To spare you the details, IMAP is an alternative to POP access with two way communication between the server and client. In simple words, IMAP is (almost) push email. And Google has recently added IMAP support to Gmail. So all you have to do is turn on IMAP in your Gmail settings, add the account to Mail.app or your iPhone, and map your mailboxes correctly. Actually, that's a little bit of work, so here's the instructions I followed --> How-to: Proper Gmail IMAP for iPhone & Apple Mail. I was only considering MobileMe for push email, and I think this is a lot cheaper (in fact, free).
EDIT: After some discussion, I've come to a general conclusion about my solution. I posted it three pages deep, but it's right here too:
The problem with Gmail IMAP on the iPhone is that the iPhone pretends to support IDLE, but actually polls every 3 minutes or so. So it's fast enough and you still get the exact same email everywhere effect, but it isn't technically push email on the iPhone because it doesn't actually make an IDLE connection. In fact it isn't technically push email in Mail.app sometimes because of bugs. Anyway, all that crud aside, I still think it's an OK free alternative to MobileMe if you only want the push email. If you're looking for true push email, you can get a yahoo address and use that.
EDIT: After some discussion, I've come to a general conclusion about my solution. I posted it three pages deep, but it's right here too:
The problem with Gmail IMAP on the iPhone is that the iPhone pretends to support IDLE, but actually polls every 3 minutes or so. So it's fast enough and you still get the exact same email everywhere effect, but it isn't technically push email on the iPhone because it doesn't actually make an IDLE connection. In fact it isn't technically push email in Mail.app sometimes because of bugs. Anyway, all that crud aside, I still think it's an OK free alternative to MobileMe if you only want the push email. If you're looking for true push email, you can get a yahoo address and use that.
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