One of the only true Gmail disappointments over the years has been the service’s lack of Push support for most mobile devices – including the iPhone. We’ve been lamenting this missing functionality for some time, but today, our laments are no more. 

Push Gmail is now a reality!

iPhone and iPod touch users can add Push Gmail to their handsets as long as they’re running the OS 3.0 or above.  Push service is available via Exchange, so when you set up the account in the Settings menu, be sure to select Exchange as the email service. 

For details on how to set up your iPhone with Push Gmail, click here.

One of the most talked about iPhone apps this week is GPush [iTunes Link], a recently approved application that alerts you when new email arrives in your Gmail inbox.  GPush is designed to placate users who want Push Gmail, but are still waiting for Google to offer this seemingly no-brainer service to its iPhone users.  Seriously, Google – why are third-party companies having to do the heavy lifting here?

The app is fairly straight-forward; input your login username and password, authenticate, and GPush will send you alerts via iPhone OS 3.0’s push-notification system when new mail arrives.  New messages show up just like text messages in a small, semi-transparent window in the middle of your screen, with the sender and the subject line.  So far, so good.

But the application is limited to this function only; once you’ve been notified that new mail is waiting, you still have to use standard methods (web interface, iPhone’s built-in Mail app) to view your email.  And in our two days of testing, the application failed to alert when new mail arrived about 20% of the time, which could be a real problem if you are a heavy Gmail user.  The badge showing the number of Gmail messages waiting to be viewed also remains too long after mail has been viewed.

Irrespective of its limitations and intermittently lackluster performance, this is a v1.0 release, and will likely improve over time.  At $0.99, it’s also a very small investment, and is easily worth the price if you spend too much time manually checking your GMail inbox for new messages.

Download GPush [iTunes Link]

While Google doesn’t yet support Push Gmail for the iPhone, a recent update to Google Sync now allows over-the-air Push syncing of contacts and calendar entries with the iPhone. This allows Google Calendar and Gmail users to keep their contacts and appointments at hand and up to date at all times.

Read our new How-To Article:

How To Sync iPhone Calendar & Contacts with Google