Mail Notifier brings push notifications to your email accounts so you can actually see your email messages as soon as they are sent to you. The app works well, but does have some limitations.

Setting up your email accounts is easy, needing only to enter a description, username and password. However, there are only three email services supported at this time. You can set up a Gmail, Hotmail (Windows Live) or AOL account. This is the first obvious problem with the app. There are so many other email providers out there, so supporting only three really limits its functionality. However, you do have the ability to set up an unlimited number of these accounts. After you’ve setup your email, you simply close the app and wait to receive your push notifications. Almost instantly after you’ve received an email into your account, the push notification appears on screen. You will see the sender’s name, subject line and the first sentence or so of the email’s body. This push notification will appear while you are using any application on your device.

The push notifications happen almost instantly, and all my emails were shown without error. However, there are several limitations that will keep this application from becoming a permanent fixture on my iPhone. First of all, the app will only display the last email you’ve received. So, if you have received five emails and the third one was the most important that you needed to know about, you will only see the last one as a push notification. I don’t think this is the application’s fault. The push notification service itself is the culprit for this problem. Regardless, this issue does limit the app’s usefulness. The next problem I noticed is that the application’s only purpose is to show you that you have a new email. It would be nice for it to automatically open the mail app so you can read the email you’ve been notified about.

The app itself does show a badge of how many unread emails you have, but you can’t open up the application to see your emails. It is clearly not a mail app alternative. However, it would have been nice to see a list of your push notifications, like the application Boxcar.

Mail Notifier is a good start toward email push notifications. However, with all the limitations it has, it is just not as functional as it sounds. I did enjoy having the ability to see an email to decide if it was important enough to open up and read the entire message. This saves you from having to unlock your phone and open the mail app every time you hear the new email tone. However, unless you are always able to check your phone as soon as you get a new email, you’ll still be opening your mail app to check all the emails you’ve missed before the last push notification. I’m actually a bit torn about whether or not to recommend this application. It may be good for some, yet useless for others. You’ll just have to decide for yourself.