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Apple's Favoritism to Fastmail
- tyleo 1y agoI feel like this is low on details. I despise social media comments as HN submissions. What actually happened here?
- paul-tharun 1y agoMXRoute has been trying from ages to get push notifications on the IOS mail app but were getting ignored. FastMail got access to it and it is not clear how, without any public announcement or documentation. It is as if Apple just picked a favorite and went with it.
- Weethet 1y agoFastMail is using JMAP, a protocol designed to support push notifications. MXRoute is stuck with SMTP/IMAP which don't support those. There might be a different reason, but I think this is probably the core issue here
- admdly 1y agoI think saying they are stuck with standard email protocols is a bit of a stretch. JMAP is not widely implemented outside of Fastmail and certainly isn’t used by Apple Mail, which actually uses a proprietary IMAP extension (XAPPLEPUSHSERVICE).
- jarland 1y agoThe stock iOS Mail app does not support JMAP and therefore it has no relation to Push notifications for the stock iOS Mail app.
- spacedcowboy 1y ago[flagged]
- Weethet 1y agoFor example a relatively modern email protocol: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8621.html https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8621.html
- slau 1y agoI kind of wrote about this: https://sebastian.lauwe.rs/blog/ios-migadu-notifications/ https://sebastian.lauwe.rs/blog/ios-migadu-notifications/ It’s more focused on how to get notifications to work with an email server that does not support XAPPLEPUSHSERVICE, but I also delve into how Apple abandoned the only reference implementation of XAPPLEPUSHSERVICE.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mpercival531 1y agoiOS Mail app does not support IMAP IDLE like any ordinary email clients. It only supports a proprietary IMAP extension that uses Apple Push Notification Services (APNS) as a sideband channel for IMAP servers to signal the iOS Mail app. Last I researched this (like… years ago), most IMAP-based email providers that are listed by the iOS Settings have implemented the extension, except for Gmail and Exchange. Fastmail then got on the train since 2015. Not sure what is with the tweet targeting Fastmail specifically though.
- jeffbee 1y agoIronically, Google does use APNS to support its own Gmail app on iOS, and for many other reasons. Just not for IMAP.
- admdly 1y agoFastmail have been singled out as they appear to have been given special treatment in the form of an APNS topic ID. Other hosts have been using a reverse engineered endpoint to generate certificates, which has recently been closed. There’s some discussion on the Apple developer forums - https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/778671 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/778671. The solution for the OP there seems to have been they also will get special treatment, but there remains no route for others to use to get the same.
- fluidcruft 1y agoYeah I looked at the link and first reaction is there are no receipts and failure to produce receipts registers with me as adequately explained as a "skill issue" (via some sort of corollary to Hanlon's razor). My outrage meter is unmoved.
- admdly 1y agoThere isn’t a skill issue at play here - it’s that Apple have closed the previously unofficial route others have been using (including MXRoute), which has brought the issue to a head. There’s some discussion on the Apple developer forums - https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/778671 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/778671.
- fluidcruft 1y agoThat linked topic says Apple is working with the developer to handle it. I don't see any evidence of favoritism. Fastmail clearly reached out to Apple eons ago, which is evidence of skill on fastmail's part and not favortism on Apple's part. Admittedly, fastmail very likely has lots of contacts in Apple (Jeremy Howard isn't nobody), but that's also a skill issue.
- admdly 1y agoOf the many email hosts out there, only a handful receiving special treatment with no route for others to even request the same is special treatment. In the case of Fastmail, they’ve had this access since 2015. It’s also very interesting that Apple reached out to the user in the developer forum thread after they raised it as an EU DMA issue.
- fluidcruft 1y agoWhy can't MXroute do exactly the same thing? Did they open a ticket?
- jarland 1y ago
- nerdjon 1y agoI am a bit confused here as well, is there a difference between "Push" and the notifications on iOS? I just checked my emails, I use Amazon Workmail and even that has push support. The only one for me that doesn't is my lesser used gmail. To my knowledge I get alerts quickly with that email, I have never had an issue of not.
- jervant 1y agohttps://github.com/st3fan/dovecot-xaps-daemon https://github.com/st3fan/dovecot-xaps-daemon https://github.com/st3fan/dovecot-xaps-plugin https://github.com/st3fan/dovecot-xaps-plugin
- yohannparis 1y agoOr maybe... FastMail created JMAP, ergo they are the one with the best implementation. Now Apple is working on moving iCloud to JMAP, and are working with FastMail as a JMAP production level service within mail.app.
- 1over137 1y agoYour alternate theory doesn't pass Occam's razor given Apple's general behaviour. Do you have any evidence?
- yohannparis 1y agoNone, that's why I started with "Maybe...". I'm spitballing here and try to exchange ideas with other people interested in the topic to debate it. I love every answer my comment received!
- admdly 1y agoApple uses a proprietary IMAP extension that, until recently, any developer could use by generating a APNS certificate using a reverse engineered endpoint from macOS Server. They’ve since closed this. Fastmail have had sanctioned access from Apple (via their own APNS topic ID) - https://www.fastmail.com/blog/push-email-now-available-in-ios-mail/ https://www.fastmail.com/blog/push-email-now-available-in-io...
- mpercival531 1y agoHow iOS Mail gets push inbox updates working with third-party IMAP servers is in the public since 2015/2016 if you look hard enough. That has nothing to do with JMAP the protocol inherently.
- whazor 1y agoThere were some changes last week to the JMAP Email Delivery Push Notifications[1], so that could be related. [1] https://github.com/jmapio/jmap/commit/1335683f8b542c71bc41a4dfc8602f555a61272c https://github.com/jmapio/jmap/commit/1335683f8b542c71bc41a4...
- 1y ago
- jbc1 1y agoDoes Fastmail really get push? I have a vague recollection that the reason I’m using their app over native ios Mail is because ios Mail was notifying me about emails with a noticeable delay.
- mpercival531 1y agoIt is “notify to pull”. IMAP servers through APNS ping the iOS Mail about updates in certain pre-registered inboxes. Then iOS Mail re-fetches those inboxes. The change signal is pushed; the data (inboxes/emails) aren’t.
- MrDarcy 1y agoI’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Fastmail. Time to try them out.
- frizlab 1y agoI am a happy subscriber since a long time ago (10 years, I think?). They are amazing. The job is done and there is nothing else in the way. This and Kagi are my top subscriptions recommendations.
- nunez 1y agothis was the reason why i moved to fastmail, and it works great