Pros & Cons of EWS vs IMAP for Hotmail accounts

[icstm]

Hi all,

I've been using Pro for a while now, as it is an excellent email client.
I have multiple email accounts for personal and business purposes and love using one app for all, with its huge customisation.

I used to use my Sony Xperia device calendar app (via ActiveSync I think) for my calendar and recently got too many errors saying "unfortunately exchange services has stopped"

In looking at many different solutions, including trying to change the exchange services that the device calendar uses, or using Google Calendar, I realised that AquaMail supports calendars via EWS.

Up until now I accessed by Hotmail accounts via the OAuth enabled, but IMAP protocol using "Hotmail" option in AquaMail
For testing, I tried your Exchange option and I can access this (consumer, non business) account through this EWS approach.

Brilliantly, this gives me calendar access!

However, for email, what are the benefits of this EWS access approach over IMAP?
What are the downfalls including processor or battery load?

Am I right in understanding I can get contacts, including server side auto-complete suggestions and the like?

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Yes, EWS also provides access to server contacts in auto-complete, and since 1.9-dev, also syncs server Contacts with the phone's Contacts app (the auto-complete is still there of course).

EWS does use more data (traffic) for its mail sync compared to IMAP, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

It's not the app's code, but EWS seems to sometimes build up a lot of date to carry the state of "incremental sync" (what's changed since last mail check). I've seen this in user accounts with tens of thousands of messages accumulated over several years.

But on the other hand, push for EWS is more economical (in terms of both traffic and battery) and gets along with Android 6 (Doze Mode) better than IMAP push (IDLE).

Neither IMAP nor EWS in Hotmail is particularly fast, so the slower server response times may overshadow the difference in the protocols.

I'd say try it and see?

[icstm]

Thanks Kostya,

Am trialling it, after I posted anyway, but wanted to get some steer for what I should be looking for, so thank you for your tips.
Using BBS I can montior wakeups, alarms and data usage.

Also what about the 2 approaches your app has taken with regards security of data (including passwords) and login process?
Does EWS offer any protection against password sharing like OAuth? I guess not, so I assume my password is locally stored on my phone (rather than in your cloud like some other less well written email clients?)

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Right, no OAUTH2 for EWS at least for now.

Password "sharing"? The password is only stored on the device, encrypted, and not "shared" with anything or anyone.

Cloud based etc: Aqua Mail is not cloud based. Please see the privacy policy for details - http://www.aqua-mail.com/?page_id=1878