ISP email. Pulled over POP at the BIS. No alert. Address given to websites and people deemed unimportant.
4) @*.blackberry.net address. Pushed (naturally). Vibe, blinker, and sound. Used only when I'm needed NOW, and a phone call or IM won't do.

ConstyXIV

@MacTodd:

I want it for push CALENDAR and CONTACTS, not email... but that's not in the survey.

thats all i really want as well. push email is take it or leave it really. i haven't even decided how i will bother checking mail on an iPhone anyway.

i don't particularly like IMAP... i don't *need* to read every message on a freaking phone... i guess maybe i'll just set the needed accounts up POP style when i go on vacation maybe (and lack a laptop). but for other times? no clue. probably a dedicated "phone-only" email (probably @me.com if i get that for calendar/contact sync) and then forward other accounts as needed.

i can't think of a single thing in an email that can't wait 15 minutes. during the day i normally hit the button a few times prior to 15 minutes being up out of habit... and still rarely see things that couldn't have waited the extra 7 minutes or whatever for a normal scheduled check.

i guess maybe that is because our office has an internal Jabber server ... so any Blackberry-style running conversations with instant delivery and response take place on a system designed for that exact purpose... IM. never saw the need to force something to act like something else that already exists.

now... how about an iPhone Jabber client...? come on developers... it has been nearly a week already!

x23

If I can ever get a friggin iphone I will let you know if I like or hate push email..........what a joke.......Stevie boy should have taken pre-orders the minute he announced it a WDC '08. He would have had our money and a clue as to how many and what flavor people wanted!!!! So sad

bplives

The fact that the iPhone's Exchange support does not "push" e-mails that are in subfolders makes this feature a real deal breaker for most biz customers. If you have subfolders in your inbox, and then filter (using rules) any of your incoming e-mails into those folders, they'll never be pushed to your phone. Everybody who gets more ten 20-30 e-mails a day uses rules to filter and subfolders to organize their inboxes. Big issue that I'm surprised apple didn't find with their beta tests…

OrnellaBabalindo

I've been using Gmail's IMAP on my WinMo HTC phone for a while now. Works great for me. Checks enough to stay in the know, but not too much to kill the battery

Norcross

@Padriac: With Push email I only get notified when an email comes. No email I dont check the mail app. Why have it check 4-6 times an hour if theres no email waiting for you. It does help me a more productive person. Check this example out.

Lets say someone sends you an email at 9:01 and your iPhone fetches email every 15 mintues on top of the hour. So you missed the first fetch but then you go somewhere where you dont have Cell service or Wi-fi (riding the subway, basements, various office buildings). You hop on the subway at 9:11 and your on there for some time and get out the subway station at 9:35. You just missed two fetches and next fetch will happen 9:45 but with true push you would have been reading that email while you were riding the subway.

I know I broke it down but you can see where push email is more of an effective tool than fetch. I love push, as I can see its not for everyone but it works for me.

pdditty

I agree, for me the biggest drain on my 3G's battery was push, which I now have turned off. It did work well, but I awoke to a nearly dead battery as it collected emails.

tzakiel

If i could push gmail to my smartphone it would be very handy
then i won't miss my latest messages otherwise i keep hitting refresh when i am bored

even when pushed i check the message later

TBM-Fan

I find mobileme a little slow for push mail compared to my old Blackberry. I too run my business primarily through email so push is important to me. It's also a power saver if the iPhone doesn't have to poll for email. even if you're polling every hour that's still more power used than push if you received no email within that polling interval. The other annoying thing is that it stops being push mail when you switch from Cell to WiFi...WTF? That makes no sense. Just let it stay on push. Maybe 2.1

clyde_turkey

you guys are hilarious. Everybody who is complaining is most probably using the iPhone as a consumer not in a corporate world. You need push email in the corporate world - i on the other hand can not work without it. if you are annoyed by the constant ding or vibration TURN IT OFF - put it on mute. You guys make me laugh

3lixir

Push e-mail is only useful because:

a) north american networks have shitty cell phone data service, and
b) your phone / pda / mobile computing apparatus is too stupid to use IMAP properly.

Both of these are fixable, but only if people stop buying into shitty half-measures like push e-mail. :P

unit3

You guys make a vaild point, push does have its pro and cons. I guess it really works if it applies to your particular situation.

pdditty

It annoys me. I'm at my desk and I get vibrations that alert me to email that's about to come to my desktop computer in 5...4...3...2... there it is. I'd rather save my vibrations for SMS. Email can wait. If you emailed me, you're willingly committing yourself to my email queue. If it's REALLY important, call me. Our Exchange server also stores a office and cell number for just about everyone worth talking to.

aquaosx

@pdditty: Push email seems to have the same problem as email on a phone in general: not every phone can do it and thus you are slave to the capabilities of those around you.

I wish the whole world had push email on their phone so I could literally stop sending SMS for good. But they don't, so I can't. Hell, I'd settle for the whole world having fetch email on their phone so I could send pictures and stuff that way. But they don't, so I can't.

Me personally: I don't know what kind of email can't wait 15 minutes. Perhaps I'm old school, but anything more urgent then that would merit a SMS from me. Push is great, but until it's ubiquitous it's going to be a hit-or-miss depending on who you're sending/receiving to/from.

Padriac

My iphone doesn't get push email.

Scuba Steve

im still a little confused with this push email stuff. So the old iphone got mail. IF i use the same email address for my phone and my computer and i get an email sent to me it will go to both. So what will push email do any differently. Is the only thing different that if i delete a message on my phone it will also delete it on my computer. i dont get the difference between push and regular.

tkohrs2002

Push is the way to go for me. The down side of manually checking email is that you don't know when something important comes in until you manually check. With push you may get non-important emails but you'll always get the important ones in a timely manner.

I also like Push because I don't have to remember if or when I last checked. Email comes, if and only if I have email. With manual you check whether you have anything or not.

cowboyshootist

I was surprised to learn that so many people need push email. What's wrong with pop email? Imap? Dayam.

navvywavvy

I'm coming into the conversation here late, so I'm surprised no one's mentioned this yet. Internet mail was never designed to be a synchronous message delivery protocol. Check the RFCs, etc. Add in DNS block lists, Bayesian content filters, and best of all, gray listing, and you have what amounts to a relatively unreliable messaging system, one with no guarantees for delivery at all, never mind timely deliver.

Does it work surprisingly well? I think everyone would agree it does. But is it reliable, or timely? No. So, how can push e-mail be a "necessity?" I can't imagine anyone using medical or other systems with real needs for urgent notification using e-mail at all, actually.

theody

@sisiay: faster, not father

sisiay

@moo083: so what is happening when i get my gmail on my blackberry? (I'm not trying to be a wiseass, I just didn't know that it wasn't push...it comes up father on my BB than on my browser often). Anyway, to further answer the question, i have auto-update on my blackberry, but no notification (no vibration/tone) for new emails. If I'm expecting something important (or am bored/waiting in line/trying to look important) I check it.

sisiay

Hmm - I wonder if we all use 'push email' in the same way, as a term I mean. I use a client on Palm OS (ChatterEmail) which maintains a connection to my IMAP servers 100% of the time, using the IMAP IDLE support. So when an email hits the server my phone knows about it almost instantly. I consider that push email, an email comes in and my phone gets it immediately.

MegaZone

The secret is IMAP, folders, and filters - then only subscribing to the specific folders as push.

MegaZone

navvywavvy> I was surprised to learn that so many people need push email. What's wrong with pop email? Imap? Dayam

@navvywavvy, read my earlier response...Japan doesn't have cross provider SMS. MMS is the popular solution. No MMS on iPhone, therefore Push Mail.

AnakChan

I hate push mail for it's battery-sucking properties. Even with mail having been force quit, my iPhone was still receiving mail.

Brian

@aquaosx: If you are using a Blackberry set your ring to "phone only." On my curve that does blinker only for email, ringtone for phone calls and vibration for SMS/MMS.

noamjamski

@theody: Ha! I have a copy of that RFC somewhere around here. Had to implement part of it once for an application.
@cloudnine: Re battery life. My guess is that with push activated you have a background process on your phone executing a loop that "listens" for an event to be raised. Again, that's just my guess.

propertius

There's no "I don't care. What's push email?" option.

Crashproof

I'm glad I don't have it. My coworkers all grab there phones when it rings/vibrates. I prefer to work uninterrupted. I turned of the email beep years ago and have a much better work environment. I have enough to do without a beep going off every 5 seconds. I think I'm going to turn of text message beeps next.

Cymor

calendar and contacts push is a must. And in my Blackberry 8100, push *everything* does not affect battery life at all.....

chr71

I get my work Exchange mail pushed to my Tilt, but my personal email is on a 15 minute schedule.

The attorney's I work for would die with out push email. Some switched from Blackberry devices to Cingular 8125s a couple years ago, and they freaked because Exchange Push was slightly slower than our Blackberry server pushed messages out.

isgrimner

@MegaZone: exactly my question

sisiay

i read a lot of opinions here but the truth is:
their are people who NEED push emails and people who don't

i personally couldn't be more thankful of the blackberry's email system! i need it for both personal and business use!

what this bulls*** about if its urgent they can call me?
i gets email from 7 different countries... the person who is willing to pay the bills for calling abroad constantly let him do that! i love the convenient part of being out of home or office and not have to check all the time...
when i get an email i ll know it a few minutes after without the stress of having to check all the time!!!

but the fact remains that people will always disagree and have personal opinions due to personal needs, so i respect both sides and i believe that the best solution is if the phones gave u the option to decide which service you prefer and choose and when you set up your email account on the device and just choose one of the two!!!

If that was the case their would be such a big fuss about it!!!

nikolask7