Whilst a great many email clients for small devices and mobile phones support IMAP-IDLE (a key part of the LEMONADE profile which enables a 'push email' experience) hard news about development of client packages which support other LEMONADE features are hard to come by, although rumours are numerous. This is understandable given the commercial pressures that developers are under.
One package in development that we do know includes LEMONADE support beyond IMAP-IDLE is the open source 'Modest' package.
Modest, "a small e-mail program specifically targeting modest hardware, such as low-end PCs and internet tablets like the Nokia 770 and N800 internet tablets", is based on the Tinymail library, developed by Philip van Hoof.
What's notable about Modest is the interest and support it appears to be getting from Nokia. The email client on the N770 internet tablet (and the N800 successor device) has long been acknowledged as one of the device's weakest points, something that will come as no surprise to those who have long bemoaned the quality of email clients shipped by manufacturers of mobile devices.
Modest's main developer is a Nokia employee, Dirk-Jan Binnema, and the two co-developers Florian Boor and Nils Faerber both work for KernelConcepts, a company who's work for the 770 Nokia has previously sponsored. There are rumours that Modest will become the default email client shipped with the 800, an acknowledgement perhaps that whilst third party software is great in demonstrating an active community, its no substitute in the mass market for strong software from the device manufacturer.
It'll be interesting to see which of these features also find their way into Evolution, the default e-mail client for the GNOME Desktop as both Tinymail and Evolution utilise the Camel e-mail protocol library.
This item has been cross-posted to the Lemonade for Mobiles blog.
Comments