Quote:
Originally Posted by fisch09  - how does "push" work? If I get an email it is automatically pushed onto my PDA? - I really don't get this bit.. |
Hey fish, about as simple of an explanation/breakdown of 'push' vs 'pull/sync' as I can make it:
Pull/Sync:
Normally
e-mail access is "pull" based: at login and in intervals from the server it's stored on. For example, your thunderbird/outlook client would initiate a connection from your desktop to the server every x minutes to check for new mail.
Push:
New e-mail is instantly and actively transferred (pushed) as it arrives at the mail server to the email client.
Push devices can still choose to make use of sync, they need to occasionally check your folder structure for deletes, moves, an outbox (if you don't send in realtime/we're off network for a bit) etc. Quote:
| (wikipedia) Extending this push to the last delivery step is what distinguishes push e-mail from traditional e-mail systems. The reason that pull is the usual method for the last stage of mail delivery is that while the server would normally be permanently connected to the network, the client is likely to only occasionally be connected. |
ie: If your desktop/laptop was off, and the server tried to initiate the connection, well obviously there's no device at the other end to receive it; hence why 'pull' is the standard.
Push essentially = an 'instant' e-mail experience; new e-mails appear on the device as soon as they arrive, without the need for any user intervention/sync.
But you can realistically set your sync interval to 1-5 minutes and survive just fine 
. Your lag time is essentially the time between sync; and you spend a little more time utilizing your phone's cpu/ram to update your mail.
Often, so your not clogging the phone's resources, network bandwidth, server resources, etc -there are hard minimums to the value you can set for sync time (like one minute). So maybe you get that new email 60 seconds later.