Review: GPush—$0.99 
Released: August 9, 2009
Developer/Distributor: Tiverias Apps
Genre: Productivity
Version 1.1 tested on a 16GB iPhone 3GS
Although GPush launched with a very rocky start that made it look like it would be a wasted $0.99, the application suddenly started working last Thursday afternoon and has continued to work consistently since then.
You launch the application, then enter in your Gmail credentials whether you are on regular Gmail or Google Apps (it works with both), and you then begin receiving Push notifications every time a new message shows up unread in your Inbox. If you have filters in place to auto-mark messages as read or to file them to some other folder and skip the Inbox, you will not receive a push notification. It’s a very basic app—that now that it works—works well at what it’s supposed to do.
Ideally, I’d like to see more granular controls so that you could set up filters to exclude certain emails from resulting in push notifications or to set up a high priority “must notify” list. As is, some people may be annoyed by push notifications for every single email in his / her inbox in Gmail, and while there are workarounds, like creating a new Gmail account to which high priority emails are forwarded, these workarounds are problematic, as Gpush keeps counting up the unread number, so you have to check that artificial Gmail account from time to time to mark all as read and reset the app’s counter.
However, now that the app is working and priced at only $0.99, I can recommend it to those of you who are looking for push notifications for Gmail. Although, keep in mind, Google Sync currently offers both Contact and Calendar Push synchronization for the iPhone. Eventually, I would guess, it will begin offering Push synchronization for Gmail as well, which will effectively render this application obsolete.
Review Rating: Somewhere between Meh and Yay! due to initial launch problems and the lack of granular controls.
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