For as long as Gmail has been around, The People have asked for IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) access to their accounts. Today, that time has come.

Google has announced they are rolling out IMAP across all Gmail accounts over the next few days. What does that mean? It's well-explained on the Gmail blog, right here. A little bird let me know this morning in IM. I really need to stop sleeping in so I can be the first to know every now and then, heh.

Ars technica has a good post explaining IMAP to the layperson and outlining the Gmail situation.

Now comes my big question: Is IMAP functionality also being rolled out to users of Google Apps mail (which is basically Gmail and other Google apps that you can use with @yourdomain.com)? I hope so, since that's they way I use their stuff. In the past Google's typical approach has been to enable new stuff on Gmail before rolling it out to Apps users. I've seen some people this morning claiming it's showing up here and there in apps accounts, but the people saying it are not actually mail for apps users, so grain-of-salt in my book. If you have a Google Mail for Apps setup, is IMAP an option for you yet?

If IMAP in Apps accounts happens (I am sure it will), my iPhone will get changed from POP to IMAP immediately (finally no more tedious deleting and marking as read), and Outlook 2007 or Thunderbird might just get resurrected. Fingers crossed!

Links:
Google announcement by David Murray at Google - YouTube video showing how to enable it (simple) as well as set it up on your iPhone: