iPhone 2.0 Beta Firmware has Push Email Capability

iPhone 2.0 Beta Firmware has Push Email Capability. We knew a few third-party applications enabled push-email on iPhone over their Outlook Exchange servers. And now there's a surprising rumor said that the next iPhone OS update - the iPhone OS 2.0 firmware - will launch packing native support for push email.

The latest build of iPhone OS 2.0, 5a274d, includes a a preference panel that allows users to control settings for applications with push capabilities. A new "Settings" pane under a new "Fetch New Data" category shows a toggle switch to enable push email. The screenshot also shows that push email is supported for .Mac.

The primary intent of this function: allow users to conserve battery life by turning push capabilities off for applications like Mail, which supports push for Exchange and Yahoo! Mail servers. This new “Fetch New Data” preference in presumably controls push capabilities for both Exchange and Yahoo! Mail accounts, as well as future Apple or third-party applications that support push.

We're looking forward to get our hands on the final version of the iPhone 2.0. Stay tuned.