Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Are push notifications pretty much a dud?

M

Michael CM1

macrumors 603
Original poster
Feb 4, 2008
5,682
277
I thought the push notification system that Apple devised and took numerous months to get ready would actually be a good system. So far, I was wrong.

It's been a great addition for AP Mobile News, except I'd rather see AP allow more notifications if we want and maybe filter them by topic. But other than this, it's been useless to me. Twitter apps could use this function a lot, but maybe it would be better for just pure background apps.

Has anybody thought the push notification has really done a great job at replacing background apps? I'm not a huge fan of sacrificing battery life much, but my Twitter app just doesn't work very well when I have to open it every time I want to check on something.
 
I use it for the sports tap app, which sends me scores of selected games whenever the score changes. and I have to say, it works pretty well. It's a little delayed, but if I'm not watching the game, I don't know the difference
 
I love push. App store needs it asap though IMO. For some reason all the little numbers next to your apps on your home screen seam to make you look more important than you are!
 
Its been great for me... from AIM and Yahoo to Mail and while I agree it would be nice if AP had some options on what info gets pushed ... AP's app works good.
 
I get sports scores and results from Sportacular.
Breaking news alerts from Breaking News.
Email notifications from my MobileMe and GMail accounts from PushMail.
Health alerts from HealthMap.
Notices from Twitter replies/DMs from Boxcar.

And those are just the ones enabled.
 
Push notifications are great for IM apps. Clearly backgrounding would be more useful, but this is a good bit better than nothing.
 
jason221 said:
It's very useful for instant messaging.
Click to expand...

In all seriousness, who uses those today? I have barely used AIM in four years. Most everybody I know will either send you a message via e-mail, via Facebook or send you an SMS.
 
Michael CM1 said:
In all seriousness, who uses those today? I have barely used AIM in four years. Most everybody I know will either send you a message via e-mail, via Facebook or send you an SMS.
Click to expand...

Push is awesome. I use Unlimited SMS and push makes free SMS a reality with that app. Push is well implemented by Apple.

S-
 
What are you talking about? Push + Beejive is a great compromise for IM, allowing the benefits of always-on messaging without the huge battery drain of backgrounding. Just because you don't use IM doesn't mean nobody else does.
 
I was thinking fail too, until I found out i could push sports scores. I dont watch sports much but its awesome getting instant score updates to my phone while at work.
 
blancoBronco said:
I use it for the sports tap app, which sends me scores of selected games whenever the score changes. and I have to say, it works pretty well. It's a little delayed, but if I'm not watching the game, I don't know the difference
Click to expand...

I use it on Sports Tap, too, but mine is almost instantly.. most of the time. AP, Beehive, etc.. and all are working fine.
 
It's pretty much a dud.

Compare what apps could do if they could run in the background v. what they can do by receiving push notifications. There's no contest.
 
Eso said:
It's pretty much a dud.

Compare what apps could do if they could run in the background v. what they can do by receiving push notifications. There's no contest.
Click to expand...

This is a flawed position. Since we don't have background apps, you have to evaluate push notifications on what they do offer. In that context, push notification is a big plus.

Even if we had the ability to run apps in the background, I would still prefer to use push most of the time. Having apps running in the background would burn more power than using push. Why would I want to have my mail, sports, and non-Apple SMS app running in the background burning up battery power if I didn't need them there?

There is a place for background apps, but I don't think all SMS, chat, mail, or sports apps need to be runningin the background. So push makes a lot of sense. Apple is doing a good job with push now.

S-
 
Works great with eBay. I was watching something and time was running down when I got notified. I upped my max bid a few bucks and scored a $300 golf club for $66 bucks. I'm a fan
 
Michael CM1 said:
In all seriousness, who uses those today? I have barely used AIM in four years. Most everybody I know will either send you a message via e-mail, via Facebook or send you an SMS.
Click to expand...

I use IM all the time. I know a lot of people who have it, and I would hate to chat with my online friends from facebook all the time. IM is much more convenient on a computer or on an iPhone.
 
sidewinder said:
This is a flawed position. Since we don't have background apps, you have to evaluate push notifications on what they do offer.
Click to expand...

No, we don't. Instead of implementing background processes, Apple implemented Push. Therefore, if they hadn't wasted their time on Push, they would have taken time to develop background processes which we would have by now. Background processes is a completely valid comparison to Push.

In general, I do agree with you that IM apps are better suited for Push. My point still stands, however, as they majority of apps in the app store are NOT so well suited for Push while they would benefit to a much greater degree from background processes.
 
just take skype for an example. everyone was so happy to hear that at&t is going to let skype use 3g but the app still cant run in the background.
 
Eso said:
Therefore, if they hadn't wasted their time on Push, they would have taken time to develop background processes which we would have by now.
Click to expand...

This is completely illogical. We don't have background processes not because Apple hasn't had time to implement them, but because Apple has made a conscious design choice not to allow them. In fact, it would be incredibly easy to implement, since all kinds of native apps and services already run in the background. Apple has weighed the battery drain of processor- and network-intensive apps and decided not to allow them to preserve the user experience. You may disagree with that decision, but the need to dedicate time to Push notifications had nothing to do with it.
 
The comparison in moot. They are completely different functions.

Push notifications are great when they are utilize effectively. There are plenty of apps that just use push notices as marketing and that really don't offer the user anything really "useful" which is why some people are saying it's no big deal or a "dud"

Not a gamer per se - but if I want to start a game of scrabble with someone on my iphone and play against a friend. Instead of having to call the person or email them a code to join the same game - they can get an instant notification to join when I add them as a player. A good example of why push is a good function.

IM clients/email clients - all good uses for push
 
Push notifications is very useful for news, sports, IM.

However, the problem with push notifications is it is very limited because of the way it is implemented on the iPhone. Unlike Android/Pre where you can pull up a tray of your recent notifications, the iPhone insists you find the badges on all the different pages of apps to see what popups you have missed. And the popups themselves are like the annoying message boxes in Windows. They can be very annoying when running another app.

I figure Apple has to be working on this because they are getting killed by Android/Pre in this area.
 
I very much like push for CurrentTemp (updates local temperature hourly in a badge), Weather Alert (tornado warnings, etc.), and PushMail. I have FlightTrack Pro, which has push now, but I haven't been on a trip to see how it works.

I thought the push notices from AP news were mostly useless and stopped them from coming.
 
I also use push a lot, for most the reasons already listed. Btw to the person who would never use IM's but does use facebook chat...I get facebook chat pushed too. Also, I JB and have the backgrounder app and as handy as it is I use push WAY more often.
 
Eso said:
No, we don't. Instead of implementing background processes, Apple implemented Push. Therefore, if they hadn't wasted their time on Push, they would have taken time to develop background processes which we would have by now. Background processes is a completely valid comparison to Push.

In general, I do agree with you that IM apps are better suited for Push. My point still stands, however, as they majority of apps in the app store are NOT so well suited for Push while they would benefit to a much greater degree from background processes.
Click to expand...

If they wouldn't have taken the time to "develop" push then we would have neither, is that what your trying to say :rolleyes:? They are not going to allow background processes. Have you not seen all the threads on battery life issues?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back