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Ask HN: Is there a smart phone with instant new email notifications?

4 pointsd99kris5y ago6 comments

One of the awesome things that came with the smart phones (10+ years ago), for me, were the instant new email notifications, in particular for GMail.

In the last couple of Samsung Galaxy generations I've experienced worse and worse delay for email notifications (battery usage optimizations I suppose) - I'm currently on S20 FE 5G.

I've followed most suggested tricks online for fixing GMail notifications on Samsung Galaxy without any luck. I even installed a third-party app, BlueMail, which initially gave timely notifications, but after a couple months' usage there's now a significant delay there as well (hours sometime).

I'm ready to give up on Samsung now to try something different (including Apple), but when I search online it seems users of other products sometimes also encounter the same problem? Does anyone know some smartphone/OS which does not have this problem (and ideally does not require tinkering with power saving settings to get timely email notifications in the standard Gmail app)?

Many thanks in advance!

6 comments

6 comments · 3 top-level

twobitshifter5y ago· 2 in thread

Looks like it is the power settings you’re talking about

https://support.google.com/mail/thread/4171361/the-gmail-and...

If you’re looking for gmail, it’s up to google to handle pushing notifications. This should be happening through firebase, but it will be the same on any platform/OS. If they’re not pushing emails on arrival, you won’t see messages.

If you’re not using some sort of push notification, as with another app, you’ll have to use polling which means that you’ll only get new messages each time the app polls the server.

d99krisOP5y ago

Thanks for the help! So I've followed those instructions previously without any luck. I also double-checked my settings just now. Push notifications are delivered timely with other apps, like WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc.

twobitshifter5y ago

It could be a change to firebase, those other apps may be using another push provider.

dirktheman5y ago· 1 in thread

Can't speak for Samsung phones, but in our household we have several Xiaomi, Motorola and Apple devices and Gmail (or any other email for that matter) notifications are always instantaneous.

d99krisOP5y ago

Thanks, that's at least one good data point for me. :)

mattbrewsbytes5y ago

I have an iPhone and I've noticed if I have gmail open in a browser I get the email notification on the phone before it shows up in gmail the browser. I use the GMail app on iOS not the Apple Mail app.

I guess I'd ask what is so important about instantaneous email notifications? Or rather is another technology better suited to what you are trying to do?

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