[quink]

Why not talk to Apple or Google and make this a reality in some other way?

Surely it can't be hard for a company like LinkedIn, about as important as Facebook, to ask Apple or Google to provide some way of hooking into a third party application or well documented API?

It might take longer and be a bit more complicated but it must be a better way to go about this than MITM.

[gojomo]

Why should Apple/Google be gatekeepers (and potential sources of arbitrarily long delay, complication or strategic-veto)? What about the N other IMAP providers?

Talking about a more generalized hook-in API is a good idea, but not in strict preference to proxying-tricks. Rather, it makes sense as a parallel or subsequent followup, after the value has been prototyped and proven.

[blibble]

call me cynical, but I bet it was discussed, and overruled on the point that this system allows them get access to all your juicy email under the pretence that "we can't do it any other way"