Push Gmail Arrives on the iPhone, in a Roundabout Way

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Google announced today that push Gmail is enabled on the iPhone, as well as other mobile devices. However, iPhone users shouldn’t thank Apple for bringing push Gmail to the native Apple Mail app. Instead, Microsoft’s Exchange and Google’s Google Sync are the technology behind the deployment of push Gmail on the iPhone.

Gmail with push capabilities will allow iPhone users be notified of email messages the instant they are sent. But to get it to work on the iPhone, users need to set up a Microsoft Exchange account on the iPhone, bypassing the regular Gmail account. To set up Gmail via Microsoft Exchange. Simply go to Settings –> Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and tap the “Add Account.” Select Microsoft Exchange and enter your Gmail account information. Don’t forget to enter m.google.com as the server name when you get to the screen that has that field enabled. For the a step by step setup procedure, click here.

Push Gmail via Microsoft Exchange has some serious limitations. Users can only setup 1 account on Microsoft Exchange on the iPhone. Thus, if users are already using Exchange for corporate or other important emails, push Gmail via Exchange and Google Sync is pretty much useless. Also, if users have multiple Gmail accounts, they will have to choose the one they wish to have push support activated.

This limitation gives third party apps such as Gpush, Pushmail, and PushGmail another fighting chance to prove its usefulness. For a small cost, these apps will solve the limitations posed by Microsoft Exchange.

It seems everyone is making an attempt to make push gmail a reality for iPhone users. Apple, please step up to the plate and deliver a truly straight forward Gmail push for the iPhone.

Via The Google Mobile Blog on the Apps Machine