Yahoo had a few services bundled under the name Next that looked interesting. They didn’t support S60, which made me sad. So I posted to the public forum for Next with my S60 woes. I subscribed to the forum (XML feed.. sweet!) and saw a few messages in my aggregator but mostly ignored them cause they didn’t seem to be related to what I was looking for.
But then today I tried to check my Yahoo mail using IMAP and it wasn’t working. Looks like Yahoo is no longer offering IMAP access to their mailboxes. And what’s the response from Yahoo:
We are no longer providing this service at this time. Please check with your wireless service provider for Yahoo! Mail services.
Check with your wireless service provider. Ahh, that’s more like it. I was wondering how one could possibly provide a useful service to mobile users that spans multiple access styles. It just didn’t fit with the existing offerings. It’s good to see that the carriers have shut down this potential blight of usability and convenience upon their networks. Now we’re back to expensive walled-off messaging. Remember to mention to your carrier that you love them for restricting your choices next time you have to talk to their sales or support.
How is this the fault of the carrier? Couldn’t it also be Y!’s own desire to monetize their email access?
I doubt it. Yahoo setup the service in the first place to try to extend their services to mobile devices. It it worked it wouldn’t be a threat to their existing services, and they could add advertising or tie in their service some way so they could make money off it. However it would compete with carrier mesaging services to have an IMAP exposed internet messaging service that integrated with the background checking applications on handsets.