Facebook Users: Unreliable push notifications? Solution!

[eye4ni]

If you don't care about reliable FB notifications, don't bother reading this. This is for people who (like me) don't get reliable, consistent FB push notifications and would like to fix the issue.

Blackberry-like notifications for iphone:

PushMail app in app store ($4.99) does great at pushing email, very reliable, and offers Berrybuzz-like (blackberry app) customization, rules and filters/alerts etc. It also has options for what you would like to happen when you open these messages from within the notification window (close/view screen) or from the pushmail app inbox. For example, upon clicking "view" you can send to a URL, which can be a standard http URL, or a URL scheme for an app like Facebook, which would then open the app and not the browser (kind of like a web address for the app location from on your phone).

I set a "rule" that when an e-mail comes from Facebook (this is my FB email notification), that clicking the "view" button from the notification window will open up my Facebook app and go to the notifications screen, this URL in the pushmail app would be fb://notifications. So now when I receive those FB email notifications, they will default to open from within the FB app, just like blackberry does, and is just as reliable.

After I get this set up, I went in to my iphone notification settings and turned them off for the Facebook app, except for "badges". So when it does work, it only shows the little red dot on the app icon, but I am using the pushmail app for the rest. It is pretty sad that FB can't build better apps, but I was willing to pay a couple of bucks to get the reliability that I wanted. Problem solved.

iTunes Link:
PushMail for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

BTW I am not affiliated with the developers of this app, I just thought that it was good and others might find it as useful as I have.

 

[eye4ni]

I guess that I should add that this app requires forwarding from your current email address to a @dopushmail.com address that you create. Having GMail makes this easier and more controlled because they offer inbox forwarding while still keeping messages on the GMail server (not offered by yahoo, aol, and a few others). Also, GMail has a pretty robust labels system which allowed me to label FB emails and then forward only the labeled emails to the forwarding address.

 

[Jellotime91]

I care about it but this is WAY too convoluted.

 

[eye4ni]

Maybe it is not the most simple solution, but it works and you only have to set it up once.

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

I care about it too. But instead of using the notifications I just rely on e-mail notifications.
My FB account is tied to a Gmail account. Just set up Gmail as an exchange account and
there you have it. Instant push.

 

[Garz]

I care about it too. But instead of using the notifications I just rely on e-mail notifications.
My FB account is tied to a Gmail account. Just set up Gmail as an exchange account and
there you have it. Instant push.

Yes I agree

 

[eye4ni]

I care about it too. But instead of using the notifications I just rely on e-mail notifications.
My FB account is tied to a Gmail account. Just set up Gmail as an exchange account and
there you have it. Instant push.

This is exactly what I do, EXCEPT using the PushMail app, I can make it open Facebook emails IN THE FACEBOOK APP by default, rather than open my gmail...

 

[Fausty82]

This is exactly what I do, EXCEPT using the PushMail app, I can make it open Facebook emails IN THE FACEBOOK APP by default, rather than open my gmail...

For $5, I can open the app myself...

 

[eye4ni]

For $5, I can open the app myself...

For all the added features of the app, it is well worth $5 IMO.