By David Ponce
This application has been a long time coming, but for $0.99 cents, Gmail users can now have push notifications. So instead of setting your phone to check every X minutes to see if you have a new email, you will be notified as soon as you get it. It’s supposed to save battery life, not to mention keep you connected at all times, like the good Internet addict that you are.
I’ve downloaded the app, and have been playing with it for the last little bit. For my impressions, keep reading.
First of all… It works. But only barely right now. I’m guessing it’s because the developer’s servers are overloaded at the moment, since it’s only just been released. Give it a few days to settle and I’m guessing this should work. There’s really no reason it shouldn’t, and I did get three notifications just now. But I also didn’t get a whole bunch…
You can set it so that it either vibrates, chimes or pops a message, or any combination of the three. Actually reading your mail involves starting the iPhone mail application.
Now for a fundamental problem. You can only get it to work with one Gmail account. Yeah, that’s a problem for some, though it’s not something that can’t be fixed with a later update.
So, verdict: wait a bit, then get it. For now, it works, but only barely due to stability issues. Still, push for Gmail is something a lot of people had been waiting for.
