Where in the world is background notifcations!

[KyleC767]

Are we ever going to see background notification anytime soon... they announced it i don't even know how many months ago! Im sick of not being to stay on AIM unless its open anyone else with me on this one?

Wonder if they are just going to wait for the next new iphone release.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Hardware has nothing to do with it. Apple just doesn't want people to have their apps running in the background.

 

[rolex54]

apple is kinda sucking with any and all release dates lately

 

[SpaceKitty]

I remember reading that it was pulled from this release because it made the phones os crawl like a snail and it sucked the battery life.

 

[AHDuke99]

I never read that, but without push notifications, what good are IM applications? Beejive is the only useful one.

 

[Project]

People would moan if Apple said nothing about push notifications at the event.

People would moan if it was released in October but buggy and a battery drain, saying that Apple QC is going down the pan.

People would moan if it was delayed to fix said bugs, saying that Apple are slow to roll out features.

 

[cere]

Hardware has nothing to do with it. Apple just doesn't want people to have their apps running in the background.

Having 3rd party apps running in the background has nothing to do with it. The OP was asking about the background push notifications that Apple promised would be out in September. Actually, the entire point of the push notification support was to allow you to get updates (messages) for apps without having them run in the background. So, for AIM, Apple would receive the notification for you and then push a notification to your phone which would update the AIM icon and optionally an alert sound. The OS would handle this and not require AIM to be running. It is an important feature and one that they should have focused on getting out (even 2 months late) instead of useless things like Emoji.

 

[rolex54]

People would moan if Apple said nothing about push notifications at the event.

People would moan if it was released in October but buggy and a battery drain, saying that Apple QC is going down the pan.

People would moan if it was delayed to fix said bugs, saying that Apple are slow to roll out features.

well then apple should announce it and give a realistic time frame, if you are going to give a time frame, you should be expected to follow it

 

[Project]

well then apple should announce it and give a realistic time frame, if you are going to give a time frame, you should be expected to follow it

People would moan if Apple announced it last April for release a year later.


This is relatively cutting edge stuff. Software is not an exact science. Deadlines often don't get met, unexpected things often come up, development times overrun.

 

[cere]

People would moan if Apple said nothing about push notifications at the event.

People would moan if it was released in October but buggy and a battery drain, saying that Apple QC is going down the pan.

People would moan if it was delayed to fix said bugs, saying that Apple are slow to roll out features.

Then maybe they shouldn't have announced it or announced it with a reasonable target date. Yes people might moan if they delayed it, why shouldn't they? Some people may have bought their phones with the expectation that in terms of IM or other apps the require notifications, that Apple would meet their announced goals of having this feature. It was announced as the perfect solution to Apple having denied apps the ability to run in the background. I think it really is a elegant solution, but they need to meet their obligations. Having apps received notifications, such as IMs, is a basic feature for todays smart phone. Since Apple, rightfully, prevents the apps from running to receive them themselves, they need to get their support of push updates out soon. At the least they should not have announced it would be out in Sept if that date was questionable. But they did and a tiny part of me believes it was because they didn't want crippled IM apps to a deal breaker for those people that rely or use apps like IMs or Facebook. Those that might have decided to wait or go with another device were led to believe that the solution was right around the corner.

Apple needs to refocus their resources to meet their promised obligations. Instead of wasting development time on Emoji and StreetView and a new Safari layout, none of which were promised or really that compelling (not enough to be a deal breaker if missing anyway), they should have had those developers working on what they had already promised and is already 2 months late.

 

[cere]

People would moan if Apple announced it last April for release a year later.


This is relatively cutting edge stuff. Software is not an exact science. Deadlines often don't get met, unexpected things often come up, development times overrun.

Simple, the don't announce it until you have a better idea of the release date. And don't then tie up resources for petty ****.

It is cutting edge, but RIM has been doing it for years.

I am often accused of being an apple Fanboie, but it's not like I am dumb enough to just give them a pass for poor practices.

I work in software development. I know about missing deadlines. It should not become habitual. In my company, you announce and miss you deadline by months without explanation, there are consequences. If not only did we miss our deadlines, but we then refocused developers on useless projects, heads would roll for incompotence.

 

[dan-o-mac]

People would moan if Apple announced it last April for release a year later.


This is relatively cutting edge stuff. Software is not an exact science. Deadlines often don't get met, unexpected things often come up, development times overrun.

Cutting edge.

I'm sure there are quite a few phones on the market with push IM. Sidekick had this a few years ago. G1 has it right off the bat.

 

[cere]

Cutting edge.

I'm sure there are quite a few phones on the market with push IM. Sidekick had this a few years ago. G1 has it right off the bat.

Did Sidekick handle the pushed through the OS or by having the app running? I expect G1 can do it and certainly RIM supports it.

 

[Masquerade]

Hardware has nothing to do with it. Apple just doesn't want people to have their apps running in the background.

The hardware is what i think that is causing the delay, since the APIs are already done.

So this is the downside of trying "to be different" or "search alternatives" because you are putting a central proxy to handle all comunication from real time applications in order to avoid multiple requests and then save battery.
This proxy are iPhone notification servers centralizated at apple. These servers may handle all the world iphone's in/coming ip queries.
This will require some serious analysis and testing, since 10B iphones outhere generate huge traffic with real time applications, and a huge data set will waiting from response from 3rd internet servers.

Scalabity here is what matters, can u imagine the responsiveness curve of this proxy with 1,2,5,10B of users with background services?

Look at me.com push. It don't serves the propose yet. Apple can't do it, it can't make it working for now.

Yes, that Apple, a computer company that spoils windows vista and others. IF they can't make it now with mail nor with can do it to background apps.

 

[dan-o-mac]

Did Sidekick handle the pushed through the OS or by having the app running? I expect G1 can do it and certainly RIM supports it.

I honestly don't remember. I had a Sidekick for about a week before I got rid of it.

This article is old but explains how Sidekick's instant messaging works.

http://macapper.com/2007/07/07/iphone-and-sidekick-instant-messaging-the-danger-sdk-and-more/

As has been pointed out numerous other places on the web, the iPhone’s EDGE data stream is dropped when a phone call is made or received. This is a problem with regards to IM because your instant messaging client must be in constant communication with the host servers or you are promptly kicked offline, ending all conversations you are currently involved in. I had this problem with my Windows Mobile phone and it drove me berzerk after using the Sidekick for a year.

The main advantage of running your IM through Danger’s servers is this: it maintains your connection to your IM provider while making calls. This means that if you are having an IM conversation with two friends and a call comes through, you can’t write anything to your buds, but anything they write while you are on the phone comes through once you hang up. You can start your conversation back up again immediately without going through a sign-on process again.

To contrast, on the Windows Mobile device, when a call came through and your data stream was dropped, you would get kicked offline and any messages your friends sent to you while you are on the call would be kicked back to them with a “So-and-so is not online” warning. This is very, very annoying when trying to have a conversation. I can hardly put into words how elegant the IM solution on the Sidekick was. I pray that Apple will come up with a similar solution to this datastream loss problem with regards to IM before they launch iChat on the iPhone.

 

[firewood]

They have to sort out the problems of reliably handling MobileMe push and notifications before they let thousands of developers add to the load on their servers.


.

 

[andyblila]

Even if Apple released this feature, you'd find something else to complain about and blame it on Apple. Be happy with it. I bought the phone for what it could do, not for what I could complain about it not doing.

 

[cellocello]

I'm betting on March '09.

 

[bigmouth]

Even if Apple released this feature, you'd find something else to complain about and blame it on Apple. Be happy with it. I bought the phone for what it could do, not for what I could complain about it not doing.

No offense, but this is really poor logic. People shouldn't complain because they'll always have something to complain about? Are you kidding me?

 

[andyblila]

No offense, but this is really poor logic. People shouldn't complain because they'll always have something to complain about? Are you kidding me?

No actually, it's not. Everytime there's an update....it's the same complaint. My point is if you bought this device for what it couldn't do, vice what it can do....you've made a big mistake.

 

[nickspohn]

No offense, but this is really poor logic. People shouldn't complain because they'll always have something to complain about? Are you kidding me?

It's not poor logic, it's the truth. This has always been the way with the iPhone.


Remember when people complained about 3G? Remember when people complained about the headphone jack? ETC.

 

[cere]

No actually, it's not. Everytime there's an update....it's the same complaint. My point is if you bought this device for what it couldn't do, vice what it can do....you've made a big mistake.

Very poor logic. And what about if you bought the phone for what they said it would be able to do? I didn't, but it is a feature I would like and one they announced, one they set their own deadline for and one they missed their own deadline for. This has nothing to do with other complaints.

Really, you logic is: others have complained about other things so no complaints are valid? Not just poor logic. Exceptionally poor logic.

 

[cere]

It's not poor logic, it's the truth. This has always been the way with the iPhone.


Remember when people complained about 3G? Remember when people complained about the headphone jack? ETC.

Yes, a lot of people have a lot of complaints. Any in many cases, they are bitching about this just for the sake of bitching. No CnP? Too bad, it never had it and they never said it would.

But, some complaints are valid. To ignore them just because it is the iPhone and from Apple is beyond dumb. If Apple announces a feature at launch and tells everyone it will be there and in fact bases their entire premise for preventing background apps on it, then misses their own deadline and make no mention of it again, it is a valid complaint. You don't think some people bought the iPhone anticipating this feature? You don't think some app developers feel like **** for having to release crippleware because they can't alert their users about messages and updates?

What would it take some of you people to acknowledge a fault with Apple or their products? Would Jobs have to start sacrificing babies in public before you would lower yourself to admit fault? Geez people, it is a phone. It is not perfect. It has faults. I would buy another in a heartbeat, but that doesn't mean I trade my brain for it.

 

[Project]

Then maybe they shouldn't have announced it or announced it with a reasonable target date. Yes people might moan if they delayed it, why shouldn't they? Some people may have bought their phones with the expectation that in terms of IM or other apps the require notifications, that Apple would meet their announced goals of having this feature. It was announced as the perfect solution to Apple having denied apps the ability to run in the background. I think it really is a elegant solution, but they need to meet their obligations. Having apps received notifications, such as IMs, is a basic feature for todays smart phone. Since Apple, rightfully, prevents the apps from running to receive them themselves, they need to get their support of push updates out soon. At the least they should not have announced it would be out in Sept if that date was questionable. But they did and a tiny part of me believes it was because they didn't want crippled IM apps to a deal breaker for those people that rely or use apps like IMs or Facebook. Those that might have decided to wait or go with another device were led to believe that the solution was right around the corner.

Apple needs to refocus their resources to meet their promised obligations. Instead of wasting development time on Emoji and StreetView and a new Safari layout, none of which were promised or really that compelling (not enough to be a deal breaker if missing anyway), they should have had those developers working on what they had already promised and is already 2 months late.

You're missing the point.

If Apple announced nothing then people would moan that the background process issue on the iPhone is unresolved. So basically, however Apple announce this feature would result in moaning. They wouldn't have announced it for October if they felt there wasn't a reasonable chance of it doing so.

And for the dude who said their sidekick did push - give me a break. This is hardly the same thing. We are talking about a centralised push system for potentially thousands of apps to millions of users. Push email is ONE app. Push IM is ONE app. Now consider every app in the store pushing out notifications constantly to users. It's a serious piece of engineering and the fact it's ran over schedule is hardly surprising. But given that it was available in the betas suggests they are making progress with it.

And for those who criticize every feature but the ones they want... Get real. It's not like there is one team working on a feature at a time. And the likes of emoji are quite important for uuum, 150m potential Japanese users.

 

[sharp65]

Yes, a lot of people have a lot of complaints. Any in many cases, they are bitching about this just for the sake of bitching. No CnP? Too bad, it never had it and they never said it would.

But, some complaints are valid. To ignore them just because it is the iPhone and from Apple is beyond dumb. If Apple announces a feature at launch and tells everyone it will be there and in fact bases their entire premise for preventing background apps on it, then misses their own deadline and make no mention of it again, it is a valid complaint. You don't think some people bought the iPhone anticipating this feature? You don't think some app developers feel like **** for having to release crippleware because they can't alert their users about messages and updates?

What would it take some of you people to acknowledge a fault with Apple or their products? Would Jobs have to start sacrificing babies in public before you would lower yourself to admit fault? Geez people, it is a phone. It is not perfect. It has faults. I would buy another in a heartbeat, but that doesn't mean I trade my brain for it.

Hit the nail on the head, people would take a bullet for their iphones