Push email on the iPhone? Howto.

With the iPhone SDK event a few days away, many are anticipating Microsoft Exchange and Lotus push email clients for the iPhone. If you have an IMAP account and a jailbroken iPhone, you can have "pretty much" the same functionality right now.

I use quotes because this little hack doesn't involve an active connection to the server. It does, however, change the interval of automatic server checking from 15 minutes to 1 minute. That means you will get your email an average of 30 seconds from when it hits the server. While it doesn't beat push, for most intents and purposes, it is indistinguishable.

To do this, you will need to be able to ssh into your iPhone. If you are running the 1.1.3 or 4 firmware, you'll want to edit this file:

/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mobilemail.plist

if you are using an older version of the iPhone firmware the file is located at:

/var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mobilemail.plist

In that file towards the top (pictured) you will see an AutofetchInterval Key. Change the string from 15 to 1. Save/Exit/Restart iPhone.

You'll notice that everything is the same except that your iPhone is now checking email every minute instead of four times an hour. Joy!

Since most iPhone users are on unlimited plans (sorry Ireland) the extra data incurred won't cost you anything. Hitting the mail server 15 times as often will have a slight hit on the battery life. It hasn't been noticeable to me however..

Warning: If you go into your Settings/Mail/Auto-Check on your iPhone, you will reset the interval to 15 minutes and you'll have to redo the above process. Conversely, if you do want to reset it to factory settings, it is just that easy.

Rejoice! Now your iPhone can buzz its way through a power lunch with the best Blackberries out there!