>From my point of view, IMAP offers two main improvements over POP3.
The second is an extension of the first, and hasn't actually been
realized anywhere as far as I know.
1.) remote storage. I'd like to be able to get to my mail from
multiple different systems without having to log in to one machine
from everywhere (because of limited access, capability, and
security). Leaving all of my mail on the IMAP server would let me
accomplish this.
2.) Disconnected IMAP. This is basically the Holy Grail of modern
email systems. If you're not familiar with this, take a look at
rfc2060 and
http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/rfc/draft-ietf-imap-disc-01.html, you
keep your mail on a central server, and periodically retrieve
parts of it, make changes offline (that is, while not connected to
the IMAP server), and then `sync' your changes back to the server
whenever you can. Disconnected IMAP is pretty tricky. It's also
incredibly attractive, especially if you find yourself often using
a mixture of, say, PDA's with wireless modem, laptops with
moderate-speed home connection, and multiple disjoint desktops
with high-speed connections.
The ``are we making this too complicated'' question is an excellent
one. The issue in my mind is that in order to use either one of these
features, I'll want to try to keep my `powerful computer with fast
connection' setup as powerful as possible. Otherwise, I'd forget
about mail clients at all and just use one of the many webmail
interfaces.
chad
