Battery usage compared to Gmail app when on data

[amirage]

Hi all,

Just wanted to check if anyone has done a real-life comparison between aqua-mail and Gmail battery usage when on data connection? Is there any difference in the usage i.e. one is more than the other?

Please let me know
Amit

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Gmail is going to be more efficient, esp. with push. It is *the* app purposefully built for Gmail first and it does get a lot of help from "special" servers.

Now if you're seeing *very* high usage from AquaMail and in battery usage details, there is a high "total connect time" / "mobile radio active", on Android 5.0 - 5.1, then please search the FAQ for "battery" (link below).

[amirage]

Hi Kostya

Thanks for the reply. Actually I'm on 6.0.1 and when on data I see that aquamail has longer radio active time compared to Gmail. In other words, ceterus paribus, aquamail uses more battery compared Gmail when on data.

Your explanation helped a lot. I think the reason could be aquamail uses idle push which requires persistent connection to the servers unlike gmail.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Gmail app is built for Gmail, no surprise here, and is able to leverage a bunch of things Google side which other apps can't.

Holding a network connection by itself is not bad, IMAP IDLE is somewhat expensive in other ways, so -- if you're seeing very high, out of proportion, "mobile radio active", then it may be the same 5.0 - 5.1 issue again, may not be fully fixed in 6.0.

By itself, the app's (any app's) "mobile radio active" time should not be larger than "keep awake" time, or maybe somewhat larger, but not a "multiple times" greater (don't know if that's what your numbers are, so just in case...)

[assid]

I was just wondering, what if we could create a module running on windows / linux , which would act somewhat like a proxy server which would monitor mailbox changes, and use google C2DM to push notifications to check the imap server for latest updates.

Completely experimental with imap poll in case this option is used.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

It would have to be on a server somewhere, not on a home machine (those are typically behind multiple levels of NAT-ing).

That itself is not a problem.

The problem is that with IMAP and POP3, this server would have to be able to log into the user's account.

And that's the trust issue I mentioned here:

http://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=4858.0