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One of the most talked about and anticipated features of the new iPhone OS 3.0 is the push notification system. By using push notifications, app developers will be able to notify iPhone users when they have received new information relating to one of their registered apps that use this new technology. This concept was first announced last summer and was originally slated to be released in September of 2008, but that deadline came and went without a word from Apple. Finally, in March, they announced it would once again be included with iPhone OS 3.0.

Finally released with the new iPhone OS? Yes, sort of. The technology is in place and works, but so far I have only been able to find two apps that take advantage of the new technology. One is the AP Mobile app (iTunes link) and the other is Tap Tap Revenge 2 (iTunes link). The push system seems to work well with the AP Mobile app for breaking news alerts. I usually receive one or two alerts a day. I have yet to receive a notification from Tap Tap, but that’s not surprising since it is only used to challenge other players to beat your score, and I currently don’t have any friends who are playing.

It took a fair amount of searching to discover these two apps, and no other push enabled apps seemed to be available shortly after launch. I was waiting for the instant messaging app, Beejive. Although, Beejive submitted their app around a week before the new OS release, as of today, it still has not been approved. As far as I can find, no other push app has yet to be approved. As I continued to monitor this situation, I discovered a post from Notify Me on the MacRumors Forums:

I’ve got some informations about Push applications delay, so why not sharing them with the community. We have developed NotifyMe, the first OS 3.0 Push based reminder on the iPhone. The release delay of Push based applications is intentional. We have submitted NotifyMe 10 days ago, the same time as Beejive has submitted their new BeejiveIM version with Push capabilities. We have just received (now, sunday morning in Cupertino) an apology from Apple App Store Staff.

The time and the day of this apology certainly shows that there are some troubles and Apple is in a hurry fixing them as soon as possible. However, based on our Push user account records, they haven’t even started using NotifyMe yet (it’s not possible to use the application without creating the user account first). The problem does not seem to lie in applications themselves, but more probably Apple’s technology backend, which most probably needs some last setup before even starting to review the applications. So the applications might be just waiting untouched, un-reviewed in the queue.

However, in our testing conditions (ad-hoc provisioning profiles, production APNS), all Push messages with NotifyMe are working extremely well and right on time, so this creates even more mystery. According to other feedback, AIM instant messenger testers have also reported very positive results when testing Push.

All mayor Push based apps seem to be delayed and it’s very possible that all of the development teams have received the same apology

In a quick update, they do admit that the apology could just be for a slow approval process and not for the push notifications service, but the fact remains that no major push application has yet to be approved and released to the app store.

I believe that this feature/service will really improve the iPhone and its effectiveness as a communications device, and it is worth the wait. However, it’s very frustrating that push notifications seems to be hitting so many snags even at the eleventh hour. Hopefully, we will soon all be annoyed by the amount of push notifications we are receiving.

Update: When this article was completed, Apple had not yet released any more push apps. But within a few hours of submitting it for publication, Apple released updates for BeeJive (iTunes link) and AOL Instant Messenger (iTunes link). This will likely be just the tip of the iceberg, and we will see many more soon. Feel free to join in and leave a comment if you hear of any others that have been released.