Push Notifications with PushMail

Friday, August 14, 2009

For all those iPhone users sick of launching the Mail app each time, to check for any new mail in the inbox here is some happy news. Presenting PushMail developed by Simon Patarin which uses the push notification for the purpose.

PushMail is a very simple app which sends a push notification to the user once a new mail is received in the gmail inbox. It works using the simple concept, by forwarding all mails to a dummy account.The user is supposed to launch the app and simply register the username and password at dopushmail.com.

Once the user is done with this, gmail settings need be accessed. Options should be set to forward all mails to the dopushmail.com account. An important point to be noted is that the keep a copy in inbox option should be saved in the gmail settings. This is important because dopushmail.com do not save any of the mails though it would all go to the original Mail app. As the developer says “PushMail does not store any email addresses or contents. PushMail only reads enough information from incoming emails to build the notification payload then discard the email entirely even before the notification is actually pushed.”

All mails that are forwarded to the dopushmail account are triggered by push notifications which are sent to the device. The notification triggers an audio alert and includes details about the sender, subject and a small portion of the mail. The app comes at a price of $4.99 at the App Store.

Similar options that use the same logic is available as well. It so happens that Yahoo’s push service that comes for free. The user could take an extra step by forwarding all mails to the yahoo account and use the push notification app for Yahoo to receive all mails in gmail.