Push Notification Available in Fring for iPhone, Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 21 Jul 2009

Fring, the service that allows you to keep an eye on your Skype, Yahoo!, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, Twitter, ICQ, SIP, and AIM accounts, has updated its iPhone-dedicate app to include Push Notification. Thanks to the Push Notification feature in the iPhone OS 3.0, when the Fring app is not running, Apple will push Fring-related notifications your iPhone.

In the Fring for iPhone version 2.2 case, the whole thing goes something like this: when you close the app and someone contacts you, you will receive a Push Notification in the form of a beeping sound. Simultaneously a pop-window that displays the name of the friend who contacted you will appear on the iPhone’s screen. Click the pop-up window and you will be taken to the relevant chat window in Fring.

In related news, Product Manager with Yahoo!, Sarah Bacon, announced that Yahoo!’s iPhone-dedicate IM client has been updated to include Push Notification as well as the option to stay online for up to 2 weeks. The push notification feature works in a similar fashion push notifications for Mail work. When a Yahoo! Messenger contact gets in touch with you, a badge will appear on top of the Yahoo! Messenger app icon on your home screen. The badge indicates how many new messages you have.

Alongside the badge notification, you will also see a pop-up alert on your home screen – just like when you receive an SMS message on your iPhone. You can select to view the new IM or you can choose to close the alert. When the iPhone is asleep, the pop-up will wake it up and display the alert message.

A third notification option is available: sound notifications. When a new IM is available the device will play a sound to let you know about it. If the iPhone is on mute, the device will vibrate instead.

“You can choose to use all or none of these new message alerts. To set your preferences, tap “Settings” on the home screen, then “Notifications”, and finally “Yahoo! Messenger”. From there you can turn on/off the sound, alert or badge notifications (they’re defaulted on when you install the app),” explained Sarah Bacon.

The catch is that Sarah Bacon’s announcement was shortly pulled down – a Google cache is available here. A quick check in the App Store revealed that iPhone Messenger for iPhone version 1.2 is indeed available for download. But there is no word on push notification; the official description only says that version 1.2 comes with "bug fixes and performance enhancements."

UPDATE: YM for iPhone 1.2 had some issues with Push Notification, that is why the announcement was pulled down. Yahoo! has released version 1.2.1 to resolve the situation (details here).

If you would like to get Fring for iPhone, an iTunes download location is available here.
If you would like to get Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone, an iTunes download location is available here.


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