It is now nearly five months after Apple originally said it would release push notifications for the iPhone, a service that would allow third parties to send instant SMS-style alerts to their applications on the device. A few iPhone OS updates and many scratched heads later, this feature’s utility and Apple’s silence on its whereabouts are once again in the limelight. But to discuss iPhone push notifications, we should recap what they actually are and what they mean for the iPhone as a platform.
Announced at WWDC 2008 with the iPhone 3G, push notifications were sold by Steve Jobs as a compromise between allowing third-party apps to run in the background and conserving battery life and performance. While the iPhone is very much a powerful and pocketable phone, it is still a far cry from being a multi-tasking monster that many modern notebook-slinging power users wish it was. Push notifications are indeed a major step towards meeting in the middle, but Apple may need to spend more time to chew all that it bit off.
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