Now that the iPhone 2.0 software update is here, here’s a sneak peek of what Zimbra Mobile for iPhone looks like.
First, if you are new to Zimbra Mobile it’s part of Zimbra Collaboration Suite Network Edition and provides over-the-air synchronization of emails, appointments and contacts between a user mailbox and their mobile device. “Push” technology can make sure that updates are delivered to mobile devices as they happen in user’s mailbox on the server. Zimbra Mobile supports a wide range of ActiveSync compatible devices, including Microsoft Window Mobile (PocketPCs and Smartphones), Treo Palm OS series, Nokia E series (and other devices running 3rd party clients like RoadSync). Now, the latest additions to our device list are iPhone and iPod Touch running the iPhone 2.0 software. We’ve been tuning and polishing Zimbra Mobile to be a great match for iPhone.
I know everyone has his or her own favorite email gadget but personally, I’m glad I have an iPhone. With iPhone’s large, bright touch screen, instant “push” delivery, HTML email display, support for all sorts of document/media attachments and meeting invitations plus a photo-enabled address book, what else can I wish for? And the best part is Zimbra Mobile for iPhone takes full advantage of all that!
OK enough words. Let’s see what it will look like in action.
Note: Zimbra Collaboration Suite Network Edition 5.0.7 is required for iPhone sync support.
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You first setup how the iPhone will sync with a Zimbra Server at your company (or at your service provider): Once the connection is established iPhone will start to download your email, calendar and address book data. iPhone is actually powerful enough to download the different data categories in parallel. You’ll see emails start to show up in the Inbox at the same time contacts are added to the address book. I believe the parallel download is a unique feature that I haven’t seen on other devices. Also many other Zimbra Mobile devices typically only download partial envelope information and some text of each message, and get the rest of the message or attachments when the user asks for them. Given that iPhone has enough memory, it can download up to 200 most recent messages in full MIME format so that everything is available on the phone. |
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Rendering Messages on the iPhone iPhone can view or play many common attachments, including pictures (inline view), PDFs, various audio/video formats (great for receiving voicemail in your Zimbra mailbox), Word docs, PowerPoint slides, and Excel spreadsheets. Here are some examples of messages. I really like how iPhone displays deeply nested replies.
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Appointments, Reminders and Calendar Of course Zimbra Mobile for iPhone is not just about email. As iPhone receives calendar events and meeting invitations from Zimbra server, it will alert users of incoming invitations, and allow users to accept or decline meetings from the device. Accepted meetings are added to the calendar, with alarms to go off at scheduled reminder time. Zimbra Mobile for iPhone supports all types of appointments, recurring events with all kinds of exceptions, as well as participants across multiple timezones.
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Address Book Got a big address book? No problem. One of our power users has 8000+ contacts in his address book. iPhone has enough memory to download and hold it all. Contacts with photos can be synced with the Zimbra address book as well, so go take some pictures of your friends with that iPhone camera.
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Initial Sync — Pretty Darn Fast
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Zimbra Mobile for iPhone is a new feature in Zimbra Collaboration Suite Network Edition 5.0.7, and it requires the iPhone 2.0 software update from Apple. I’m really excited about the Zimbra Mobile for iPhone user experience. This is a great addition to our existing solutions for iPhone which includes ZCS optimized for the mobile Safari browser and our iSync Connector for the Apple Desktop. To find out more about Zimbra Mobile for iPhone, check out the Zimbra Mobile Forums.
JJ Zhuang is lead developer for Zimbra Mobile.
on July 12th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I share the excitement, and glad that the wait for iPhone2 is funally over. But I’m dissappointed that now we have to wait for Zimbra 5.0.9. The IMAP interface has problems retrieving mail reliably unless you’re sitting in the Mail app looking at the Inbox all the time - often I go into the Inbox and it retrieves several hours of back email. We’re testing Zimbra Mobile now with iPhone2 and ActiveSync, and it’s still has the same problem.
Other problems I’m seeing is calendar synchronization. It only synchronizes one calendar with the phone, and the sync between Zimbra and iCal calendars is missing events here and there.
So I hear the “wait for 5.0.9″ message, but it’s frustrating because it’s hard to tell what’s supposed to work now and what isn’t, and because I haven’t seen an ETA for 5.0.9 yet.
on July 12th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
this is very good news as I am evaluating Zimbra for my company. Now as I got my iPhone I’d like to set it up with my hosted demo account. I created a new account on my iPhone with the credentials of my hosted demo account and tried out several server addresses for IMAP (e.g. testzimbra.com, preview.zimbra.com) but none worked - is this possible at all? Thank you for letting me know how to get there asap. Lukas
on July 13th, 2008 at 2:30 am
Hi JJ,
I configured my iPod Touch yesterday to sync my Zimbra account … I don’t have my iPhone yet.
When replying to messages from the Touch the original message doesn’t show up with the little opened mail icon with the “replied-to” arrow on it. I have a Nokia device using Mail for Exchange (ActiveSync) that properly marks the message as replied to.
Any ideas what is causing the message not showing it has been replied to?
on July 14th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
How come this isn’t announced on your main page or at least on the mobile section on zimbra.com. One main gripe I have with Zimbra is that all the cool stuff you guys seem to do gets buried away. I googled for hours before I found this blog site. This is huge for Zimbra in reality, whether I or others like/dislike iPhone, the fact is that the iPhone is the big buzz right now and for ZCS to support it this well, this quickly is a great step for Zimbra.
A ZCS NE customer.
on July 14th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Zhuang:
Thanks for the nice post about using this with the new iPhone, but, is there any more detailed info on “Zimbra Mobile for iPhone” specifically for 2.0 iPhone software? Or, is this just supposed to be defined as new mail provider?
Thanks!
on July 16th, 2008 at 5:04 am
will the iphone 2.0 app become available on the apple app store soon?
on July 16th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Is this a native iPhone app, or something else?
From the look of it, it appears to be, but where do you find the app? Is it within the 5.0.7 or higher upgrade?
on July 17th, 2008 at 6:39 am
Is this just referring to the webapp? Pictures appear to be.
When can we expect PUSH support?
on July 17th, 2008 at 7:29 am
It IS Push support!
on July 17th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Jason/Joe, No, I don’t think this is either an add-on app or the webapp. From the pictures it looks like the this is using the exchange email account setup for iphone3g. If you go into the Email config screen on your Iphone2 and set up an exchange account and point it to your zimbra server, I think that this is what you’ll see. Essentially this is ‘push’, or as close as darnit to push.
Please OP feel free to correct me if i’m wrong.
on July 18th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Hello,
I have an iPhone 3G and it works perfectly with our zimbra company system. In case of the mode for syncing it is a real push (or it feels like so). Till now I am able to say that i haven’t seen any errors in syncing or so on.
regards Robert
on July 20th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
JJ - I note your comment about contacts and huge databases, but one of the things that my guys want is the ability to pick and choose what syncs and what doesn’t. We’re a law firm and have 25,000 contacts. not only is push/sync impractical on the device, and on the amount of time it takes, but it’s pointless–we need just a fraction of those contacts “on the road”.
Is there a way to set up a smart folder in zimbra that would be the sync-list? E.g., let’s say I have 3 or 4 address books (we do, because of the need to keep some private and different privileges for different address books)–is there a way to take 10 from here, 50 from there, 100 from there, for example, and then when you go to do a push Zimbra sends (and receives changes from) just the ones in that smart list? you’d be able to add/delete from that list without adding/deleting from the actual address book, just like in smart folders.
Does this make sense? Feel free to email me if you want to discuss.
Thanks.
Paul
on July 21st, 2008 at 4:19 am
Just upgraded to 5.0.8 and setup Zimbra Mobile for my Contacts, Calendar and Email. It’s quite a feat, and I’m utterly impressed by what the Zimbra team has been able to accomplish using Active Sync technology. I’ll be testing it for a week, and hopefully providing those ever demanding Executives with a setup of their own. My one concern is battery life, which will have to play out over the next week.
on July 21st, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Ali — You are correct in that it is using the mail app built into the iPhone. The connection is using active sync which Zimbra mobile supports. From the iPhone side you configure it pretending that your Zimbra server is an Exchange server. This is push support. The multi-calendar support was missed in Zimbra 5.0.8 but should be in 5.0.9 I believe.
on July 25th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Is the push feature packaged in the Open Source version of 5.0.8… or is it only found in the Network version?