I'm just so tired of the silence from both camps when it is so obviously possible to make push Gmail a reality for iPhone users. I believe that there is an ulterior motive that is linked to the Android platform at play here.

Google, whatever happened to "Don't be Evil"?

Read this: Google CEO Schmidt quits Apple board amid scrutiny

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5722O720090803

1) go to gmail settings, forwarding 2) forward your email to your iphone's sms email address, e.g., 9175551234@@txt.att.net 3) keep your messages in the inbox

Whenever you get a gmail or google apps email, you will instantly receive an SMS message on your iphone. You know you have an email.

The only drawback is that you will have to delete the SMS messages eventually. Also be sure you have unlimited texting.

Apple being a leader in technology disappoints me that they can't get something like the 'push' implemented properly - in a world where timing is everything.

I just think it's ridiculous that the iPhone can have a friggin' compass on it, but I can't get my email pushed??? Something is very wrong here.

Google is working to bring ActiveSync to Gmail to later this year. ActiveSync will bring push Gmail to iPhone.

Use a service like Mail2Web: http://lifehacker.com/398526/set-up-push-email-contacts-and-calendar-on-your-iphone-for-free

Google Sync for Contacts and Calendar: http://www.google.com/mobile/apple/sync.html

I swear to god my gmail account used to push immediately to my iPhone and all my inboxes were synched instantly all the time.

If the mail app is open and you are looking at it, it may appear that way, because mail check when you are sitting in the Mail App happen frequently.

But if you close out of mail, and send a Gmail from your computer you won't get the Mail bing for up to X minutes, where X is the "Fetch New Data" interval.

Its never been instantaneous for as long as I've had the iPhone.

After all, maintaining 17 million open sockets for imap idle (or activesync for that matter) when you have a server farm as dispersed and massive as Google would still be a technological challenge.

Such a socket connection requires the two ends to be fixed, you can't be handing over a socket to another IP address. If you have ever pointed Wireshark at a Gmail connection you will find that successive gmail mail check requests can terminate at totally different servers with different IP addresses, as Google has a massively redundant network with dynamic routing.

But if Apple could build a fast pipe to Google for notifications they can piggy-back on the network Apple is putting in place to handle Notifications (For a phat fee). This way one single socket connection to Apple handles all sorts of notifications.

Apple is on the right track with its notification system because its silly and unsustainable for the iPhone to maintain open sockets for an ever increasing number of services. Notifications are technologically superior to imap idle and activesync and the next 15 apps that come down the pike.

Yes, the technology of notifications is the same. But its a matter of scale and quantity. 5 or 8 sockets open for mail accounts, calendars, tweets, skype, etc, etc, and your phone would never get a chance to power down transmitters and save battery.

So Apple may actually prefer that Gmail (and others) be handled via Notifications. That way the client inside the iphone can handle "push" via a "Mail check upon Notification". Apple could supply notification service to any number of mail providers, large and small for a fee.

First you have to get this past the Patent Trolls at RIM (Blackberry's patented Push is really just a network notification for the handset to "Pull" mail). This is why they licensed Active Sync. If they can leverage this to things Microsoft never even imagined Apple can skirt these patents with a general purpose notification system and the sky is the limit.

Would adding perfect support of Google's suite kill MobileMe, its cash cow ? is it the reason ?

Anyway, I am hoping iPhone 3.0 bring all the goodies.

As for push, I've turned that off completey, instead opting for 1 hour interval checks. I wish gmail had push. It would be awesome.

If anything I'm getting mad at yahoos push email service for the iPhone because it doesn't seem to work well for me. On top of that....... in order to forward mail I need to pay 9.99 for year or month or something I don't remember which one.....