Does anyone know if Bluehost plans to support push email service, and if so, when?

[Patrick G.]

Does anyone know if Bluehost plans to support push email service, and if so, when? I'd love to have my bluehost-hosted domain email pushed directly to my iPhone, but I'm having to work around the issue by forwarding all mail sent to my Bluehost email address (me@mydomain.com) to my mail2web exchange email, which pushes it directly to my iPhone. That mail2web exchange service costs me $4.95 per month, so I'd obviously like to get rid of that.

Thanks in advance!

[MrDelish]

Not very likely, IMO. Besides CPU throttling, there haven't been any big changes to BlueHost's service recently (not that come to mind, anyway). It's probably another one of those ancillary features that BlueHost doesn't get asked about enough to worry about implementing. My guess is that if they did get enough people asking about it, they would look into it.

[felgall]

Probably the sort of thing where if enough people asked for it they'd organise a third party to provide it as a paid add-on for an extra five or six dollars a month.

[Patrick G.]

Well, if they want to keep customers they better be looking into it. Mobile information technology is fastest-growing segment of the industry.

[felgall]

Mobile information technology is fastest-growing segment of the industry.

And works fine for 99% of people without needing the sort of technology you are talking about. Most people can access their emails directly from the same email account whether on their computer or their phone without any issues whatever - it is just a matter of setting up the email account correctly. No push technology is required for that to work.

Everyone I know with iphones can access their emails exactly the same on their iphone as they can on their computer without emails getting pushed anywhere - they just access the same email account from both places using IMAP so that the server keeps the emails in sync.

Why would BlueHost want to offer such a technology when it is only people who don't have their email account set up properly would use it.

[Patrick G.]

Why would BlueHost want to offer such a technology when it is only people who don't have their email account set up properly would use it.

People who don't have their email account set up properly??!!? NO ONE without an exchange account/service can have their email pushed to the iPhone - it has nothing to do with proper setup. Bluehost doesn't support IMAP push - period. I don't want to have to "fetch" my email - I want it dynamically pushed to the device, and so do a lot of other people.

[felgall]

Sounds like you are trying to use email in a way that isn't email.

[breakingball]

Everyone I know with iphones can access their emails exactly the same on their iphone as they can on their computer without emails getting pushed anywhere
Sounds like you are trying to use email in a way that isn't email.It sounds like you may not understand what Push is for.

Some of us don't find it useful to root around on our iPhones all day to see what new mail has arrived, preferring always-on mail service. IMAP uses a fetch system which, on an iPhone, requires the mail server to be polled manually, every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes or every hour. Push service imposes no such limitations and allows users to be notified immediately of the arrival of new mail on the server. How that is attempting to "use email in a way that isn't email" escapes me, especially when IMAP works pretty much exactly that way on computers and the iPhone's email client is able to work with a number of different push email systems, including Yahoo!, Gmail, Microsoft's ActiveSync and MobileMe.

[EricJ]

Bluehost isn't primarily an email host. Bluehost is looking to be the best web host, which is why they are pioneering the way in CPU throttling, and IO throttling. This is paving the future for Shared hosting by keeping server resources under control and available for all users.

If there are lots of email hosts that will do this for you, and it is an absolutely needed feature for you, I would recommending looking into one of those companies. You do have the ability to have your site hosted in once place, and your email in another. That is why I use Google Apps. It's free, allows me to keep my site on Bluehost (which IMO is the BEST shared host around), and allows me to host my email with a service that was made for it.

By the way, email was never made to be instant. While a lot of people treat it as though it is, it doesn't change the fact that none of the underlying systems are made to be instant. Also, email systems use UDP packets, which means there is no guaranteed delivery. If you knew how much packet loss happens out there in cyberspace you would wonder how any email gets received at all. When a server sends UDP packets out, it doesn't make a solid connection, it doesn't wait for acknowledgment that the other server received, or is even set up to receive. The server just tosses the packet out into space and hopes they reach their destination. That is how all email works.

Here is a link to RFC768 which explains all about UDP packets: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc768.txt
You will notice if you read the entire thing, it never mentions acknowledgment.

[Ferdinand]

Sounds like you are trying to use email in a way that isn't email.

For some business people push email is quite important. Like when you are in negotiations with a business client and he expects *immediate* response or you need to be notified about his response without *any* delay. That is one reason why Blackberry is so successful.

Usually you have to pay for the push mail service (MobileMe for example), or it's bundled to a smart phone (Blackberry for example) and/or a mobile phone contract.

Personally I would have never thought that BH might offer this service since push mail is usually added to an existing online mail service. BH does not offer online email, so why should it offer push mail? And if, why for free?



By the way, email was never made to be instant. While a lot of people treat it as though it is, it doesn't change the fact that none of the underlying systems are made to be instant.

Just because email wasn't indended to be instant, it doesn't mean that it isn't used as an instant notification system. Blackberry's work perfectly in our own experience.

[felgall]

For some business people push email is quite important.

So those people should purchase an email service that provides for those needs from an email service provider. You don't buy your groceries from a hardware store so why would you expect to get a top line email service from a web hosting provider?

BlueHost does provide three different pre-installed free webmail options any of which will show up all emails as soon as they are received by the server without having to push them anywhere.

[Ferdinand]

So those people should purchase an email service that provides for those needs from an email service provider. You don't buy your groceries from a hardware store so why would you expect to get a top line email service from a web hosting provider?


That's exactly what I said in my previous post. :)

[walker]

And works fine for 99% of people without needing the sort of technology you are talking about.

What piffle. Push email is a massively growing sector and used by millions around the world.


Most people can access their emails directly from the same email account whether on their computer or their phone without any issues whatever - it is just a matter of setting up the email account correctly. No push technology is required for that to work.

Most people can walk five miles to the supermarket without any problems whatsoever, but a car sure as hell makes the journey more convenient.


Everyone I know with iphones can access their emails exactly the same on their iphone as they can on their computer without emails getting pushed anywhere - they just access the same email account from both places using IMAP so that the server keeps the emails in sync.

So basically you're trying to write-off the need for an emerging, very useful technology, based on some anecdote involving "everyone I know". Demand for push email is growing exponentially right now and all sectors are recognising this: from webhosts to ISPs to cellphone networks.


So those people should purchase an email service that provides for those needs from an email service provider. You don't buy your groceries from a hardware store so why would you expect to get a top line email service from a web hosting provider?

Do you live in the outback or something? Supermarkets around here sell both groceries and hardware. Your metaphor harks back to a time when men were men and there were no forums for them to be condescending from all day.

FYI, plenty of webhosts provide push email (fasthosts, 1&1, etc.), so the OP is hardly as ridiculous as you're suggesting for asking the questions he is.

[felgall]

FYI, plenty of webhosts provide push email (fasthosts, 1&1, etc.), so the OP is hardly as ridiculous as you're suggesting for asking the questions he is.

In that case it makes even more sense that you have that on your list of requirements when choosing a hosting provider so as to choose a provider that offers all of the things you need rather than only offering some of them.

That still isn't a reason why all web providers should suddenly jump in and start providing that service any more than that they should jump in and provide every imaginable programming language and feature.

Also with the way email works those push services are not going to work for all emails anyway. Email was never designed to be handled that way and so not all email can be.

Doing so would be as ridiculous as selling groceries and hardware from the same store - "this aisle contains nails, screws, and frozen pizza, if you are looking for the tinned carrots and picture hooks they are in the next aisle over".

[Ferdinand]

FYI, plenty of webhosts provide push email (fasthosts, 1&1, etc.), so the OP is hardly as ridiculous as you're suggesting for asking the questions he is.

Good luck with 1&1. I just tried to upgrade a WP blog hosted at 1&1 to the latest version. And I received the following message:

The update cannot be installed because WordPress 2.9 requires MySQL version 4.1.2 or higher. You are running version 4.0.27.
But unlike with BH my 1&1 contract does not provide the simple, but important option to update the current database to Mysql 5. The only solution offered by 1&1: I'll have to set up a new database and import the WP data and rewire it to WP...

I guess 1&1 belongs to those providers which offer dozens of (sometimes half baked) gadgets, but which are not that good at there core services, very much unlike BH.

[breakingball]

Doing so would be as ridiculous as selling groceries and hardware from the same storeNo Walmart in Oz, eh?

[felgall]

No Walmart in Oz, eh?

What's a Walmart?

[EricJ]

What's a Walmart?

It is a giant corporate superstore that is steadily demolishing small business in America. If Walmart were a country it would be the 13th most productive country on earth, right behind Mexico. It is like Woolworths (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolworths_%28supermarket%29).

I feel ashamed of it everytime I drive by, even though I don't shop there it makes me sad. There are 3 within 15 miles of me. People wonder why we have a bad economy, it is largely because of Walmart and other superstores like it.

I would recommend watching Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473107/).

[breakingball]

It is a giant corporate superstore that is steadily demolishing small business in America. If Walmart were a country it would be the 13th most productive country on earth, right behind Mexico. It is like Woolworths (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolworths_%28supermarket%29).And they sell groceries and hardware under the same roof—which is why I mentioned it. (Never been inside one, myself, though.)

[felgall]

And they sell groceries and hardware under the same roof—which is why I mentioned it. (Never been inside one, myself, though.)

Unlike Woolworths which actually use several different brand names for their stores depending on what they sell. The ones that say Woolworths sell food, the ones that say Liquorland sell drinks, the ones that say Dick Smith sell electronic goods and the ones that say Big W sell all sorts of things including some hardware items but not food.

[webbster]

Wow, some peoples' feathers are really ruffled by this....

[Rommet]

I have my Thunderbird client set to pull emails every 5 minutes, that is 288 times per day. I don't get nearly that many emails. It seems that resources could be conserved by pushing emails out, rather fishing for naught the vast majority of the time. That said, I'll forward my emails to my gmail account and have it push them out to me.

[Rommet]

Here's a work-around: Forward all your email to your gmail account, forward all your gmail to a 'dummy' account on BH. Set your client 'identity' to your main account name but pull your dummy account, every 2 minutes if you want.

There is a lot of bandwidth and storage space consumed but that's between BH & gmail.

And I got push. and I don't pay for texts. ;)

[felgall]

It seems that resources could be conserved by pushing emails out, rather fishing for naught the vast majority of the time.

You can always access the emails directly on the server using one of the webmail options provided - horde, squirrelmail, and roundcube are all available on the server for that purpose.

[pallaire]

Any news on this ? or do you know any hosting company that support push ?

In Canada, the data plan are really expensive, like anything cell phone related, so the biggest data plan of Rogers is 500MB, I don't want to waste it by pulling emails when there is a technology to do that automatically.

And I don't want to go through gmail, because ... I don't want to use gmail ;)

[Ferdinand]

Any news on this ? or do you know any hosting company that support push ?

In Canada, the data plan are really expensive, like anything cell phone related, so the biggest data plan of Rogers is 500MB, I don't want to waste it by pulling emails when there is a technology to do that automatically.

And I don't want to go through gmail, because ... I don't want to use gmail ;)

I think Yahoo offers pushmail...

[pallaire]

I think Yahoo offers pushmail...

OK but this is the same thing as gmail, its not a real solution its a patch going through an other company.

Was is difficult in providing Push ? cost ? does it work ONLY with an exchange server ? (probably not ... apple would not depend on MS). Cant an IMAP server be modified to support that ?

We are paying for our hosting, I dont see why we should have to work with a third party. Lets face it, Push mail is here to stay, and every body is going to want it soon.

thanks

[Ferdinand]

We are paying for our hosting, I dont see why we should have to work with a third party. Lets face it, Push mail is here to stay, and every body is going to want it soon.

thanks

Do you know any other provider who offers the same quality of service for an equal price plus pushmail?

Anyway, push mail does not seem that easy. Apple had huge problems when it introduced Mobile.me.

[Patrick G.]

It's been over a year. Still no push email?

[Patrick G.]

Still no plans for push email?

[redsox9]

To date, no announcement has come from BH. You'd be better served contacting the support staff to find out whether this is in the works.

[cade]

As far as I'm aware, there are no plans for offering push email support in the near future. There are, however, a number of cool new features/ options that will be announced fairly soon.

[victorm]

I raised a request for this via the Helpdesk today. I don't think there is anything else to do - just express interest and let the beancounters conclude if this is something worth implementing or not. I will NOT redirect my e-mails to Gmail - I trust bluehost a lot more with my privacy than I trust big G.