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Push Notification: Biggest Letdown So Far On iPhone?

E

EgbertAttrick

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 25, 2008
234
89
I, for one, was incredibly excited when I found out that push was finally coming to the iPhone. But then I got what I wished for.

As yet, I've not found an app that utilizes push in a helpful way without being completely annoying (AIM and it's overuse, for instance).

But maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

Are there any apps that use the push feature in a positive, helpful, and un-annoying fashion?
 
E*Trade Mobile, for one.

eBay's app just received an update to enable notifications. I haven't had a chance to use them, but it also seems like a good application of the feature.
 
It works fine for me. I only use it with Beejive, and the alerts are timely.They did a good job with it..
 
I use Appigo's ToDo Lite. It is free yet takes advantage of the push notification system to let the user know when their tasks are due. In addition to the push feature, ToDo Lite will also let you sync your tasks with either the iCal app on Mac OS X or an online serivce. It's a heck of a lot for a free app.

I also use AP Mobile, which uses the push notification feature to deliver breaking news. This one's also free. Not nearly as useful as ToDo Lite, though, if you ask me.
 
sports tap works pretty well. It tells you when a game starts, ends, and any score changes. and you get to pick whichever teams you want to receive the alerts about. great for baseball season
 
Other than lack of compatible apps, I'd say it has run perfectly for me. But man, all that time with 3.0 beta's out there I expected more apps available at launch. Not to mention now, over 2 months later.
 
I'm annoyed it's not on the app I really want it on (Skype), but it's worked fine on the other apps (AIM, etc.).
 
seems like this is most app's idea of push...

push.png
 
mcdj said:
seems like this is most app's idea of push...

push.png
Click to expand...

LOL. xD

To reply to the OP, Push Notifications have been working fine for me. The only apps I have that do Push are BeeJiveIM & IM+, both are really good apps and the push service for each works very well. BeeJiveIM+ is a better app IMO, although IM+ has Push for Twitter, which is a cool feature.
 
My 3 top apps are push enabled.

Beejiveim/Simplytweet/Todo

I disabled notification/Sound from Simplytweet/Beejiveim and now it only updates badges.
 
The only apps I have that support Push is AP Mobile and eBuddy. Both are kind of annoying - in the end I disabled the ones for AP because it was never anything "interesting", and eBuddy is kind of crappy in its implementation.
 
The push notifications triple the value of my phone. And finally completely eliminate the need for ****** overpriced SMS.

So uh yeah I completely disagree with OP sentiment.

I do agree, however, that the notification UI could be better.
 
push works fine, we get that. i think the point is the implementation is wrong. sure, its nice to get a warning when someone sends you an IM message, but they should be less obtrusive or less often.

heres an example that happens to me a lot; you're talking to someone on beejive about something, say their new phone. they send you a youtube link that shows off a feature. you tap it and go in to youtube to watch, but they continue to send you messages like "you should see it at 0:54" or something and carry on chatting away to you. you just get fat warning after fat warning covering the screen and pausing the video.

there should be an option to only get the popup alert on the lock screen, otherwise just count up the notifications with badges.

but this just goes back to the general discussion that keeps being brought up about notifications. push isn't the only one guilty of this, texts as well. apple really needs to rethink it and provide more info on the lock screen, less when using the device.
 
What I don't undestand, is why the App Store itself doesn't notify us of updates to installed apps? It doesn't have to be an obtrusive thing too - just a sound or badge would suffice.
 
Any commuter in London will love Push now thanks to London Tube Deluxe v4.

You can setup push notifications for your sleeted tube lines at you selected commute time for any line status changes :D
 
jayenh said:
there should be an option to only get the popup alert on the lock screen, otherwise just count up the notifications with badges.
Click to expand...

I've read that the next version of beejiveim will have an option that only displays the notification once from each sender. Similar to how their email notification use to work in the past. I hope thats true cause it would really ease the notification flood.

Also the timeout has been set to 7 days.

So its going to be a good update :)
 
that does sound good :)

although i'd quite like what i described to be a global option set on the phone so that it applies to texts as well.
 
gr8tfly said:
eBay's app just received an update to enable notifications. I haven't had a chance to use them, but it also seems like a good application of the feature.
Click to expand...

I thought it would be good, but it didn't notify me when any of the items I was watching ended yesterday!
 
Not sure what you were expecting from push notifications..

Seems like most of your concerns are that there's no app that uses push notifications in a way that satisfies you. It has nothing to do with the push notification service Apple offers. Push notification isn't the letdown.
 
It's all in the implementation. Prowl is an amazing app and being able to script custom push messages from my server has been great. I have scripts setup to push new google voice text messages, new gmails, etc, etc. Possibilities are endless when you can send custom push notifications.
 
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