MobileMe push e-mail status updates are still missing as well. If someone sends me an e-mail and it pushes to both my Macbook and my iPhone, I then check it on my Macbook, and no other e-mail gets sent to me, my iPhone still thinks I have new e-mail, 10 hours later.

Its fairly a basic thing and apple has yet to fix it.

aphex

@OMG! Ponies!:

Exactly, and allow the user to remove and replace the battery. I'm infuriated by the locked in battery.

silverghozt

@PobreGizmo:

what are you talking about?

push, copy and paste, MMS. need i say more?

silverghozt

@Mona:

12 posts on this...go outside.

mricyfire

Its not as bad as Vista being delayed a whole year. Speaking of Micro$oft, where is that amazing new Windows Mobile they been promising for past 8 months? Hmmmmmm

vgart

@PobreGizmo: Push and copy/paste exist on a plethora of other phones.

Qwertyfreak's brilliant message to the world - below

@Mona: Yeah, I use Toodledo which sends text message reminders, but I'm talking about real reminders that can be snoozed (like Windows mobile).

T-Will

@NSX: Take that up with RIM!!

Mona

@CadetCrusher: 100% spot on. Even though I think that the iPhone is a decent phone, Apple has tried to sell it to developers based on some half-assed promises. What Apple should do is just copy all of the functionality of the Blackberry (push services included)...but they won't. Instead what's happening is that RIM is attempting to copy all of the functionality of the iPhone...

anti-hello-kitty

@OMG! Ponies!: Yea, it only took RIM 2 months to develop that function right??!

Noobs-R-Us

@discounteggroll: IT'S A TRAP!!

Mona

I don't think Apple is "under a contract" to do anything. You make it sound as though they promised their hearts out to you. Just chill, you'll get it eventually.

cowpop

@Mona: Like wifi? :)

NSX

@R3ap3R: I'm actually excited for Chrome to hit Macs for the "Sad Tab" tag. ;)

Mona

@Mona:

I've heard some freaky stories about people saying the aforementioned "MM" words into their iphones 3 times...

don't risk it just to be a showoff. You've been warned

discounteggroll

Giz should head over to Cupertino and take a look at what's inside the "iPhone Push R&D Division" HQ

my guess is a room with a bucket, maybe a mop and some mini army figures

discounteggroll

ATT is prolly giving them crap about the sms

hiimcliff

@tande04: Nay. It all ties in together: background processing, push, IM, etc. The more devs have access to functionality, the less successful Apple's proprietary apps will be. Think about it from a business prospective and picture the timeline. Releasing (working) MobileMe with the push dev kit will give proprietary apps a headstart - especially if push is enabled.

Mona

@Mona: I don't think you're getting what we mean.

This has nothing to do with e-mail. You can and have been able to do push e-mail on the iPhone since the 3G launched (more or less). You just need exchange or mobileMe (as you mention).

This is about support for push notification for a slew of other things that has been promised to developers for awhile now. Since the iPhone dev kit doesn't allow the phone to use background resources IM applications and others have been mostly worthless. To get around that they were supposed to implement push notification services for third party developers so that they could have access on a "cloud" like level. The app would have to be running but the push service would run and notify you when you got a new IM, reminder, VoiP call, etc. Nothing in MobileMe adds that functionality nor has it been hinted at that it will in the future.

tande04

@sarwatmj: Why is it wrong to ask for basic features all 'smart phones' should have?

Mona

@OMG! Ponies!: After they just patented technology that'll keep the screen on 24/8? I don't think so. What is wrong with them, seriously.

Mona

@tande04: HA. I still haven't upgraded to the 3G iPhone, because of the unstable OS. I would be DAMNED if my phone reset, locked up, and dropped calls every five minutes. Ergo - dedication? FAR from it.

That said, look at the bigger picture. Ask yourself WHY they (Apple) are holding off on rudimentary functions as: push, background processing, cut and paste?

Mona

Let's hope they take their time with this one. It's not a small feature and should be done right. If it takes another 3 months, developers should be fine in waiting, so long as when it's delivered it's stable and works properly.

A-Veev

@Noobs-R-Us:
agreed sir

iAirmanshirk

People are soooo whiny! Damn!!

sarwatmj

@Mona: Solution: Improve the battery.

OMG! Ponies!

@tande04 and @Jesus Diaz: Why would anyone sign up for and actually pay for MobileMe? Push functionality.

This is Steve Jobs we're talking about. He's usually 10 steps ahead of all of us.

Mona

@yikz:

I had a BlackBerry Curve for quite a while and the push on that thing is awesome. And the battery lasted about *twice* as long as the iPhone's, so you're way off. The holy lords at Apple apparently can't code as efficiently as those at RIM.

Don't blame push for your lousy battery life, blame apple for making a battery sucking device. If RIM can have push services (for more than just email) available for this long, surely the almighty apple can squeeze something out. But only if they take some time away from coding all those cute little screen transitions that don't add any value.

CadetCrusher

Apparently the iPhone has had the 'cut' feature all along, but everyone is anxiously awaiting the day when 'push' is pasted back.

Monty

@Mona: While your dedication to the iPhone is somewhat endearing you're completely missing the point.

Remember the Milk works around the issue like every other 3rd party app has had to do. If the developer had a choice do you think they'd opt for sending you a text to pick up milk over popping something up on the screen with a little 'ding' reminding you to pick up the milk? Well they'd probably do both but the point is that without push notification their hands have been tied in ways that apple said would be opened up yet they haven't delivered on that yet.

tande04

@Mona: ...has nothing to do with the conversation at hand since it would only deal with push e-mail and not push notifications.

tande04

@Mona: MobileMe doesn't have anything to do with Push Services, which are for third parties.

Jesus Diaz

@Mona: MobileMeToo!

PobreGizmo

@T-Will: Remember The Milk, ring a bell?

Mona

@phor11: I think the omission of background processing has to do with batterylife (the reason they keep pushing it off)

Mona

@snitch29: What I wonder about is the possibility of a malicious app/dev being able to "push" malware directly to the phone. I know that's probably a long shot, but are there any security concerns with 3rd party push applications?

PobreGizmo

@juanjux: Why do you need copy paste? I don't miss it. At all.

Mona

MobileMe

Mona

@yikz: But isn't the point of push that the system isn't up and running, but that notifications are "push"ed to a basically dormant phone? I thought that was the whole point/draw of push tech...

PobreGizmo

@silverghozt: Wait, essential features that do not exist on any other phone? Yeah, me too!

PobreGizmo

Another reason could be that they're holding the feature (along with others) for the next year iPhone so we all upgrade to have push and copy & paste. Or switch to Android instead.

juanjux

@Oirectine: AIM and other clients always had background notification on the Blackberry. It's kind of pointless without it.

OMG! Ponies!

Push notification is something they can't take a gamble and just release it and fix later like they been doing, they got to get this right the first time i think cause once everyone starts using IM, SMS & MMS is going to die right away, i do see this being release at macworld which is 1 month an a few days away

snitch29

@tande04: I didn't do a very good job of explaining what I meant. Lets try again.

When they launched the iPhone they were talking about push e-mail through exchange or their MobileMe program, which the iPhone has and has had (more or less) since the 3G launched.

What they're talking about now is push notification being opened up to the third party developers which is something they just started talking about 2 months or so ago. It was supposed to be the work around for the fact that the 3rd party developers couldn't use background resources on the iPhone.

tande04

@OMG! Ponies!: Wait, RIM is able to send over the air notifications to thousands of third party apps available for download onto their phones?*

Doesn't seem like this is an apples-to-apples comparison (no pun intended), but I could be completely uninformed.

*seriously asking, snark not included

Oirectine

@*Takashi Miike*:

theres always one..

twitzgall

@*Takashi Miike*: man, i feel your pain but complaining about it at this point was last decades news.

Didn't Obama promise change for iphone users too? Can I take my vote back?

thetickler

Especially since the iPhone OS won't support multiple apps being open at once.
IM apps really are worthless on the iPhone without push.

phor11

@Johnny Chimpo: That was push e-mail. Which it has.

This is a different kind of push that developers can use for applications like IM.

tande04

@Toastie: It also has it for some of the IM (it has to be enabled) Gtalk does it with out the client being actively running.

Technogen

Forget push notification! Where's my Copy/paste!?

*Takashi Miike*

@Ryan Goins: Thanks for the clarification!

Toastie

@OMG! Ponies!: There is none!

*Takashi Miike*

@Toastie: It has gmail push notifications, but Android allows processes to run in the background unlike the iPhone. The purpose of the push notifications for the iPhone are to eliminate the need for apps to run in the background and take away from battery life.

Ryan Goins

@DeadWriter: Then there would be nothing for the whiners to bitch about, which would probably decrease iphone sales cause of all the free press the whiners give it.

Oddly enough i live without copy and paste. One interesting thing though is if you go into Fetch New Data settings, it mentions applications push under the mail push on/off slider.

"The schedule below is used when push is off or for APPLICATIONS which do not support push.

dillinger23

It's battery useage. Leaving the system up and running is battery intensive. Push is not all its' cracked up to be. I had it for 2.5 years, and I'm glad that the iPhone is the way it is. People understand. They don't like being held hostage by a smart phone. The article mentions that push saves energy, but there's enough of the system up and running that battery life is going to be affected. Battery life is already low on the iPhone 3G, and adding anything else, you might as well buy a lead acid battery and carry it around as a spare power supply.

yikz

I agree. I'm def tiring of the wait for such essential and basic features on the iphone.

silverghozt

they're pushing along

flunkycarter

Really, it's a conspiracy of such grand scale, no one person can understand. If cun-and-paste and push notification came to the iPhone, then we would be a threat to the galactic powers that be.

DeadWriter

@Noobs-R-Us: Only two months? Really?

Because RIM has been able to do push for years. It can be done. So really, what's the excuse?

OMG! Ponies!

Isn't the Android phone OS push enabled?

Toastie

All I want is for Apple to add the ability for let's say a 3rd-party Task List program to make an entry into the reminder subsystem, which would pop-up a reminder at a scheduled time. Is it really that difficult to implement something like that? The calendar and alarm clock already have this ability.

T-Will

I've found it's much easier to just text 246246 (AIMAIM) to get my IMs, at least through AIM. Of course, it tells people I'm on my phone, and limits how much they can put into each message, but it works...

In the meantime, I think they just decided to wait until the third-gen iPhone before releasing push notifications... Could be wrong, but...

The Amazing Ant

Macworld is just around the corner so hopefully they'll release it then.

OGHowie

i am still confused why this isn't a more talked about issue. push is something that apple listed as a feature of the new iphone way back at launch.

not to pick on jesus but i would like to see better explanation on why apple hasn't made this available yet. the article title hints at reasons why push isn't available only to give a brief description of what push is and why it's useful.

Johnny Chimpo

Finally a post about this! I've been waiting for Push Notification since September. It is quite ridiculous on Apple's part to not even let people know that they were going to be late on it, even though it is their right not to. Push is something that would really help the iPhone, and the fact that its two months late, and this is the first real mention of it boggles me.

Apple, do as you say.

whatne1wuddo

Interesting piece, but I'm not sure the carriers' attempt to preserve revenue are to blame for this one. As you mentioned, people can already IM my BlackBerry, and that does not go through the carriers' SMS flow.

Lewis

@Noobs-R-Us: So you should be happy, not angry, so that when they do release it, it won't crash your iPhone every 5 minutes.

Noobs-R-Us

Dude, it's only two months! Take a chill pill. Jobs has said after their Mobile me debacle that they will not release crapware again. So you should be happy not angry that when they do release it it won't crash your iPhone every 5 minute.

Noobs-R-Us

Can't wait to see the tag "Bad apple" get used some more :O

R3ap3R

@Mona: My iphone doesn't reset, lock up or drop calls........

mmmiles

Jailbreak. Background Enabler. 'Nuff said.

Meatlocker - still a man, despite his white iPhone fetish.

How does it all work on a sidekick? the messenging on there is flawless, and bettery is good

FitzgeraldBenz

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but I distinctly recall how they cockily mocked windows mobile and the task manager as they touted push notify. I believe this was at the 2008 wwdc in june.

spaceman37

@Johnny Chimpo: Does anyone really think this is a technical issue at Apple? Come on...

I am willing to bet money AT&T is fighting tooth and nail to delay or kill this feature and their lawyers are probably working overtime.

A better bet for consumers would be for someone to figure out a Jailbreak hack that re-enables this feature to let a neutral outsider judge any stability or usability issues. Once that cat is out of the bag Apple will jump to include it in a regular release to remove any incentive that might cause a tide of Jailbreaking.

Vagabum

@OMG! Ponies!: Doesn't a Blackberry work like a desktop computer where all the processes are always running until they are quit? It would make it a lot easier to send a notification to a live app than a dead one. Apples solution seems like a different take on what RIM is doing. I mean it's obvious Apple can do push notifications because you get them for voice mails and text messages. As a developer, I would rather wait and have them come out with good stable of development libraries, than have more crashing and complaining on the AppStore.

I've been venting frustration about Apples lack of Google Maps (Notice the Maps application doesn't have Googles name anywhere in it, but on the physical map tiles) in the iPhone on the development forums for a few days now, but Apple is the puppet master in this show.

Joseph

@Meatlocker - still a man, despite his white iPhone fetish.:

It's an option for those that jailbreak. Though if Apple did their job and actually worked on providing features that customers have been asking for then we wouldn't need to jailbreak. Reference [code.google.com]

imagine-engine

@tande04: Actually, they did mention this when revealing the iPhone 3G back in June. Near the end of the Keynote, Jobs announced that push notification services would be available in September.

iananthony

@silverghozt: Amen to that.

GMoney749

because iphone sucks?

vicsells

meh

banmojo

how much do you wanna bet it's patent issues?

hansning

@Noobs-R-Us: The "2 months" thing is referring to the fact that we were supposed to have push notification 2 months ago, not that it should only take 2 months to implement. Apple has had more than enough time to get it working.

Chopper

@Noobs-R-Us: That's why, my safari on iphone 3g still keeps crashing even in 2.2 update. freaking awesome.

biofreak

@Lewis:
I think the lost of SMS revenue is part of the issue...
The fact that I have to pay for SMS when I allready pay for a data plan is such a big fuck'n scam. It's clear that carriers don't want to loose that SMS revenue.

Dr.Blip

I'm still wondering how smaller developers would have messages "pushed" to your phone. That would require some type of server, and if the app is popular, the servers would need to scale. Now I don't know about you, but running servers for all of your customers seems like something only the "big boys" can do. Unless there's a client side app that will be installed on your computer, "push" notifications aren't going to be that useful for a smaller developer looking to make it big.

dagamer34

@Chopper: Exactly. I think some people here wouldn't have minded waiting a few months more for some key features to be added to the iPhone.

Metkis

Well, the whole Enterprise WiFi thing doesn't work as it's supposed to either. I can't connect properly on my college's wifi, the DHCP server does not deliver the proper data and it's Apple's fault. I thought they'd get round to it in the fw update but no luck for me...

slname

@vgart: Or when the iPhone delayed Leopard for half a year which still got released full of bugs.

At least Microsoft didn't run "look at us ship OSes on time" ads while simultaneously announcing the delay.

OMG! Ponies!

hi I'm confuse with this article. I am in the Netherlands and I can get push notification from Yahoo through my iphone.. I also use Beejive apllication for instant messagini which will keep me online (eventhough I put the Iphone to homescreen) and notify me everytime anyone buzz me or drop a message.. so what do you (gizmodo) mean there is no push notification? I have it on my iphone...

santaclown

And yet, my N95 does that just fine (after installing Nokia Email).

Yet another feature where Apple is behind the curve.

Guizzy

I would personally like more to have the ability to run a few selected applications in the background. Push notifications are cool but for such things as SSH or IRC (i.e. apps that require continuous connection to a server) they don't work since iPhone won't do multitasking when it comes to applications.

The option could be given to the user for f...s sake! A preference that would list all the installed apps and option to either enable or disable running in background - default would be disabled to prevent accidental battery draining. Press home button normally and the app goes into background, hold it for 2 seconds and it closes. Tag the running apps with something similar to Dock in OS X. Simple.

atheos

@flunkycarter: Bah-dum-bum tink

chasema

Does anyone think that the guy in the picture is Janitor from Scrubs? Its not a shot from Scrubs, but still, that guy is everywhere.

MobileEMP

@Chopper: Not really, considering that Jobs only announced this recently.

Noobs-R-Us

@juanjux: That would be a worrying thought, if it was in any way the way that the iPhone's operating system worked...I've got a first gen iPhone (love it, thank you very much-works better than any phone that I've ever used except for AT&T's crap network) and I've got exactly the same software features and availabilities that the folks with the 3G version have (barring, of course, the ones necessitated by hardware-specific things, like GPS location-I have to use EDGE triangulation and WiFi).

I'm sure that the folks in Cupertino are working on this and that it will be a free software upgrade when they finally get it right.

Lupus_Yonderboy

@banmojo: Good one. Insightful.

Lupus_Yonderboy

@silverghozt: Yup, that would solve many an issue.

caffeinatedgeek

@MobileEMP:
No... Neil Flynn has a longer face.

.Trenchant.

...and this is why my blackberry has cured me of most of my iPhone envy. it's not as good as the iPhone in terms of a multimedia device, but it runs circles around apple in terms of a communication device.

except, facebook gives me push notifications while myspace doesn't, which is somewhat stupid, and when i get a missed call, it shows up in both my call log and my email, and when i get a voicemail, it shows up as both a voicemail and a text.

so blackberry's push system is less than perfect, but it's still very good.

he who still uses a sony clie, and once called himself rimplestultskin

@Monty: Seems to me the question of why it was not implemented has been answered by Giz themselves..... "As you can imagine, this makes push notification a Holy Grail for users and developers alike. The only people who may not be happy about these are the carriers. After all, the idea of an instant messaging application with push notification services taking over their lucrative SMS business doesn't seem like a very good one."

If the manufacturer and the service provider have to scratch each other's back to stay happy then this above post makes more than enough sense why there are so many delays with this "feature" being implented.

Guess I'll stop holding my breath for a release date.

Boo. Hiss.

OprahBabb

MobileMe power activated! Shape of... wait, no, not yet. Nevermind.

shokk

If apple is running this bitch what incentive do they have to push out push notifications. Please people, once some of these new blackberrys become a threat, apple will move it's ass.

EditorinChief

There is an aspect related to Push Notification that I keep missing in these discussions: local noticications. I'm referring for example to a notification by a ToDo app to remind me of a task, a 3rd party calandar (like upcoming Pocket Informant) to remind me of a meeting, the ability for a 3rd party clock app to sound an alarm. At the moment all these app have to be running (in the foreground as there is no background) to be able to deliver a notification. But hey: I can't run a 3rd party clock, calendar and Todo app at the same time, so many notifications will be never shown. This is totally ridiculous! Even my very first (black&white screen) PalmPilot (12 or 14 years ago) was able to handle notifications from different apps. I had at least 6 or 7 3rd party apps that could generate notifications. Palm does not let all these apps run in the background, because that would cost too much battery power, but instead they have a Notification Manager, a very efficient background process that just waits until it is time to show a notification. All the 3rd party apps have to do is: push a record on the Notification Stack. The record contains: date and time; text message; type of ringtone; you can even create your own notification dialogue and put it in the waiting queue. My question is: will Apple's Push Notification allow for local notifications? If not then a Todo app would have to send a message to Apple's Notification server and the server would have to send a message to my iPhone to show the notification. In situations where there is poor network coverage this would be very unreliable.

AbbyBatakas

@PobreGizmo: RIM"s push is patented and does not use extra battery. Apple's push is a fetch with a long timeout and does use extra power.

SumnerFuge

Push? How about brining the iPhone up to par with Palm OS devices of 10 years ago by adding goddamned to-do lists with categories and memos with categories? And then let's have some notifications for missed calls, texts, and voice-mails? Audible notifications that are issued periodically until you clear them, not one chirp as the missed call concludes and then NOTHING EVER AGAIN. Basic, common-sense functionality.

VaniaMossberg

My theory is that the ATT network is getting HAMMERED. They didn't expect it, so they are scrambling. Data on the iPhone is particularly bad in big cities like NYC and Chicago and they have already stalled the tethering, so I think this is a capacity issue. How can you add PUSH when you can't get email rock solid?

BrunellaBasilisk

Two things that are taking WAY... too much time. 1. Push Notifications 2. Turn-by-Turn Navigation I'm not digging the whole it's a secret thing. A secret from who? My Blackberry has had this functionality for years.

NoelleCatilina

Sorry... Apple has strategically delayed this feature for the next iPhone, the iPhone Push... Be prepared for viral marketing that is not unlike the picture in the article.

ChanningGurges