Google Push email fails to excite

In September Google announced the availability of its Push email service for iPhone, iPod Touch and Windows Mobile devices.

The idea behind the Push service is that notifications of new email messages are sent, or pushed, directly to the phone as soon as an email arrives at the Gmail server. This is in contrast to the existing “Fetch” option, where devices such as the iPhone needed to poll the server at regular intervals to see if any new mail had arrived.

However, almost immediately after the launch many users reported problems with the Push service. For example, on September 22 a discussion on Google’s web based support forum started with someone asking “Is the new Gmail push service down? “ Replies varied from “Not down but very very slow,” through to “It never worked for me in the first place” from another frustrated user.

Unfortunately the teething problems seem to be ongoing. One of the most recent entries on the Google support forum, from earlier this morning, said, “I am receiving email but quite late. My IMAP inbox is far more up-to-date than my [Google push] inbox, even though both should be identical. It’s worth noting that IMAP and the Gmail web interface show the identical emails whereas the Gmail Push has been “late” over the course of the last couple weeks. Sometimes the connection to the server does not take place so checking email [on my mobile] is impossible. I imagine Google must know about this but is remaining silent for whatever reason.”

We’ll keep you posted!