iOS 13 Mail: how not to structure notifications and downloads

The Mail app on iOS 13 exhibits a behavior that drives me nuts: iOS will show notifications for new email messages, but if I actually open Mail to read those messages there will be a pause, often of 10-15 seconds, while the Mail application downloads those messages. It’s possible that iOS 12 also exhibited this behavior and iOS 13 made it annoying enough that I finally took note of it, but I suspect it’s something new. And it’s probably battery-saving related: with push notifications the phone can show that I have new email available, but to save power it doesn’t actually download the messages until I open the mail client.

Regardless, the behavior drives me nuts. The phone knows I new email available, so if it’s going to show the notification then it should have pre-downloaded the message so that I can read it immediately. I’d rather have the phone hold off showing the notification until it’s downloaded the message if it wants to save power. I don’t get email that’s so time-critical that I need notifications delivered just as soon as they’re available; that’s what messaging is for.

iOS 13 is having a pretty rocky start; it feels like Apple should maybe have skipped over 13 and gone straight from 12 to 14.