Writing about web page http://www.apple.com/mobileme/
As I've mentioned before, I want an iPhone. Especially since they announced the new one... which is, technically, what the iPhone should have been since it was launched; 3G wasn't exactly new technology back then...
I have a Gmail account to which I have all my mail directed. The iPhone has settings to access Gmail over IMAP so changes on the iPhone are reflected in the Gmail web interface. However, new emails aren't pushed to the iPhone; you still have to tell it to "manually" (it's automatic, but as opposed to the emails being pushed...) check every 30 minutes, or whatever you choose. I also have my own domain, which Gmail is configured to use as the default from address.
The new iPhone software is going to support Microsoft Exchange, and Apple also announce their own version of Exchange for the rest of us
called MobileMe. MobileMe, like Exchange, will do push email (as well as push contacts and calendar, but they would be more of a bonus than a necessity) for a price. However, what I wanted to know was would I be able to link it to Gmail (via IMAP) so that it could push my Gmail emails to the iPhone I'm planning to buy at the end of the year and also pass any changes made to those emails by the iPhone (mark as read, for instance) back to the Gmail web interface. And, of course, I'd want to use my own email address.
On Monday, I finally managed to find an appropriate "Contact Us" form on the Apple website (it's much harder than it should be) and asked Apple if these two things would be possible. I've just received the reply (well, a few hours ago, but it was picked up as spam...). So, according to the reply:
Unfortunately it won't be possible to retrieve emails from a 3rd party IMAP account with MobileMe. [...] It will also not be possible to send emails from custom addresses via MobileMe.
Apple Support, via email
So - unless anything changes in the next few months - in November I'll be saving my £59 for something else, and sticking to polling Gmail every few minutes