Although website auctions have become a less popular pastime, there are still many people looking to auction sites for deals and specialty items. eBay, the online auction innovator, still rank top among auction websites.   Knowing the importance of mobile computing, eBay was one of the first companies to develop an iPhone app.  Recently, eBay updated their iPhone application eBay Mobile to version 1.4.0.  The new version allows for push notification, a popular feature with the availability of iPhone OS 3.0.

Push notifications make the eBay bidder more aware of their bids.  The user receives a notification message when an auction is nearing completion or when somebody won an item in auction. As soon as a watched item reaches the threshold, the user can also respond to pushed messages by hitting a button. He can then end the bidding process or make an increased bid.

To allow users to pay from the iPhone, PayPal application is also integrated with this iphone app. The user does not need to go back to a computer to pay for an item.  With PayPal integration, the user can pay for the item right on the eBay Mobile app.    However, using integrated PayPal application, users cannot buy all the items because if the item requires immediate payment, the bid must be made from a computer or via desktop application.

Other new functions in this version includes:

Companies are striving enhance their businesses by providing mobile apps functionalities.  Ebay, by adding  push notification functions, hopes complete more winning auctions by making users more aware of bidding actions in progress.  Push notifications and PayPal integration also brings convenience to end users.  This is a win-win situation, and another great example of the mobile computing revolution. 

Push notifications seem to be the buzz on the iPhone recently.  It alerts iPhone users immediately when certain conditions are met at an app even when the app is not being used.  During iPhone stock trading, streaming apps such as iStock Manager may drain up battery power very quickly if it is kept on all the time.  Furthermore, gluing your eyes to streaming stock quotes to wait for a stock price to fall or climb to a certain number probably may not make the best use of your time.

With push notifications, constant checking of stock quotes may be a thing of the past for frequent traders and nervous investors on the iPhone.  Etrade Mobile Pro iPhone app can push stock alert notifications to your iPhone within seconds of your stock reaching its target price.  You can then open Etrade Pro immediately to watch the price action or trade the stock right on the App.

To start using push notification on Etrade Mobile Pro, push notification must be turned on for your iPhone.  On your iPhone home screen, go to Setting –> Notifications-> Mobile Pro to turn on all notification settings.

Notification Settings within the Etrade Pro app also must be turned on.  Once you are in the Etrade Pro app, scroll right to the Settings icon.  Touch the icon and make sure your Stock Alerts is turned on.

To set a stock alert, go to Quotes.  Enter the stock quote you wish to follow, the touch the Set Alert icon on the bottom left.  You can set multiple stock alerts of your choice.  Just set the price you wish to be notified, then touch the set alert icon to finish setting a price.  Repeat if you wish to be notified for other price targets.

Etrade Mobile Pro’s push features require that you have an account with Etrade.  So if getting stock alerts via iPhone’s push notification is important to you, you know what to do.

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.