For months, Gmail users have not been able to get their email pushed to the iPhone. Thanks to release of GPush, that is all about to change.. well, sorta.

The GPush application is very simple for the user; all the user has to do is enter their Gmail username and password. Once that is complete, they never really need to look at the 99 cent application again (unless wanting to log in as a different Gmail user). It works by using the IMAP IDLE function which Gmail supports. Ordinarily the iPhone’s OS 3 firmware doesn’t make use this; but by utilizing this function,  the iPhone can use Gmail just like the Palm Pre and Android based phones can.

GPush will alert you to incoming Gmail messages with a red icon badge, a chime, and a semi-transparent alert window that reads the sender’s name and the subject line. (You can change these in the Notification settings.) The application interface itself does little, apart from collecting your log-in information once, and manually reregistering your credentials. All the rest works behind the scenes.

So how does this app perform? Fair, in our tests, but not worthy of the hype we’ve seen elsewhere. Several alerts for incoming e-mails came through, either after sliding the phone to wake it from sleep, or while actively using the iPhone. However, many other messages lagged or weren’t passed down from the server at all, though they still showed up in the Mail box.

GPush’s developers claim that (during a phone call) there could be issues if the phone frequently switches between Wi-Fi and 3G data and loses the data connection. During these moments of instability, GPush will queue the new messages for notifications. When the iPhone regains its service, GPush sends out only the most recent notification, an Apple limitation to keep alerts from flooding your screen.

I was really pushing (no pun intended) for this app to be ‘the one’, and yes..  technically it is. With a price tag of 99 cents, it’s hard to trash the efforts put forth by this app. At the same time, we’re left with an old saying that rings true once more – you get what you pay for.