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GPush for iPhone versus Google's Gmail push

Google has just come out with its own official push solution for Gmail on iPhone. Is the third-party GPush done for? Not even close.

Jessica Dolcourt Senior Director, Commerce & Content Operations
Jessica Dolcourt is a passionate content strategist and veteran leader of CNET coverage. As Senior Director of Commerce & Content Operations, she leads a number of teams, including Commerce, How-To and Performance Optimization. Her CNET career began in 2006, testing desktop and mobile software for Download.com and CNET, including the first iPhone and Android apps and operating systems. She continued to review, report on and write a wide range of commentary and analysis on all things phones, with an emphasis on iPhone and Samsung. Jessica was one of the first people in the world to test, review and report on foldable phones and 5G wireless speeds. Jessica began leading CNET's How-To section for tips and FAQs in 2019, guiding coverage of topics ranging from personal finance to phones and home. She holds an MA with Distinction from the University of Warwick (UK).
Expertise Content strategy, team leadership, audience engagement, iPhone, Samsung, Android, iOS, tips and FAQs.
Jessica Dolcourt
2 min read
GPush on iPhone
GPush on iPhone now has a Gmail in-box within the app. Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

In mid-August, the GPush app came into iPhone's App Store, promising to send push notifications of Gmail messages when new mail came in. Just last week, Google offered its own push solution for Gmail messages, one that pushes e-mail down from the server into the native iPhone in-box. Did that spell the end of GPush? Not quite.

First, Google's push service, which is handled by Google Sync, can vibrate the phone and sound an alert chime when it pushes a new message down from the server, but it lacks GPush's alert bubble that helpfully displays the sender and subject.

Second, GPush and Google are neck and neck when it comes to performance, at least as far as our iPhone is concerned. GPush sniffs out the new message faster about half the time, perhaps even more often. The bottom line: Google's push isn't necessarily faster or better.

Although Google's official push option is free and GPush is a premium app (whose price ratcheted up from 99 cents to $1.99), you still pay a price going Google's route. You're allowed to have one e-mail account sync over Microsoft Exchange. If you use Google Sync, you've used your shot. This is poor news for those who also access their work mail from their iPhone over Exchange. For this set, GPush is the better way to go. You can still use a standard Gmail account that pulls e-mail from the server at regular intervals, and use GPush to let you know when a new message trickles in, who sent it, and what it's about.

GPush notification on iPhone
Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

An update to GPush adds a Gmail in-box to the application interface and a "View" button to the notification alert. Press that button and GPush can now open your in-box within its application. Since GPush is giving you access to Google's mobile Gmail site for iPhones, you'll be able to do anything with that e-mail that you could do from the Safari browser. In other words, with its proactive notification alert, Gpush has just one-upped Google, using Google's mobile site.

While the new Gmail in-box feature is exactly what we asked for, having Gpush open to the Gmail in-box tab took longer than it should. We hope to see this speed up in a future release.

What do you think about the GPush app versus Google's official Gmail push? Share your thoughts in the comments.