Comment by OJFord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by OJFord | Hacker News Reader

The best thing Fastmail could do (IMO obviously) for JMAP adoption is to open up their own clients to other servers.

(i.e. if I'm developing a JMAP server, let me use the Fastmail app to test. If Protonmail wants to focus on server & security, let them recommend 'a JMAP client such as Fastmail' to their customers.)

Unfortunately though I tweeted (something snappier to that effect towards) the CTO a while ago; it's 'not on the cards' was the phrasing as I recall.

(I'm a former happy customer - I was doing something a bit weird receiving via SES, but no reason to think it wouldn't work, and indeed it did work for years as a paying customer until it broke overnight. Response was no sorry deliberate configuration change. I raced (no access to email!) to get something workable without Fastmail before my renewal that weekend; suddenly it started working again, no further contact from support, but by then I'd got my own solution almost working which I'd always intended on anyway. The JMAP part's still early WIP though, so I really would like to be able to use their client app as a solid reference.)

At least for iOS, Mailtemi is a great JMAP client: https://mailtemi.com

Other JMAP clients: https://jmap.io/software.html

Glad you like it. The plan is to double down on JMAP support. Push notifications, contacts, masked emails, macOS, etc.

mailtemi looks like it's the only native JMAP app for iOS, which is great, even the fastmail app isn't native. It's a free app but isn't open source either. Is this a hobby project, or what's the long term plan for mailtemi?

It's not a hobby project. The app will remain free as it is now. But some extra features like push notification will require subscription (probably a few $ a year).

Mail temi looks promising, but it's been around for a long time and only has two reviews, and no reputation. It's also not open source. How can I know that the app is trustworthy?

Honestly not sure how to answer this. Mailtemi is just like any other iOS email app. Actually it doesn't include even crash logging, just avoid sending anything to 3th party service. Just curious , is there any iOS open source email app? Proton-mail is not really an email client ,it's more like a viewer for their service.

I have a related question. What is the business model for mailtemi? Since it looks like a free app with no subscriptions or in-app purchases, how well is it going to be supported in the future? If it’s always going to be free, then why not open source it?

I’m not saying that paid apps always receive great support at all times, but it’s about incentives.

The questions about business model should be answered on your website in an FAQ page or on the homepage.

Yes , I guess I need to update the site to include this info , as this question emerges too often. Some extra features like push notification will require subscription (probably a few $ a year). Right now it works (only in a dev environment) with MSGraph and Gmail. Just waiting for JMAP push notifications to be enabled by Fastmail , to release support for the tree protocols.

Would that require giving up the access credentials to app-supporting servers or there’s a way to avoid this and make two servers meet “in the middle” with client orchestrating the initial setup (at least with JMAP)?

I self-host and don’t like how way too many client apps deal with credentials in the name of convenience, many without even announcing that they do send them somewhere outside the device. I don’t currently have JMAP but I’m interested in replacing IMAPv4 as soon as something better is ready aka has all the features I use and mobile and desktop clients (I don’t really care about the webapps).

The only credentials which will flow is OAuth/API token. Mailtemi (future)server would not store it, only ephemeral (http + cert check) connection to advice for push notification.JMAP and MSGraph protocols are fine by design. Gmail needs a bit of tweaking to hash email addresses , because in their API the key is email. There are edge cases like non ascii email addresses.

For IMAP there is no push protocol without a password knowledge. No plan/wish to deal/know/store it. But still I think of small open source AWS golang/nodejs code(+markeplace bridge). Just the password possession should be only of the owner.

Isnt there IMAP IDLE?

Not entirely sure of the details. Why is that not usable?

IMAP IDLE needs an open connection. When the phone is locked all apps are suspended(connection closed) except if they are VOIP. So this makes IDLE unusable. Moreover an open connection takes more energy. So here comes push notification and from open protocols only JMAP has it.

Just because I saw it in the link above (dont think its on the App Store):

https://github.com/linagora/tmail-flutter

I've been looking for an alternative to Spark (Readdle) for iOS and MacOS for years, and have yet to find anything that even comes close. I'm not a huge fan of a lot of things Spark does and it's missing some nice features, but the unified look and feel across both platforms is fantastic.

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