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iPod touch What are touch users going to do about PUSH notifications?

TheSpaz

TheSpaz

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jun 20, 2005
7,032
1
I have to say... I've been away from the iPod touch forums for a while because I converted to the iPhone side. I really love my iPhone but, I still have my iPod touch and a part of me feels like it still has a place in my heart... because that's where it all began with me. Anyways... Apple announced PUSH support coming to the iPhone in September, but failed to deliver or even acknowledge that they're still working on it. My question is then... What are people with an iPod touch going to do when they finally roll out push? Push relies on an internet connection right? As soon as you lock your iPod, wifi gets turned off right? What about Apps that don't need an internet connection (like Things) where you'd like to be reminded about something, but you don't currently have a wifi network near you. To me, Push is sounding worse and worse the more I think about it.

What are you guys going to do?

I don't think Push is a good enough solution for background processes.
 
well..

well maybe there will be a system update that allows wifi to stay on while the ipod is locked.
 
TheSpaz said:
That's only true when it's plugged into power. Trust me. Wifi does not stay on.
Click to expand...

Trust me, it does stay on. When the touch goes to sleep it continues to receive pushes and notifications. Mine beeps all the time. You must be thinking of turning it off.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Trust me, it does stay on. When the touch goes to sleep it continues to receive pushes and notifications. Mine beeps all the time. You must be thinking of turning it off.
Click to expand...

Trust me, I have PUSH email on my iPod touch and I do NOT get email unless the iPod touch screen is on. Plus, if it was connected to wifi all the time, the battery would drain faster than fast.
 
TheSpaz said:
Trust me, I have PUSH email on my iPod touch and I do NOT get email unless the iPod touch screen is on. Plus, if it was connected to wifi all the time, the battery would drain faster than fast.
Click to expand...

Works for me. My iPod notifies me of new mail and other pushes all the time. The mail isn't downloaded until I wake it up and tap Mail, but I do get the notifications even when it's asleep.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Works for me. My iPod notifies me of new mail and other pushes all the time. The mail isn't downloaded until I wake it up and tap Mail, but I do get the notifications even when it's asleep.
Click to expand...

Is it push email or fetch? I just don't see how it can be push. I think when it's in standby mode, it fetches and when it's on, it pushes.

As a test... set PUSH to ON and set FETCH to MANUAL. Then put your iPod touch to sleep and let it sit for 5 minutes or so... this way it can disconnect from wifi... then try to get push email.
 
I've got it set for push. Fetch should not come into play for e-mail, since it's used when push is not supported, which it is for e-mail. FWIW, I've got fetch set to hourly. Not sure why I'd want to change any of these settings, since it works fine the way it is. My iPod is asleep far more than it's awake -- but I still often get notified of a new e-mail on the iPod before I do on my Mac.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I've got it set for push. Fetch should not come into play for e-mail, since it's used when push is not supported, which it is for e-mail. FWIW, I've got fetch set to hourly. Not sure why I'd want to change any of these settings, since it works fine the way it is. My iPod is asleep far more than it's awake -- but I still often get notified of a new e-mail on the iPod before I do on my Mac.
Click to expand...

You must have a special device then. My wifi turns off when I put the iPod touch to sleep. I know this as a fact because when I'm using SSH to connect to my iPod touch, it needs to be on so that the wifi is active. Do you have your iPod plugged it by any chance? If it's plugged in, it never gets disconnected from wifi even when it's asleep.
 
TheSpaz said:
You must have a special device then. My wifi turns off when I put the iPod touch to sleep. I know this as a fact because when I'm using SSH to connect to my iPod touch, it needs to be on so that the wifi is active. Do you have your iPod plugged it by any chance? If it's plugged in, it never gets disconnected from wifi even when it's asleep.
Click to expand...

No, not special. This happens whether it's connected to the Mac or just sitting on my desk or in my pocket. I have no way of knowing whether the iPod is connected to wifi when the iPod is asleep because, the iPod is asleep. How do you know yours is not?

Perhaps what we're talking about here really is the difference between push and fetch. Possibly the iPod is waking once an hour on the fetch schedule and checking for e-mail. Without a bunch of testing I can't be sure, and the distinction seems like such a minor one since the behavior is essentially the same, at least for my purposes.
 
IJ Reilly said:
No, not special. This happens whether it's connected to the Mac or just sitting on my desk or in my pocket. I have no way of knowing whether the iPod is connected to wifi when the iPod is asleep because, the iPod is asleep. How do you know yours is not?

Perhaps what we're talking about here really is the difference between push and fetch. Possibly the iPod is waking once an hour on the fetch schedule and checking for e-mail. Without a bunch of testing I can't be sure, and the distinction seems like such a minor one since the behavior is essentially the same, at least for my purposes.
Click to expand...

That's what I think is happening. When it's asleep, I think it uses your fetch settings and when it's awake it uses your push settings. I have my iPod touch set to push only (manual fetch) so it doesn't receive emails while it's asleep. Plus, I already told you how I know it disconnects from wifi when it's asleep... plus, when you wake it up, you can see there's no wifi icon at first until it re-connects to your network again.
 
I have say that I do believe that the wifi is turned off during sleep. when I still had my touch and I tried to use it on my universities wifi, which needs to be logged into through safari, I would have to login again every time I let it sleep from more then a few minutes.
 
Possibly, but it's really a distinction without much of a difference. I'm still not certain how you're sure that the iPod isn't connected to to wifi when it's asleep. Just because it's not responding to push e-mail? I think the behavior of e-mail push isn't so consistent as to make this so easy to determine.
 
TheSpaz said:
You must have a special device then. My wifi turns off when I put the iPod touch to sleep. I know this as a fact because when I'm using SSH to connect to my iPod touch, it needs to be on so that the wifi is active. Do you have your iPod plugged it by any chance? If it's plugged in, it never gets disconnected from wifi even when it's asleep.
Click to expand...

My first gen touch also receives email when it's asleep. It's set to Push every 15 minutes.
 
You guys were lying to me!

Here's a clipping from the iPod touch User Guide (with Software 2.2). This was found on Chapter 1, page 12:

Picture 1.jpg

If you wanna download the manual: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPod_touch_2.2_User_Guide.pdf

Pay special attention to the part where it says:

"iPod touch can receive
pushed data over a Wi-Fi connection only when iPod touch is awake (the screen is on,
or iPod touch is connected to your computer or a power adapter)."

Also, in contrast... it appears that your iPod can be asleep and "fetch" at the same time as long as it has a known network to connect to periodically.

"To fetch or sync pushed data, iPod touch must
join a Wi-Fi network that is connected to the Internet. You might want to turn Push off
to suspend delivery of email and other information, or to conserve battery life."
... it doesn't say that you have to have your iPod awake in order to fetch at the specified interval.
 
Once again... back to my original question. What good are push alerts if the iPod touch can't receive them instantly when they're asleep? For the iPhone, it's no problem because we have a constant EDGE or 3G network to keep us online at all times.
 
TheSpaz said:
Once again... back to my original question. What good are push alerts if the iPod touch can't receive them instantly when they're asleep? For the iPhone, it's no problem because we have a constant EDGE or 3G network to keep us online at all times.
Click to expand...

Once again, back to my answer: set the iPod to fetch. The functional difference between this and push is negligible. In fact, until we got into the minutia in this discussion, I didn't even realize that my iPod was fetching more than pushing. But if you insist, yes, the value of push notification for the iPod is limited -- in the same way that its utility as an internet device is limited.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Once again, back to my answer: set the iPod to fetch. The functional difference between this and push is negligible. In fact, until we got into the minutia in this discussion, I didn't even realize that my iPod was fetching more than pushing. But if you insist, yes, the value of push notification for the iPod is limited -- in the same way that its utility as an internet device is limited.
Click to expand...

What I was basically getting at is this.... Push won't even come close to replacing background processes. How the heck do you run a radio app in the background? Push won't let you do that. What about To-Do apps and stuff... where you need reminders? If you're not connected to the internet, does that mean you miss your appointments and stuff? Push isn't going to let people do what they think they'll be able to do.
 
TheSpaz said:
What I was basically getting at is this.... Push won't even come close to replacing background processes. How the heck do you run a radio app in the background? Push won't let you do that. What about To-Do apps and stuff... where you need reminders? If you're not connected to the internet, does that mean you miss your appointments and stuff? Push isn't going to let people do what they think they'll be able to do.
Click to expand...

If they are uninformed about what push does.......

Push isnt supposed to be some huge revelation for the touch, its mainly for the iphone.
 
TheSpaz said:
What I was basically getting at is this.... Push won't even come close to replacing background processes. How the heck do you run a radio app in the background? Push won't let you do that. What about To-Do apps and stuff... where you need reminders? If you're not connected to the internet, does that mean you miss your appointments and stuff? Push isn't going to let people do what they think they'll be able to do.
Click to expand...

I think you answered your own questions. The iPod touch is of limited use as an internet device, by definition -- and that's got nothing directly to do with push, and everything to do with the availability of wifi. As for appointments, my calendars are synced from my Mac, so no problems there. In fact that works a lot better now, with the 2.0 update, since I no longer have to sync them manually. Radio applications (such as Pandora or AOL Radio) work fine, so long as you have a good internet connection of course.
 
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