How do you use push notification on your iPhone? Apple released the push notification service as part of iPhone 3.0 and since then iPhone and iPod touch (and now iPad) users have been able to get everything from social network updates (Instant Messages (IM), Twitter tweets, Facebook statues) to game challenges to deal notices to.. just about anything you can imagine.

Some users are forgoing SMS for push notifications to save on texting costs. Others like RSS feeds, or breaking news on certain topics pushed right to them. There are even apps who only provide push notifications for other apps!

iPhone OS 4 will add local notifications to the mix, so App Store alarms, for example, could even be set to wake you up in the morning. (Would that iPhone OS 4 also fixed those push notifications pop-ups that obliterate everything that came before and provide no way — webOS or Android style — to manage them. Bitter much?).

So we’re curious, which apps are you using push notification for right now, and how are you using it? Social networking, games, news, something else? And what cool tips or tricks have you discovered?

We’re getting a lot of reports from people who say they aren’t getting push notifications for their iPad apps, and we’re having similar problems ourselves. From productivity to games, there doesn’t seem to be a pattern yet other than “not-working”.

Are you having problems with push notifications on your iPad? If so, tell us which apps aren’t working for you. And if you are getting notifications, tell us about that as well.

Orbit aims to do for your iPhone what Syngergy does for Palm’s webOS — aggregate all your contacts and their status — but with an equal and opposite focus on notification management.

So, not only can you link together your friend’s contact info along with their Facebook, Twitter, etc., you can group them into various “orbits” (and each contact can be in more than one “orbit”), create all manner of filters, and raise or lower the “volume” of notification you receive.

So, you can set the volume of your raging editor in chief to “high” and your in-laws to “low”.

TiPb has discussed this before — after the rush to Push Notification, we have devices pinging and poping at us all the time and that can become as useless as no notifications.

Orbit [Free -- iTunes link] has just gone live in the App Store, check it out. Video after the break!

[YouTube video link]

Boxcar just let us know Boxcar 2.2 [Free/in-app purchases - iTunes link] has been served up piping hot to the iPhone (and iPod touch) App Store. Here are some highlights:

• Push for RSS feeds (powered by Superfeedr)
• Push for Growl notifications
• Now supports TweetDeck and Natsulion
• Toggle off hidden Facebook and Twitter re-tweet API notifications
• All new inbox that brings the pretty and the function

Boxcar remains one of the most popular options for enabling push notifications when and where they’re not natively supported in other apps. Once again, the first push service is free, and additional ones cost $0.99 via in-app purchase, so you can pay for just exactly what you want.

If you’ve been waiting to get your RSS or Growl on, or your Facebook or re-tweets off, and you give Boxcar 2.2 a try, let us know how it works for you.

PushMail [$2.99 - iTunes link] has just gone 2.0. For those unfamiliar with PushMail, its a middleapp that creates an account for you to forward email, and when it’s alerted to that new email, it sends out a push notification to your iPhone. New features this time around include:

• 25 sound options
• Set silent periods (e.g. during the time you typically sleep)
• History, to view past notifications
• Customize notifications (choose what info you want to display, and what you want to keep private).
• View button to open message in PushMail, Mail, or Safari
• Configuration help and trouble-shooting
• Profiles to let you override certain settings based on specific criteria. (e.g. don’t push any email from the mother-in-law!)

Both the history and the profiles options sound terrific. For those who want GoogleSync-style push Gmail but are already using their only ActiveSync slot for Exchange, this is another option.

If you try it out, let us know what you think!

Boxcar [$2.99 + In-App Purchases - iTunes link], a push-enabler for iPhone and iPod touch originally launched with support for a couple of Twitter clients. Then it added a bunch more. As several Twitter clients now offer support for push themselves, what’s Boxcar to do for a 2.0 encore? Add Facebook and Email push, of course, as well as Twitter Search and Twitter Trends.

Okay, sure, some major Twitter clients like Tweetie and Twitterrific still haven’t added push support, so if they’re your go-to apps, Boxcar may still be a go-to middleapp. Likewise, while Google supports Gmail now via GoogleSync, Exchange users can’t hand over their only ActiveSync slot, so email push-enablers still have their place. Lastly — and it’s a big lastly, while Facebook 3.0 for iPhone just launched, it did so without push support, and so if you don’t want to wait for 3.1 to get your push on, well, here’s your middleapp for that as well.

But… it comes with a price. The $2.99 app price comes with one service built in. If you want to add another, like Facebook, you need to make an additional $0.99 in-app purchase. Email, that’s another $0.99. Twitter Trends and Twitter Search likewise. And since you can have multiple Twitter, Email, Twitter Search, etc. set up, you can go from that base $2.99 to $4.99, even $9.99 or more. Basically, you pay for what’s valuable to you. If you’re working customer service and being push-alerted when your company (or your competitor!) and the word “problem” hits Twitter, $0.99 is a steal. If you don’t care about trends or searches, or Facebook for that matter, you get a cheaper entry price for the app.

So, whether this particular app is worth it to you, and whether or not the in-app purchase upgrades are worth it to you, we’re liking options and being able to choose — and pay for — only what we find of value.

So, if you need push now and you decide to try Boxcar 2.0 out, let us know how it works for you, and what you think of the pricing model!

More screen shots after the break…

i.TV just let TiPb know they’ve submitted version 2.0 of their popular iPhone and iPod touch app to the iTunes App Store. What’s in store for us this time out?

• Push Notification for TV shows
• Tap to download from iTunes
• TiVo Remote via the introduction of “Remote Control Framework”:

i.TV now combines the TV guide and the remote control on an iPhone or iPod touch. Remote controls are powered by the i.TV Remote Control Framework, which allows third parties to develop remote controls for use on the i.TV platform.

How’s all of that sound to ya?

PushMail [$4.99 - iTunes link] takes a different approach to working around the lack of push notifications for Gmail, Hotmail, and other email services on the iPhone. When you set up PushMail, you’re prompted to create an account on their servers ([username]@dopushmail.com). You then forward email from Gmail, Hotmail, etc. to that PushMail account (using whatever filters or rules you like), and when PushMail gets the forward, it sends a push notification to your iPhone, alerting you that your Gmail, Hotmail, etc. account has email.

You can also forward more than one account to the Pushmail account.

If you give it a try, let us know how it works for you.

BargainBin [Free - iTunes link] keeps an eye on App Store apps and lets you know about sales and price drops. So, if there’s an app out there you’re waiting to try, but are watching your budget, this might be a way to keep track of any discounts coming your way. With push notification, you’ll also know quickly when to pounce on the right deal.

If you give it a try, let us know how it works for you!

UPDATE 2: GPush’s developers posted in the comments with the following info:

On Saturday August 8, 2009 GPush made it into the App store. We are currently experiencing a server issue and have temporarily pulled the app from the store while we work on the problem. This is an issue with our servers not the application and we will not need to go through the approval process again. If you have already downloaded the application, please know we are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

UPDATE: According to the developers on Twitter:

GPush made it to the App Store, we are aware of a server issue & we temporarily pulled the App off the store while we work on the servers

ORIGINAL: GPush [$0.99 - iTunes link] provides a work-around for Gmail push notifications for iPhone 3.0 users. GPush is not an email client in its own right; it serves only to notify a user via sound/vibrate, text alert pop-up, and/or numerical badge, but the user still has to manually launch the iPhone’s built-in Mail app to actually download and interact with the email.

We’ve only had a chance to try it very briefly, but it worked well, notifying us incoming GMail messages very quickly. Job. Done.

Unlike Boxcar, for example, which provides similar intermediary push notification for Twitter clients, GPush doesn’t have the option to automatically launch Mail when you get an alert (only an “okay” button, not a “view” button). We also couldn’t get it to work with Google Accounts, the paid version of Gmail that uses custom domain names. (GPush makes no mention of Google Accounts support, but if it occurred to us to try it, we figured it would occur to readers as well).

Lastly, GPush keeps asking to know our location. Why does it need that information? (Update: per the developers comments below, location is used to determine the closest and hence fastest push server for the service).

All in all, GPush does exactly what it claims to — it provides near instant notification for Gmail for iPhone users. Until Google adds Gmail to Google Sync, or Apple and Google get off their duffs and build IMAP IDLE into the Mail App proper, if you want “push” Gmail on your iPhone, check out GPush and let us know what you think.

More pics after the break!

[Thanks John-Fox for the tip!]

Twitbit [$4.99 - iTunes link] is a Twitter client for the iPhone and iPod touch that provides built-in push notification for @mentions and direct messages (DMs).

For those of you still reading — those didn’t immediately jump over to grab it — what this means is you get all the functionality you’ve come to expect — reading, posting, multiple accounts, start and stop following, searching, trends, user profiles, reply chains, etc. etc. and you get any @mentions and DMs pushed straight to you without the need for an extra enabler app (which most other Twitter clients currently require).

The folks at High Order Bit were gracious enough to give us a sneak peak to try out, and I’ve been using it pretty much non-stop since. And… I’ve found all the functionality I need and then some. The push works wonderfully as well. So far, so fast.

One thing I particularly liked (but others may not) is that, when you get multiple @mentions or DMs, rather than having the latest obliterate the previous text alert (fix that by implementing a genius stacking system, will you Apple?), Twitbit collates them up. You don’t get to see the contents of the latest message, but you do get to see “X new @mentions and X new DMs” (see screenshot below). At least you have some idea of volume.

Of course, iPhone notifications being interruptive as they are, there’s still a chance something will pop up while you’re watching a movie or playing a game…

Given that limitation, more granularity as to who and what Twitbit pushes would be grand — and it’s likely forthcoming in an update — but wow are these young upstart devs and apps giving the entrenched Twitter clients a race for their functionality.

If you want an amply functioning Twitter client with built-in push notifications, take a serious look at Twitbit and let us know what you think.

Tons of screenshots after the break!

Boxcar [$1.99 - iTunes link] is almost more enabler than app. It only does one thing, but thus far it does it very, very well — it sends Push Notifications for Twitter @mentions and Direct Messages (DMs) that then open in either Tweetie or Twitterrific.

Setup is straight forward; you log into your account through an in-app view of Twitter’s website, and authorize Boxcar. You can select whether you want Push Notification for either @mentions, DMs, or both, and which of the aforementioned apps you want to open them in (hopefully support for more options will be forthcoming, such as Tweetdeck, Birdfeed, Twittelator Pro, etc.). You can also choose to automatically tweet them a shout out.

Like all Push-enabled apps, you can exit to the iPhone Settings to turn on or off Sounds, Alert (text boxes), and/or Badges.

That’s it. Sit back and enjoy Push Notifications so you can immediately know when anyone talks to or about you on Twitter. Even when you’re watching a movie on your iPhone. Or playing a game. Or writing an SMS. Or even taking a phone call — if anyone still does that…

In other words, it works so well, you may have to learn to better manage your Twitter interruptions.

Now the crux: is a couple of bucks a lot to pay for an app that arguably only extends the usefulness of other apps that you already paid a few bucks (or more) for? Depends on how badly you want Push Notification for Twitter, whether you’re willing to wait for full-on Twitter clients to add it themselves (however long that takes), and if you realize a couple of bucks is very little, and partly going to support the developers servers that are handling the Twitter calls and passing them on to Apple’s notification servers.

I bought it without a second thought. You’ll have to weigh the value (which is more important than cost) yourselves, and let me know what you think in the comments — or @reneritchie and I’ll get it right away via push

More pics after the break!

148apps posted up a PR from a developer in the Czech Republic that states:

“When the Push based application such as NotifyMe requests an ID from APNS, the server responds within a second and identifies the device with the unique token. From that point, the connection between APNS and user’s device is successfully established,” said Pavel Serbajlo, PoweryBase’s lead developer. “However, on a unofficially activated device, APNS keeps the application wait forever and does not provide any respond at all, keeping user wait infinitely or time out the connection, if the target application is capable of timing out.”

Last week we mentioned Jailbreak users were having problems with Push, but a lot of you responded that things seemed just fine, or that an updated Jailbreak process fixed it for you.

So that makes us wonder, is Push Notification really not working? And if it’s not, is Apple really blocking it, or is it just not set up to recognize some Jailbroken iPhones that weren’t activated in the usual way via iTunes?

IM+ Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

IM+ is an IM client with push notification support for 10 networks, including Twitter. I use AIM, Facebook, and Twitter, so these are the only networks that influence this review.

Design and Use

The design of IM+ is nice and intuitive. The bottom toolbar has tabs for contacts, inbox, favorites, status, and more. Under the contacts tab you will find find a list of your contacts organized by account, group name, or no group (selected in settings). If no group organization is chosen, then your contact list will by organized alphabetically based on availability. So, the top of your list will show available contacts, then idle or away contacts. At the bottom, offline contacts are treated as a separate group. There is an option to have offline contacts hidden.

Tapping a contact will open a chat window with that contact. If there is a previous conversation stored on IM+, then the window will include that conversation.

To the right of of every contact, there is an “i” to find more information. Tapping this will display the status of the contact, their user ID, as well as the ability to add to favorites, rename, and delete (provided that the IM service associated with the contact allows).

The inbox contains all current and past conversations. If a twitter account is enabled, then @replies and direct messages are treated as their own separate conversations. It is not possible to have twitter conversations treated as a conversation in IM+; only incoming messages are shown in the @reply and DM threads. Conversations can be easily deleted from the inbox with a tap of the edit button.

When writing a message, there is a smiley face on the left and a keyboard on the right of the text field. Tapping the smiley gives a list of symbols (mostly smileys) that you can insert into the message. Be careful with these though, if the receiving client doesn’t recognize a symbol, it will be displayed in text form, or worse, a smiley face with some symbols attached.

Tapping the keyboard symbol collapses the keyboard and the smiley face converts to an upload symbol. From here you can send your location, a picture, or voice message. You have to be careful with this too because once you make a choice, it sends without confirmation. This is a major problem, in my opinion. I attempted to send a DM tweet with my location and IM+ ignored the text and sent my location as a public tweet! I’m just glad I was at Starbucks and not my house! This also means that text cannot be included with any media type. All media gets sent as a link. Pictures and voice memos are hosted by IM+ and GPS locations send a link to GPSed.com. It would be nice if the link launched Google maps on an iPhone so the recipient could quickly get directions, but it doesn’t.

All links are opened in the built-in browser of IM+. This browser is very cool as it not only allows for reading and navigating through websites provided by links, but you can use it to visit any site by typing the web address into the text field at the top. This is very convenient for those times someone starts an IM conversation when browsing Safari. Just copy the URL before exiting Safari, launch IM+, paste the URL into the browser and quickly tab between conversation and browser. When your conversation is over, just tap the globe at the upper right of the browser to open the current page in Safari. Awesome.

Next is the favorites tab. This is simply a list of contacts that have been marked as favorites. You can add or delete contacts from this list and see more information about them, just as in the contact list.

The status tab is where you can choose your status message (for supporting networks). There are 6 options, Online, On iPhone with IM+, I am here (with link to GPS location), Away, Invisible, and Offline. To add a custom status message or edit the pre-existing ones, just tap edit.

The more tab gives access to your accounts, settings, and in-app web browser.

Twitter

IM+ is not intended to be used as a primary Twitter client, but makes for a great secondary client. It’s convenient to be able to access twitter while holding an IM conversation without having to go back and forth between two apps. Reading tweets on IM+ goes against the conventional style of most recent on top, but this doesn’t bother me because I find uniformity within an app to be important and it doesn’t make sense for normal IM to read like Twitter.

What makes Twitter so great on IM+ is of course push notification. All DMs and @mentions get pushed within 4 minutes of being sent. Ideally, they would arrive faster, but 4 minutes isn’t too bad. The problem with Twitter push on IM+ is that there is no way to choose what you want pushed. It is also a little glitchy and randomly pushes tweets from your timeline that aren’t directed at you. It’s not horribly intrusive as I’ve probably only had at most 5 in a day get through, but it needs to be fixed.

Conclusion

IM+ is very well designed. Although the implemenation of Twitter push is not perfect, it’s a decent first attempt and I trust it will only get better with updates. The advantage of using IM+ is that you can use twitter, hold multiple IM conversations, and browse the web all within one application. At $9.99, IM+ is not cheap, but competive with Beejive. Version 3.2 has been submitted and is in review with Apple, so SHAPE Services has decided to lower the price to $4.99 until release; so if IM+ is something you’re interested in, snatch it up quick and let us know what you think!

Pros

• Push notification for Twitter
• Support for 10 networks
• Basic IM push is flawless
• In-app web browser
• Favorites

Cons

• Twitter push
• Cannot name accounts
• Not all avatars show
• Only one twitter account is supported
• GPS links don’t launch google maps

TiPb Review Rating

IM+ is available for $4.99 from the iTunes App Store.

Prowl ($2.99 – iTunes link) sends Growl alerts to your iPhone via Push Notification. That’s right, duck and cover, we’ve just found the nu-cu-lar option.

Growl is a well known 3rd party alert system for Mac OS X and provides heads up display of incoming email, twitter, file transfer, chats, downloads, and just about anything you can shake an “I want to know” at. And Windows users, don’t you fret — they’re working on a beta for Microsoft’s platform as well.

Prowl takes Growl alerts and send them on to your iPhone (or iPod touch), and you can configure the type and priority level you want to get. Up to 30 days of notifications are logged, and links remain active in the alerts.

For hardcore status trackers, this might just be a dream come true. For those who think one more alert will send them over the cliffs of insanity… best stay well clear.

If you do try it out, Mac or Windows, let us know how it works for you.

Since the iPhone 3.0 Jailbreak has become available, and now with both purplera1n and redsn0w coming on line with iPhone 3GS Jailbreak solutions, we’ve heard rumblings about problems with Push Notifications not working, or not working properly.

The Dev Team has noted this:

we have some remaining 3.0 jailbreak issues to investigate, including push notification

danmowchan in our forums notes this again today with regards to Prowl. Potential battery drain issues aside, if you’ve Jailbroken, are you having trouble getting your Push on? If not, has problems with Push made you put your Jailbreak on hold?

Back when Apple re-introduced Push Notification at the iPhone 3.0 Sneak Preview Event, Scott Forstall claimed that, unlike background multitasking that could cause an 80% drop in battery life, Push Notification would only cause a 20% drop. While some debated the truth (or truthiness) of his claims, it did set the expectation that users running Push Notification-enabled apps would see lower battery life, and gave an indicator of just how much less.

So, while it too a while, now that we finally have Push Notification, and some of the more popular messengers and games are implemented it, how’s your battery life doing?

Are you seeing a hit compared to your pre-Push Notification days, and if so, is it in the 20% range? Let us know which iPhone you have, how often you’re getting Push Notifications, and how your battery is holding up!

IM+ 3.1 [$5.99 - iTunes link] has hit the app store with support for push notifications. We wrote about the new version a few days ago, and for those longing for IM style push Twitter support (yep, Twitter can work via IM, and IM+ can push notify you of DMs, @mentions, etc) it’s worth checking out.

Our only question — Is this beginning of push twitter tennis?

(To head off questions, Antonioj was using fancy Jailbreak themes and Growl for iPhone notification displays, I rocked it old school)

If you try it out, let us know what you think. And if you suddenly have a big old 99 new messages on your app badge, let us know how that works for you too!

[Thanks to Icebike for the heads up!]

Still waiting for its turn to get into the slow-moving App Store, IM+ is ready with version 3.1 which adds support for iPhone 3.0 Push Notifications. Text alerts, badges, and sounds are all supported, and can be individually enabled or disabled both through Apple’s Notifications Settings panel.

IM+ supports a ton of services, including Skype, AOL, MSN, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Jabber, ICQ, and MySpace. Testing it with AOL proved to be a quick, clean experience, with IM+ launching and re-connecting to their server in a brisk and snappy manner on an iPhone 3GS. Copy and Paste also worked well, albeit it only in the text input box (I couldn’t find a way to select or copy text from previous chat bubbles).

Hopefully Apple will approve IM+ 3.1 with Push for the App Store soon. In the meantime, you can take advantage of sale pricing on the previous version, 3.0 (which pushed via re-direct to email). $5.99 via iTunes.

More screenshots after the break!

BeeJive is my IM solution of choice. I don’t use a lot of the more advanced features, but the reason I keep going back to it is just this: speed. It gets me in, working, and back out fast. And BeeJive IM 3.0 with support for iPhone 3.0‘s new Push Notification service is no exception. In fact, it rules.

One of the problems with Push Notification is that while the actual alerts are speedy, acting on them is not. Take IM for example. If you enable Text Alerts, an SMS-style popup window presents, tells you the IM app has a new message, and lets you Dismiss or View. If you View, the iPhone then has to 1) close the alert, 2) launch the app, 3) re-establish the app’s server connection (Push Notification uses a different, Apple-powered server), 4) download the IM to the app, and potentially 5) issue the app’s own internal alert if that’s enabled as well.

That can be some overhead. Sure, maybe iPhone 3G S (for speed, remember) will quicken the pace, but BeeJiveIM on an iPhone 3G was impressively responsive already.

Testing it over the last couple days, alerts presented, I tapped them, and everything listed about was handled smoothly and quickly. So, again, I was able to get in, work, and get back out fast. It’s everything that was great about BeeJiveIM 2.0, plus the convenience of Push.

BeeJiveIM 3.0 for iPhone and iPod should be hitting the iTunes App Store any time now. We’ll update with the link as soon as it’s live.

Screenshots after the break!

9to5Mac (via Gizmodo) shows Push Notification already working in the latest version of Tap Rap Revenge [Free - iTunes link] when run on the iPhone 3.0 GM developer seed. Gizmodo, of course, raises the pertinent question:

It certainly isn’t the most creative use of background notifications—the messages only pop up when you’re challenged by another player—and I’m already wondering how, when all kinds of apps have this capability, the iPhone’s exceedingly simple notification system will scale.

Since Text Alerts don’t tack, a new one obliterates the one before it. What happens when an urgent IM is replaced by “Hey, dooooooode, can haz rock out?!” Sure, badges remain, but then you have to go looking for them…

Apple previously invited developers to help test the upcoming iPhone 3.0 Push Notification service using AP (Associated Press). Now they’re ready for some IM action, and have prepared a special, 7-day build of AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) to put push through its paces:

As a developer actively working with iPhone OS, we would like your help in a private test of the Apple Push Notification service. For this test, we have selected AOL’s AIM Developer Preview for iPhone OS 3.0 to create a high-volume test environment for our server.

Of course, as with most everything iPhone 3.0-related, at least news of the test didn’t stay private for long.

For a sampling of some of the screenshots we’ve received, check out the gallery after the break!

[Thanks to Rikimaru, and all the anonymous tipsters!)

Yeah, BeeJive is totally teasing us now. Instant messaging (IM) is one of the most anticipated services when it comes to iPhone 3.0′s Push Notification service, and BeeJive aims to deliver and soon.

Best of all — (see screenshot, above) — they aim to deliver it free to all current customers. Maybe as soon as WWDC next week?

Confession: We received reports of this going back last week, but kinda thought it was known the tests were for a limited time (originally scheduled for a week, if memory serves). MacRumors, however, reminds us not to take such things for granted.

So, yep, Apple has completed the pre-WWDC beta testing for Push Notification. Is it enough to make sure the audacious system is as bullet proof as possible, given the severe problems MobileMe’s launch suffered last year?

Hey, we’re just happy Apple did some outside testing at all. (Baby steps and all that). If it turns out they need it, we hope they come back for a second round. As many rounds as it takes, actually. Push Notification has to “just work” at launch.

As we mentioned yesterday, Apple has begun load testing of their Push Notification Service. Certain developers have been given promo codes to a special version of AP News that, when installed, can be configured to utilize Push Notification. This means that screens we’ve seen previously via code digging can now be seen for real, and there are a few interesting things therein.

The setup seems not dissimilar to how GPS was handled on the iPhone 3G. A popup identifies the app and requests permission to send you Push Notifications, and you can choose “Don’t Allow” or “OK”. A Notifications panel in Settings lets you choose to globally turn the service On or Off, and lists the apps using the service so you can individually toggle Sounds, Alerts, and Badges On or Off as well for each one. (i.e. if you want Twitter to badge but not alert, IM to sound but not badge, etc. you can have it your way).

More screenshots after the jump, and check out our massive iPhone 3.0 Walkthrough for even more!

Apple Insider scored some iPhone 3.0 Beta 3 screen shots, some we’ve already seen before, but some showing off a new goodness like the Settings option for Notification (though where Apple’s usual Smiley Face w/Badge icon went to is anyone’s guess). We did a quick check, and no one we contacted had this pane visible yet, so it may only show for those actively receiving push notifications, or who have done some digging through the code.

It’s nice that Apple will apparently let users globally enable or disable the different types of Push Notification: Sounds, Alerts (text boxes), and Badges. It will be even nicer (perhaps vital) that we also get to selectively enable/disable them within individual apps as well. For example, Twitter can badge, IM can Alert, new RSS only Sound.

NOTE: “Carrier Settings” aren’t new. They have been visible on networks like Rogers since 2.0 (perhaps because Rogers subsidiary Fido also carries the iPhone in Canada?)

They also show off some evidence of battery percentage-level numeric indicators in both black (good) and red (danger!), as well as Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard-style data detectors, which we’ve seen in previous betas, but are highlighted for the Notes app.

Check out their full post for more screen shots.

Ars Technica is reporting that the way Push Notification works has been, according to developers they’ve spoken with, improved in the latest Beta 3 release of iPhone 3.0. To wit:

The major change in the UIKit API is that Apple has added separate types for the three notification methods: badge, text alert, and sound. Developers can register their apps for these different notification types individually for the needs of their users. Previously, apps registered to received remote notifications but controlled the type via settings. Developers we spoke to universally agreed that this was a welcome improvement.

Still nothing in the way of non-obtrusive, Google Android- or Palm Pre-style notification, nor any indication of how Apple will gracefully handle multiple modal dialogs popping up all at once, but there’s still time to wow us with something awesome come WWDC, right Apple?

Ars also mentions some interesting developments regarding Dashcode (widget development) for iPhone, and more, so be sure to check them out.

Apple has gone out of their way to point out the cons of multi-tasking background applications — a claimed 80% reduction in battery life while on standby with a single 3rd party IM client enabled. Push Notification, likewise, has been promoted by Apple as providing a single point of coordination for 3rd party alerts routed through servers on Apple’s end.

But unlike the code-once, release-done model of background processing for a single app, Push Notification requires developers to create a server system on their end as well, one that’s constantly and reliably available to send alerts to Apple, and scales to an iPhone and iPod touch user base already exceeding 30 million units.

Ars Technica‘s Erica Sadun goes into detail on the process and problems:

Consider an application with just 10,000 users. It might service a million uses per day, assuming update checks every 15 minutes. More time-critical uses might demand checks every few minutes or even several times a minute. As the computational burden builds, so do the hosting costs. While cloud computing provides an excellent match to these kinds of needs, that kind of solution comes with a real price in development, maintenance, and day-to-day operations.

For more on additional issues, like security, and whether or not small developers will even be able to afford to implement Push Notification, check out the rest of the article.

Any developers out there avoiding Push Notification for just those reasons? What could Apple do to help you out? Offer a hosting system for small developers on Apple’s end?

Apple has just let developers know that they can start testing the upcoming Push Notification Service starting today!

Start testing your applications using the Apple Push Notification service today. Log in to the iPhone Dev Center and review the Apple Push Notification Programming Guide and Getting Started video. Team Agents can log in to the iPhone Developer Program Portal and proceed to the App ID section to create the components necessary to enable and test applications using the Apple Push Notification service.

So, what Apps do we want to see getting pushy? Twitter clients? Instant messengers? Fart Apps? Let us — and your favorite developers! — know.

Ars Technica’s iPhone wonder woman, Erica Sadun, has put together what must be the first expert level how-to: Pushing tweets to your iPhone with Apple Push notifications

Ars shows you how to create a Push-based Twitter update notification system for the iPhone without actually showing you any of the details due to the ongoing NDA. (But don’t worry, we tell you exactly where to find the instructions.)

Nin. Ja.

Now if you need help getting your code on, it just so happens that the Stanford iPhone Application Development course (the one being offered via iTunes U) looks like it has “make your own Twitter client” on the agenda.

Ready? Set? Push Tweet!

We’ve asked what happened to the Push Notification Service that iPhone Software VP, Scott Forstall first announced back at WWDC 2008. We’ve even wondered if Apple had changed their mind and gone with a true background multi-tasking approach. Or whether they’d simply scrapped the idea entirely?

Turns out Push Notification took a little longer to polish up than Apple anticipated, in addition to developers requesting features above and beyond what Apple initially expected (though, in all “truthiness”, we didn’t see anything new above the surface yet ourselves).

Apple claims to have tested Windows Mobile, Android, and other devices running background IM, and that battery drain was 80% compared with 20% for Push Notification. We’re not buying that yet, but we are happy Apple is taking their time with this. Better a rock-solid implementation than anything approaching MobileMe’s disastrous launch.

So what is Push Notification and how does it work? Read on after the break!

Let’s say you’re running a 3rd party IM (instant message) client on iPhone 2.0. When you exit the app, you no longer know if you’re receiving more messages. (Sure, there are work around over SMS and Email, but the app itself is dead to you).

With Apple’s Push Notification Service, if you close that same app in iPhone 3.0, anytime someone sends you a new IM, an alert will be sent from the developer’s servers (yes, they’ll have to keep a session open for you on their end), to Apple’s Push Notification Service (PNS) servers.

Apple’s PNS server will have a constant TCP/IP connection to your iPhone (yes, they’ll be keeping connected to you, like they already do for MobileMe push if you use that service). Once they get the alert from the developer, they will “push” it out to your iPhone 3.0.

PNS currently supports 3 kinds of alerts: badges (like Mail uses to show you unread messages), custom sounds (like a beep or bell or anything already built into the app by the developer), or modal message boxes (like the kind that pop up to tell you your battery is at 20%).

Apple isn’t making any promises on up-time for the service, and any new service will have delays and downtime — and Apple was quick to point out even SMS isn’t 100% reliable when asked about it.

What PNS doesn’t solve, however, is the lack of good notifications on the iPhone, and applications that require multitasking for something other than notification (i.e. streaming internet radio apps).

Imagine if 10 apps try to push out 10 alerts at the same time, how will Apple manage those on your device? Will you have to “cancel” or “accept” 50 modal message dialogs, or be hit by a cacophony of 30 random sounds? We don’t know yet, but hopefully Apple will address this.

Streaming internet radio apps, however, seem out of luck with this solution…

Prior to Macworld 2009, Daring Fireball mused openly about how neat it would be for the iPod Shuffle to get voice functionality, and on Wednesday last it did. Now Gruber is reminding us that his “wish-list” for iPhone OS 3.0 includes:

a new home screen app (a.k.a. SpringBoard), designed from the ground up for a system where users have a few dozen or more extra apps installed. Managing dozens of apps on the iPhone today is simply a pain in the ass. Second, maybe an answer to the question of where the background notification API is — you know, the one we were told at WWDC to expect a few months ago, but which we haven’t heard a word about since. And maybe — pretty please, Mr. Forstall, with sugar on top — copy and paste.

But is this really a wish-list, or a (somewhat disingenuous?) way of passing along actual, leaked information on the new OS? MacRumors seems to think the latter, saying they have reason to believe a new SpringBoard, Push Notification (or Background Tasks), and Cut/Copy and Paste will indeed be on the iPhone OS 3.0 feature list. For good measure, they’re also tossing in magnetometer support (i.e. compass functionality like the Android G1 enjoys).

Added to yesterday’s rumors from Boy Genius about MMS and Tethering, however, and we’re afraid things are lining up just a little too much like a 3.0 panacea for iPhone’s previous OS “greatest misses”. And if that’s the case, it might be expectations — rather than notifications — that get “pushed” for next Tuesday’s iPhone OS 3.0 Sneak Peak. (We’re nothing if not fickle audiences, after all).

So, are these really inside information on what we’ll be seeing come March 17? Or are these truly more wish-lists than feature-lists?

(And are we waiting on Kevin Rose to add Mobile iChat to the 3.0 mix?)

Apple Insider is theorizing that Apple’s long delayed, potentially dead iPhone Push Notification Service (PNS) may simply be waiting on the next release of Apple’s server, OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

We all know the background already: Apple announced a PNS back at WWCD 2008 as a work around for some forms of multi-tasking. It would send status updates (numbered badges like Email, sound alarms and popups like Calendar) for things like IM and Twitter clients, but still wouldn’t do anything for streaming music apps, for example. Never-the-less, it’s September release window came and went, with the service disappearing from early betas, unseen and unheard from since. (Unless you’re one of those who believes the App Store icon is beta testing PNS already — and not too consistently if so).

Interestingly, Apple Insider goes into RIM’s and Microsoft’s push technology, the former using the carrier channel to push updates with SMS-like technology, the latter using specially formatted push emails to update calendars, tasks, etc. Apple, by contrast, is said to be using standards-based Instant Messenger technology (XMPP).

If Apple needs to make the PNS, you know, work before they release it, and Snow Leopard Server is providing the back-end needed for it to work, then a delay is certainly better than a disastrous release like MobileMe’s. We’ll need to see more, however, before we really know if Snow Leopard Server is really connected and, if so, whether or not we’ll really see PNS released with it, or if PNS is truly dead and Apple is investigating true multitasking for the iPhone.

So, we’re left with the age-old questions: Is Apple still planning on releasing PNS? And are we willing to wait for a rock-solid solution? Or do we just want real multi-tasking now?

We’ve asked whatever happened to the iPhone’s Push-Notification Service quite a bit recently, even secretly hoped they may find it too difficult and just start to allow some “favored nation” background multitasking…

Now MacRumors is rumoring that that is exactly what might be happening in a future firmware:

While we aren’t sure what the specific issues are, we’ve heard that as an alternative Apple is considering allowing apps to run as user selectable background processes. If so, this feature would likely come in the rumored iPhone 3.0 software update but would be limited to only one or two processes on current hardware. The next generation iPhone, however, would likely see less restricted background process support due to its improved hardware.

So how does that work for you, fellow TiPbsters? Better than Push notification? Worse? And is a few user-selectable apps enough? If the next gen iPhone allows more multitasking, is that a compelling reason to upgrade in and of itself?

TiPb has theorized before that Apple’s promised-by-September-yet-still-undelivered Push Notification Service (their alternative to actually allowing 3rd party multi-tasking) hasn’t shipped yet because MobileMe taught Apple — very painfully and publicly — that it’s better to take their time and get push services right than rush them out broken and buggy.

Now it’s almost February, iPhone OS 2.1 has become 2.2.1 with still no PNS in sight, and rumors around Macworld this year whispered that, if PNS wasn’t dead, it was at least playing that way.

Macworld‘s Dan Moran is sharing his own thoughts and theories on the issue, that Apple might have tried for more than it could accomplish, that PNS doesn’t really go far enough anyway, that too much notification can be a Bad Thing, that Apple will kill poor solutions, and most interestingly, that maybe regular users just don’t care:

Maybe that’s the simple answer: that people—to wit, users—just don’t care. They’ve learned to adapt to the iPhone’s way of doing things, and that way doesn’t include notifications or multitasking…at the moment, anyway. At some point in the future it seems likely that Apple will introduce a new feature that takes care of the issues that notifications would have addressed, and it appears that most users are content to wait until then.

How about it, regular users? Would you rather have bad PNS than none at all? Or are you really content to wait, figuring Apple will figure it out eventually? Or do you really just not care about PNS at all?

There seems to be some confusion out there about the iPhone and multitasking, no doubt fueled by the way Apple handled — and is still handling — all things iPhone. Just to be clear, the iPhone multitasks quite well, thank you very much.

While listening to music, you can receive a phone call, take the call, jump into Safari, Google for an image, save the image to your camera roll, jump into Photos, choose the image, hit the “+” and choose to email the image, fill in and send the email, etc. and when the call is over, your music will fade seamlessly back in.

Steve Jobs showed a simpler version of that when he first introduced the iPhone back at Macworld 2007. Even today, you can begin a new iTunes 3G music download, jump into a Twitter app, tweet a response, and jump back to iTunes and see your download still progressing.

So from where does this confusion come?

Apple only allows their own built-in apps like Email, Phone, etc. to multitask (Daring Fireball posted a nice list on which ones a while back). In the current SDK (Software Development Kit — what people use to write iPhone App Store programs), the licensing prohibits everyone else from multi-tasking. So, no 3rd party IM, Twitter, internet radio, etc. applications can stay on once the user hits the home button.

Apple’s Push Notification Service was supposed to work around this by sending status alerts (badges like unread message counter on Email, pop-ups, or alarms like Calendar events) from Apple’s servers, but while this was promised for September ’08, it was yanked from iPhone OS 2.1 Beta 4 and hasn’t been heard from since. Rumor has it Apple is afraid — for good reason — of repeating it’s near-disastrous MobileMe launch, and would rather delay it than get it wrong. Developers we’ve spoken to agree – no one wants to handle customer support calls based on a buggy PNS implementation.

Selfishly, we kind of hope Apple doesn’t manage to nail PNS in a timely fashion and is instead forced to open up real multitasking, even if only on a limited basis (i.e. more rigorous approval process). (We’d even like to see a CoverFlow task-switcher while they’re at it.)

That Russian website post about accessing a pre-pre-release of iPhone OS 2.2.1 and finding Push Notification Service and Notes Sync? Turns out not so much. BGR says:

The site that houses the forum has posted an update to the blog post that brought attention to the push notification claim, and has stated the original posting was indeed a fake.

So we can all go back to our regularly complaining about PNS being late again, b’okay?

MacRumors has linked up RussianiPhone.ru which claims to have gotten a pre-release look at the upcoming first beta for 2.2.1, which is said to include both the long-delayed Push Notification Service and something Mike first discovered way back with Mac OS X Leopard’s release: Notes sync.

Rightly, they point out how easy to fake something like this is, and we won’t know anything for certain until a public beta is actually made available for 2.2.1 (or 2.3, Apple hasn’t done minor point bumps for the 2.x architecture yet, so why now?)

But even if it’s not real, just how desperate have we become for these long overdue, or mind-boggling-ly missing features that we’ll fall all over even fake news about them?

Battered consumer syndrome much?

We’ve heard about podcast downloads being added to iPhone OS 2.2 before, but now Macrumors (via Shimanke.com — check out their screenshots) has more details how the process will work. In response to Chad’s fears of overwhelming AT&T’s fragile 3G network (aka “rabbit ears”), it looks like cell downloads will be limited to podcasts under 10MB, the same limitation currently imposed on App Store purchases over 3G. Both audio and video podcasts will be available for download, however, and on WiFi there’s no limitation.

Could TV Shows and even Movies be next? And with Exchange, MobileMe, and other sync services storming the “clouds”, what does this mean for the days of USB tethering to your Mac or PC?

Meanwhile, the App Store looks to have a cosmetic makeover, with categories now sporting the icons of some of their most popular Apps (i.e., Social Networking shows the Facebook icon).

Lastly, still no sign of Push Notification, which Macrumors hears via the whisper-net is still having “major issues”. After the disastrous MobileMe rollout, could Apple be waiting to get it right the first time?

But hey, at least we’re still getting all those Google Maps improvements!

TiPb loves answering your emails, but we also love sharing our answers with the community in hopes that more people will benefit, and even better answers will present themselves (hey, that’s why we have them forums!). Today’s question comes from Brandon:

I think it was universally acknowledged that September was when Apple promised is background notifications for the iPhone 2.x. September has come and gone and I don’t know about you guys but I still don’t have background notifications on my iPhone. Would be nice if you guys posted something busting apple’s 3@!!$ for missing the date and hoping we wouldn’t notice. I think alot of people like myself bought iPhones with the promise of these notifications in mind.

TiPb answers, after the jump!

We posted about the lack of push-notification when it disappeared from 2.1 Beta 4, and again when it didn’t show up in 2.2.

However, our take is that 2.0.x was so beset with bugs, that Apple had to focus on stability first, and then worry about new features later.

We think Apple was humbled on July 11th, and they’ve chosen to take some extra time with Push Notification and get things right, rather than rush out new, likely buggy features just to make self-imposed deadlines. (Do we really want a Push Notification Service as broken as MobileMe was at launch? Hopefully not!)

Of course, TiPb would love us some working Notifications, so we really do hope we get them — stable and properly polished — in 2.2.

If you’ve never played around with BeeJive’s JiveTalk, boy, you don’t know what you’re missing! Even though third party apps such as AIM and Palringo are available, I still prefer the look and feel of the JiveTalk WEB APP. I’m sure Crackberry Addicts can attest to JiveTalk’s IM supremacy. And you know what? BeejiveIM (formerly JiveTalk) is coming to the iPhone and from the looks of it, seems to better than ever.

It’s planned for Beta Release in September 2008 but the Boy Genius got his hands on it early and gave away a few details. It supports most IM programs, we’re talking about: AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, Windows Live Messenger, MySpace IM, and Yahoo! Messenger. Plus, it looks like the clean look of JiveTalk extended over to BeejiveIM and it’s rock solid.

An added bonus, BeejiveIM is ready for Apple’s push notification, which will be a godsend for IM programs. Though there isn’t a current release date or price, BeejiveIM can’t come soon enough…AIM blows big time. Click on the Read Link for more pictures.

Photo Credit: Boy Genius Report

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So the news isn’t that iPhone 2.1 Beta 4 has been seeded to developers, no that’s expected. With a (hopeful) September release, iPhone 2.1 should be receiving its finishing touches. What the news is, is that the much ballyhooed feature of push notification is missing. As in gone. Not there. Removed. iPhone 2.1 Beta 4 removes the push notification feature from the test version.

Should we begin to worry? Push notification has been present in iPhone 2.1 since the very first beta. Apple says its been removed for further internal development. Obviously, the removal of the push notification feature would prevent developers from understanding the animal that is push.  But then again, we at TiPb would rather prefer a delayed polished product than a rushed buggy one (ahem..MobileMe).

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