No pushing

This morning saw Twitter going a but mental for the release of the popular desktop email client Sparrow's iPhone app. I tried the desktop version a long time ago, and found it didn't quite have the features I was looking for but looking again at it this morning means I'll be revisiting it as a desktop equivalent for my MacBook. I'm two sentences in and am already veering off point. Back to the iPhone app...

Even though I have no particular issues with the default Mail app on my phone, I was interested to see what Sparrow brought to the table. I watched the video to see what it was all about and was sold. I went and bought it and have placed it in my dock for permanent use (while I test it out for myself at least).

Setting up email accounts is a doddle, you simply enter your login details and it uses magic to find which service your email account is registered with (or with an iCloud account just knows it's from Apple) and you're in! All apps that require set up on first opening should run like this.

I'm again veering off point, I'm not here to write a review of the app. The point of this post was to explain why the absence of push notifications in Sparrow hasn't deterred me from using it. If anything, it made it that little bit more attractive.

All day my phone sits on my desk in my peripheral vision and for the most part it sits without buzzing except for texts from Luisa. I have push notifications turned on with many apps but most seem rather erratic, being delivered in bunches when I wake the phone up. Some don't even work at all but I've not bothered investigating the cause. Mail is the only app, with the exception of Messages, that pops up notifications pretty much as soon as someone emails me.

While I know I can turn them off, they don't annoy me or distract me enough to make me do so yet the feature itself is something I don't miss when it's not there. I actually prefer being in control of when emails get sent to my phone and it only occurred to me this morning.

Am I alone in not missing email push notifications? Grab me on Twitter and let me know, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.