I’m surprised iPhone users haven’t been more vocal about this.
Virtually every iPhone user out there would have been delighted when push notifications for the iPhone were announced. “A solid alternative to the ‘background apps’”, or so we thought.
From my experiences and listening to the various bits of discussion out there, I’m not the only one is who is extremely disappointed with what Apple has put together here. I used to be a Blackberry user (Pearl) and used it to talk, chat and browse the web for two days straight, without a need for recharge. Oohh how I took that for granted…
Now, with the iPhone, part of me wonders whether I’m better off returning to the Blackberry or yes, an Android. Don’t get me wrong, unreliable push notifications, poor reception and bad battery aside…I love the iPhone! It’s a gorgeous piece of kit but frankly, a phone, it is not.
With regard to push notifications, the main pitfalls I’ve encountered are:
- Notifications just frequently not working or appearing at all.
- Notifications soaking up battery life – and fast.
- Very few useful notification apps out there that actually support push notifications, ahem…Skype. (apparently this is due to Apple being ill prepared.)
- The ugly massive button that appears on the home screen – who designed that?It only shows the most recent notification, not good.
- Notifications frequently do not arrive or arrive very late when the iPhone is ‘hibernating’ or not in wifi range, pointless.
- Often applications require logging back into before app push notifications get working again – also pointless.
If I’m brutally honest, in my book, there’s little positive to say about push notifications on the iPhone. I’d like to believe that Apple may revamp the entire system in the short term, but judging by how long it took for copy & paste to arrive – it’s going to be a long time coming.
My mind ponders the idea of getting an Android and making that my primary communications device, whist using an iPod Touch for its media playback, gaming and quirky app capabilities….
Am I wrong here? Are you iPhone users out there actually satisfied?
Actually I’m pretty happy with them but then it’s really more to do with the fact that I’m really selective with what I’m enabling. I was on the AIM Beta and while I ran it for the duration of the test, I switched it off as soon as I could.
Some things just don’t work for Push, some do.
I think the missing component is a lack of intelligence on the server side. This could be some super-secret thing they’ll eventually release on MobileMe or it’ll come from some smart developer who invents an Intelligent Push Proxy Service. Something that gives you more choices, aggregates the alerts and sends only the important stuff.
I used to get two days on my K800i as well – but there’s no comparison to the amount of time I use my iPhone compared to the K800i :)
No. I saw, and still see great potential for Push to make the iPhone stand apart. Even more annoyingly I tried testing Push enabled apps and have yet to receive one smegging message. The only Push service I’ve successfully used was linking my Google Calendar to the calendar app, so appointments made on iPhone are Pushed out to my public Gcal address on the web.
Now if someone can make a Push enabled RSS app, I’ll be a very happy man.
I’ve been underwhelmed with 3.0 as well. Like @zee I left tons of features behind when I ditched my BlackBerry (Gtalk, C & P, etc…) and I thought 3.0 would alleviate some of the grief…
I was farting around with an Android HTC the other day and thought I might ditch the old iPhone unless their pushing smartens up.
Regarding the ugly button in the middle, well, i get rid of that archaic notification system by using GriP (growl for iphone)
http://code.google.com/p/networkpx/wiki/GriP
what is missing on the iphone is a good notification system like the palm pre of android.. one central place where all the notifications are..
Well I guess you are right. I had a windows mobile phone before I get my iPhone. I consider my self a strictly business phone user as much as a technical user. Unfortunately iPhone/ apple they are taking a lot of time to develop simple important features already avaialable on other phones or apple is trying to re-invent the wheel and so far push is not working well.
By the way, my main problem with push notifications, it´s really iphone´s notifications system (dreaded popups)…android and Pre handle the situtation much better…