If you happen to be the owner of an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch that has been sold post Jan 30, 2013 you’re probably surprised to know that GMail does not work on your device, like it used to previously.
Google decided to do away with free Exchange Support that was provided with your Google’s mail account. Exchange support means, we can configure our GMail address on iDevices and have new mail notifications to the device.
Although the feature is still working on older devices which have been grandfathered in, if you happen to be using an iDevice that’s manufactured after the 30th of January 2013, you might find yourself in a space where you no longer get push notifications.
So what to do now? If you are a veteran GMail user, you might be receiving tons of e-mail on your Google mail account, for which you like to receive push notifications. There might be some apps such as the official GMail App, or Mailbox App, that you can use to receive real-time push notifications as well as manage your email. But these apps lack many of the native Mail app’s features, such as VIP lists and OS integration such as allowing you to share via e-mail.
Yahoo!
We’ve chosen to review Yahoo! Mail first mostly because the company has invested a great deal at improving their e-mail system that also offers excellent integration for Apple users.
If you’ve not logged onto Yahoo for a few years, you’ve been missing out. Yahoo has completely rebuilt its interface that make it easy to integrate with the other services that Yahoo offers like Flickr or Evite. However, the scope of this discussion is to validate the ability of Yahoo to serve as an integrated free email service with both the Mac desktop environment as well the iOS environment.
To sum up, Yahoo integrates really well as far as iOS is concerned. You can add it to the Mac Desktop Mail App as well.
Hotmail
We review hotmail as one of the first few public service providers of email, which has undergone many series of metamorphosis until today. Now, accessible via outlook.com, hotmail provides you with unlimited storage for your email.
But, it is not just the name that has changed. Over the last few years, outlook.com has offered many new features, especially with regard to exchange services. They continue to have a declining marketshare owing to better search features, mail organisation and increased integration with other suite services offered by competition.
Hotmail, which did not offer IMAP services for your desktop to free-users in the past, now offers an easy to configure service that works well with your Mac as well as Windows desktops. Apart from declining marketshare, you might want to re-activate your old account, or create a new one if free push notifications are a reason to use on your mobile phone.
AOL
The last in our list of email providers was AOL. Although launched in the initial years as e-mail available to subscribers of their internet service, AOL became one of the most popular services in America during the age.
The platforms web interface sports a dated appearance, and not many features seem to be visible. Legacy users can still enjoy the benefits of AIM Chat, and seamless integration options with iDevices and Mac Desktop environments.
The Verdict
By far, Google’s e-mail still offers the best junk email filters, search features and considering the journey many of us have been through with GMail, our social media accounts are probably all linked with Google. Also, features like o-auth that allow you easy access into other platforms, makes GMail the preferred platform for connectivity.
However, the free accounts from GMail no longer offer you push notifications on the iOS platform, which is probably a strategy from Google to push Android devices. However, adding the GMail App to your iDevice will help you receive the notifications on the go, without making more significant effort to move your email to another provider.
In case, push notifications and other iOS integration features such as VIP lists are still your reason for concern, we recommend you use one of the alternate services, and forward your email to the new account and try things out that better suit your requirements.
