5typos.net
Notify Me
I’m loving the iPhone 2.1 update. Finally the OS, the apps and even mobileme are all working as expected. Sadly, the mobileme push mail issues have been so unreliable that I have defaulted to using the free Mail2web exchange service as my primary mobile email. The calendar sync features are still worth the investment imho, especially since I just upgraded my dad’s account a family plan for $50.
So, now that I have everything just working, am I satisfied? of course not. Now I want more features! But seriously, there one big thing missing to make the iPhone push mail really useful: a notification screen.
Right now when you get a sms or voicemail, a popup lets you know in your locked screen. But if you get an email, nothing. Not even an icon in the top bar. Hence, if miss the new email sound (which is not modifiable btw) or the vibration that comes with it, you won’t now until you check the email. This, in a ways, beats the whole idea of a push email.
There is a jailbreak application called IntelliScreen that provides a solution for this. But I felt it slowed down the iPhone a bit (no scientific tests where done). But there could be an Apple solution in the horizon. According to some patent documents:
The iPhone team’s filing instead proposes a more properly formatted notification panel — in one of approximately a half dozen potential layouts — that would not only remain visible once the phone is unlocked, but actually provide direct links or buttons to the missed communications. from Appleinsider
This will probably come when the notification service feature is made available to developers. Which hopefully will be sooner rather than later. And once available, the iPhone would be able to provide a push email experience that my crackberry friends expect.