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Growl 2.0 works with Mountain Lion notifications
Good news for Growl users running Mountain Lion. The notification system has been updated to version 2.0 with support for OS X's built-in Notification Center. Now you can choose to have messages pop up in Growl or get pushed to Notification Center, keeping everything in one place. Also, Growl has support for more apps than Mountain Lion does, as it has been around for much longer. It's like getting Notification Center support for a whole lot of apps all at once. This update also supports Prowl and Boxcar, further enhancing your mobile notification options. This is a free update for current Growl owners. Newcomers will pay US$4.
Boxcar Beta for Mac available, brings notifications to Mac
Today brings a delightful surprise for Mac users with Boxcar joining the Mac family. Boxcar has been the standard for getting push notifications from your social networks, email, RSS and other services on iOS devices since it launched in July of 2009, and it has been one of my favorite iPhone apps from the start. Boxcar currently supports more Twitter events than you probably have time to read, including mentions, direct messages, new followers, trending topics, Twitter list updates and keyword searches. Boxcar also supports other social networks for notifications from Facebook, check-ins from Gowalla and Foursquare, even Google Buzz.
Apple to redesign iOS notification system
Cult of Mac is reporting that Apple is planning a revamp to its iOS notification system. iOS's current notification system, which is used for everything from text messages to push notifications, has remained virtually unchanged since the introduction of the original iPhone in 2007. The current notification system uses a series of pop-up bezels that are sometimes cramped with information or, worse, fail to display adequate information in an easy to view manner. A good example of this is when you receive two text messages: you are only notified that you have two texts, and you can't see the content of the text message without entering the Messages app. If Apple is indeed overhauling its notification system, it may not be doing it entirely using in-house resources. Sources are reporting that Apple may be purchasing (or may already have purchased) a small iOS development company that offers their own type of notification system through the App Store. While the company has not been specifically identified, Cult of Mac suggests it could be Appremix, which makes a very popular free app called Boxcar that allows users to receive push notifications from a variety of sources including Facebook, Twitter and Google Voice. You can read our review of Boxcar here. While iOS is largely considered the best mobile OS available, its notification system has been a point of criticism for a while. When the Palm Pre debuted with webOS, one of the strong points of its operating system was its banner notifications, which were designed by ex-Apple employee Rich Dellinger. Dellinger has since returned to Apple and may very well be leading the charge in revamping iOS's notification system.
Boxcar 4.0 vastly improves on iPhone notifications
While people who have used both iOS and Android devices will argue over which OS exhibits a greater degree of polish, Android definitely has the better notification system. Even the addition of multitasking to iOS 4 did little to improve the state of notifications on iOS devices compared to Android. Boxcar, which just reached version 4 on the App Store, is a great improvement over standard iOS notifications. Boxcar enables super-fast push notifications for services ranging from the internal mail app to Buzz, Twitter, Facebook, and Google Voice. An ad-supported version of Boxcar is available for free, but an in-app purchase of US$4.99 will eliminate the ads. The app is so good that TechCrunch's MG Siegler thinks Apple should just buy Boxcar and incorporate it into iOS. At the very least, Apple should take some inspiration from Boxcar's features for iOS 5. [via Daring Fireball]
Boxcar, Byline now free and ad-supported
Here's news of two big apps that have gone free (with ads) in the past week. Boxcar is up first -- the app pushes notifications from any number of social and information services out to your iPhone or iPad, so you can know when you've got a Twitter DM or a Growl notice waiting for you elsewhere. Boxcar (on the App Store) has added support for iPad, and the core functionality is all free. The app comes with ads automatically, or you can pay an in-app purchase of $4.99 to turn them off forever. If you need a lot of quick notices on your iPhone or iPad (and don't want to bother with individual solutions for every app), give it a look. Byline has made a similar move -- the Google Reader, erm, reader still has its paid version in place, or you can download Byline Free, which offers the same RSS functionality with ads included. I don't see an in-app way to upgrade, but if you try the free version and decide you'd rather support the developer directly, you can buy the full version for $4.99. This is likely only the beginning of premium paid apps going ad-supported -- with the arrival of iAds in iOS 4, we'll probably see a lot more developers using Apple's advertising solution to supplement their development costs.
Get your social notifications on the cheap with Boxcar
Since the arrival of the Push Notifications feature in iPhone OS 3.0, all manner of apps have added support for it. Games, task management applications, you name it -- they're all more than happy to make your phone beep at you in the middle of the night and prompt your spouse to kindly insist that you silence that infernal device. Or so I've heard. It seems like a no-brainer to me that this type of functionality would exist among the throngs of social networking applications. If the game where you flick the thing while the music is playing can tell me when I've got a new challenger from the Far East, why can't my favorite Twitter client let me know when I've got a new direct message? Sadly, most of the apps in the store (as far as I know) haven't implemented this functionality yet. I realize that it has some sporadic adoption, but certainly not the universal support that I personally expected. Enter Boxcar [iTunes Link]. This little free app has existed in the store for months now and has received some very nice reviews, and for good reason. I've been a faithful user of this app for many moons and I find it pretty indispensable. Here's how it works: When you install the app (which is free at the time of this writing), you can choose to enable a single service for notification -- Twitter, Facebook or an email account. It will poll the selected service at a short interval and send you a standard push notification message if there are any updates. In the case of Twitter, you can configure it to open one of several supported Twitter client apps. If you want to enable additional services, you can do so through the in-app purchase mechanism, and most options cost $.99US. I'm a big fan of Boxcar and use it for Twitter and Facebook. It's one of those free applications that's actually worth more than what you're paying for it -- a quality that's becoming increasingly rare among free iPhone apps these days! Version 2.1 was just released a few days ago and includes several new features like support for Facebook Mail and better accessibility. Pick up Boxcar now for free from the App Store.
