Google Announces Push Updates for Gmail
Google Announces Push Updates for Gmail
Posted 09/22/2009 at 2:33pm
| by Jason Barry
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Douglas Gresham, software engineer for Google’s Mobile division, announced today on the official Google Mobile blog that they have enabled Push support for Gmail for iPhone and Windows Mobile devices. While other applications such as calendars and contacts already had the capability, Push connectivity for Gmail could only be accomplished using third-party applications.
Smartphone users have been requesting this connectivity for quite some time due to its “always on” feedback. Once new email arrives in your box, you will have it quickly on your phone. In theory, the Push connection method should also reserve battery life because the device is not polling for messages on a set interval, even when there is nothing new.
You can get instructions on how to setup the connection for most mobile devices from the Google Sync help pages. Make sure to backup your phone data before giving this a whirl.
From my experience, once properly set up (takes about 5 minutes) it took my phone (iPhone 3GS) about 45 minutes to fully retrieve all of my data over 3G. So, be patient. The first thing transferred that I noticed were my contacts (just under 100 entries), the last thing was my calendar, email fell somewhere in between.
Have you set it up on your own device? Let us know.
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ErrantConstruct
September 24, 2009 at 2:33am
I set it up and was pretty pleased with it except that now my phone doesn't hold a more than about 2 hours. I got the phone in june so either the battery is defective or push uses way more power than manual email check.
JCBarry
September 23, 2009 at 6:07am
I reverted back to IMAP on my iPhone. Being unable to delete messages from my phone (easily) was a deal breaker for me. I need a way of getting rid of the messages I don't care about, and simply putting them in my Archive where I will likely forget they are there is an awful idea.
You can find a full list of the Google Sync limitations on the Google Help Site.
Jay Barry
MaxPC Profile | Jason Barry
ceator3571
September 23, 2009 at 4:36am
Thanks! I tired this out on the iPhone and it works very fast. Before I could even pick up the phone it was already sync'd both Cal and and email.
ohyeahar
September 22, 2009 at 10:00pm
I tried this out on my Windows Mobile device. It doesn't work very well. The push is a little slow (from 3 minutes up to 10 minutes). Also, attachments are not supported.
ogremustcrush
September 22, 2009 at 3:48pm
Palm Pre has had support for gmail push since it's launch. Of course, I believe it accesses gmail using IMAP instead of some weird connection like the other smartphones and is one of the rare devices to support IMAP Idle to have standard push functionality.
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