Push notifications for Google Mail on the iPhone
by Volker Weber
GPush is now in the Appstore. You get a popup which tells you about new mail in your account. Then you have to grab it. Not exactly the same that you get with Android or BlackBerry. David says the app looks looks like an early beta, only handles one account and the servers behind it are not up to snuff.
They are going to make a killing with this $1 app anyway. Until Google supports push notifications directly.
Comments
why would you need that, if you can enable push with gmail anyway?
Their servers seem to be handling the load now - notifications are instantaneous, as expected.
Samuel, you wouldn't. But for now, you can't.
wow - did not notice that when i say 'push' in the iphone, it isn't. thank you for that...
Yup. It only means 'use push if you can'. Look in the Gmail account details and you can see there is no push there.
Right, push notification for GMail. Sounds great.
Still I keep wondering about all the enthusiasm that push notification seems always to create among people using mobile devices.
IMHO it may have some sort of meaning for contacts or calendars, but for mail?
Sure, you get a mail notification a few seconds after it's being sent rather than simply checking yourself. So what?
Pieterjan, I guess the value of push really depends on how you work with e-mail. If you (need to) respond to e-mails as they come in, then it probably is of good value. If you periodically check your mail box (e.g. three times a day) and then respond to whatever is urgent enough, I guess it really doesn't mean much to you.
There are, however, people of both kinds and each have their own justification why it's efficient for them.
With push you can use E-mail instead of text messages (SMS) which cost money.
Pieterjan, you're incorrectly assuming that email always represents a conversation between two people (which probably doesn't require immediate attention.)
Imagine error notifications sent by a server or SCADA system, or sales orders (for honey, perhaps) that must be fulfilled immediately.
For all those interested, the roll-out problems seem to be solved and the app now delivers notifications (to me, at least) as promised - within a few seconds.
I think Tiverias Apps should make it more clear that the app is sending a bunch of information to Pinch Media. So everyone can decide for themselves if that's ok.
