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Comment by auggierose | Hacker News Reader

I switched back from Android to iOS because the only decent Android phone (Pixel) is in the same price range as an iPhone. I got a jet black iPhone 7 and I love it, it just feels great in my hand. The only thing I am a little disappointed about is the notifications system, which is still sub par compared to Android (like, 2 touches instead of 1 to clear a notification, and I cannot properly configure Gmail to show only certain messages as notifications; why Apple Mail can pull Gmail only every 15 minutes is beyond me ...) So I feel iPhone 7 will be doing well enough.

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I switched (back) from Android to iPhone because of security settings. I found Android to be a nightmare. Compared that to iOS's ability to set per-application permissions and Apple's stated commitment to privacy and I'm not going back to Android any time soon.

Nor will I be upgrading my iPhone any time soon. I plug in the headphone jack in my car and have found no decent bluetooth receivers to replace that wired connection.

Android has had per application permissions similar to iOS since 6.0. It took way too long but it's no longer a problem.

Can you restrict an application's permission at a granular level. For example can you deny an app your GPS location while allowing it to access your contacts?

Yes, that capability was restored in Android Nougat. For example, see these Chrome permissions: http://i.imgur.com/D4jYrjP.png

> why Apple Mail can pull Gmail only every 15 minutes is beyond me ...

It used to work, but Google removed Activesync support for free users a while back. you need to use the Gmail app or upgrade to a paid Google Apps plan if you want push support.

To be fair, Gmail does support the IMAP IDLE extension, which is the standard way of doing push email over IMAP. Mac mail supports it, and it works. (I actually get email notifications on my laptop before my Android phone.)

iOS only supports email push with iCloud or with a Microsoft Exchange server. IMO, this is really on Apple for not supporting the IDLE extension on iOS, rather than Google for not supporting a proprietary protocol for their free users.

> To be fair, Gmail does support the IMAP IDLE extension, which is the standard way of doing push email over IMAP.

IDLE would become a major battery hog on the iPhone, which is why it was never implemented. I don't believe Android supports it natively either.

Why? It works the exact same way as Apple and Google push notification implementations do.

It requires you to have an active connection to the server all the time.

That's just an entry in a table maintained by the kernel. "Active connection" doesn't nescisarily mean data is sent over it. Also, the other poster is right, this is exactly how the other push notifications work.

Of course, but the point is that you have only one connection open (the one to Apple or GCM), not one for each app, one for each imap account, etc. If you let anybody keep a connection alive continuosly you end up with a mess.

Just like Apple Push or Google FCM. How would that work otherwise if not with an idle connection? :)

That is one connection for all apps, not n individual connections.

To be fair, Microsoft asked for licencing fees for ActiveSync used with Gmail. Of course, Google is not going to pay that for the free users, while Gapps users have that included in price (the legacy free Gapps users aren't getting ActiveSync either).

There could be another way for Apple to support push email - they could support third party plug-ins providing protocol support for Mail.app, so Google could implement Gmail support, fastmail jmap support, etc. It is exactly this way, how Gmail app for Android supports ActiveSync.

yep, and my (lame) workaround is to activate notifications for the Gmail app, which I never use. When I get a notification, I then open up the Mail app, which downloads the message. Clunky, but it works (as long as I remember to open the the Gmail app after restarting the phone, which is apparently required for the notifications to work).

Probably off-topic but I still can't make myself to love iOS that much. I like the idea of the iPhone a lot -- a seemingly commodity phone with actual superior specs (especially the internal memory which is practically a SSD) and fluid and standard experience which helps people not get confused. But things like not having more volume controls (for example notifications and phone ringer are on the same volume in 2016, you for real?!), or lack of a dark theme, usage of LCD displays, and a few others -- are still putting me off.

On the other hand, I am drifting away from requiring my smartphone to be an ultimate mobile device; I believe I'll just get an iPad Pro 9.7" next year and will settle for a more casual smartphone -- like the iPhone, or a Moto, or Galaxy S8, we'll see. I work from home and 99% of my internet consumption on a mobile device happens at home, so might as well just use a tablet.

My girl has the iPad Pro 12.9" and it's a fantastic device. Don't think any Android tablet can ever come close except 1-2 from the Samsung Galaxy Tab line. As for MS Surface, I'm not hot on the idea of having a huge app gap.

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