Hello, PushBullet - push anything to your Android phone from your browser | Hacker News Reader

Hello, PushBullet - push anything to your Android phone from your browser

blog.pushbullet.com

43 pointsGuzba46 comments

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Pushing files is interesting, but addresses, notes, and lists are easily done already.

Pushing an address:

1. Search address on Google Maps

2. Open up Maps on Android

3. Click on "My Places" from dropdown menu

4. Swipe to Recent

Pushing notes:

1. Create notes in Google Drive

2. Open on Android

Pushing lists:

1. Create list in Google Drive

2. Open on Android

Pushing websites:

1. Open website on laptop in Chrome

2. Open Chrome browser on Android

3. Select the "Other Devices" tab

4. Open website

I suppose you could push files via Drive as well.

Pretty cool though; I may give it a try.

I agree there are easy ways to do most of PushBullet's functionality through other means but I think there is a lot of power in not just actually getting the list on your phone with Google Drive, but actively pushing it into your notifications.

Glad to hear you'll give it a try :)

Downloading it as I speak.

Not everyone knows how to push using those apps and I hope this makes life simple. :)

And I might sound too demanding but a small icon on my Mac's menu bar will surely be handy.

Pushing an address is even easier than that (if you're on 4.1+). Search for a place in Maps, and a minute later Google Now will have that place listed.

I have installed it. time will tell whether I will actually remember to use it when I need it.

One thing you should definitely fix - once you install Android app and run it for first time, it tells you that you need to sign in using your G account. I thought the reference is for the web-app since the android app already listed my G account email address at the bottom of the screen. In the web-app I checked I am signed in and yet I could not do any push. So I was frustrated why the wep-app does not recognize my android device. I touching the android app randomly and finally a random click on my email address made the connection.

Its definitely not obvious how to pair the device with the web app. You should make some button in the app

Otherwise I like it :)

Thanks a lot for the feedback. I 100% agree I need to make pairing more clear.

How does the data get from point A to point B? Does everything pass through your servers? Do I have any reason to feel that my URLs/maps/files couldn't be snooped upon by yourself or anyone else?

Good question. I use Google's Cloud Messaging to actually deliver the pushes but the data in a push is not plaintext, and the push sometimes doesn't even have the data at all (the GCM message is just a tickle). All interaction with PushBullet app servers is done by https. Overall, I don't think I've done anything stupid but I wouldn't trust PushBullet to anything you consider prudently private.

very interesting. If this had an API and/or a chrome extension I could see myself using it a lot. If you're looking for collaborators ping me (email in my profile)

Slightly OT, rather than Chrome to Phone I use https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/qr-code-tag-extens..., so I can send a URL to anyone in the room with a smartphone. Admittedly they have to install something like Google Goggles first

Giving this a go - I do have solutions for most of these things (Evernote for notes, Maps' built-in syncing, etc) but this sounds like it might be convenient, especially for files.

One small thing... when I started the app, it fired up my Twitter client O.o What's up with that?

Nothing in PushBullet should fire up your Twitter client. :? Very strange.

Downloaded app, installed, and added push URL to bookmarks bar. It's awesome as is, but as others have mentioned, any kind of browser extension that would facilitate capturing selected text to send as a note or in one of the given formats would make this superlative.

For those asking for an API for something like this, take a look at PushOver(https://pushover.net/). While PushOver doesn't support files, it does have a nice API and can also be used in IFTTT recipes.

Doesn't work for me. Latched to my email and shows my phone on the dashboard, but when I try to push something nothing appears on the phone. I've tried pushing the sync button too. Is it US only? Or does it need wifi on the computer?

I did see in the logs that someone's Google account wasn't playing nicely. I should be passing along error messages better, hah. If you wanted to message me the Google account you signed up with, I'll look into it.

Yeah got it. Two factor authentication. That will kill it stone dead, won't it?

I bet your right. Too funny, you'll never think of everything you should test, right? :)

Heh, ain't that the truth. :)

[Update: I apologize greatly. Both my test pushes just arrived perfectly in my notifications bar. Nice!!! ]

Glad to hear they made it though the pipes!

Now I'd like the opportunity to edit the text notes I push, so I can copy paste into other apps maybe?

For sure, the ability to edit what you've pushed is something I'll be working on very soon. Right now it seems like Chrome extension would be a good next project as well...

How does this differ from the Chrome to Phone plugin?

Chrome to Phone has had a big influence on PushBullet. The convenience of things being placed in your notifications is huge but Chrome to Phone hasn't pushed past being all about web stuff.

I want to be able to put my own notes, lists, etc on my phone, not just webpages and links. And files too, of course.

Simply, PushBullet will be a superset of Chrome to Phone.

That's a great addition.

A big annoyance of mine with CtP is it's one-way, I can't send links to a browser. Would it be possible to PushBullet a file/link back to a browser? Maybe the last browser that pushed to the phone?

Just installed it. It's not a about pushing specific urls, but instead you push specific predefined data types. The ones available right now are "Note", "Address", "List", "File". Pushing is done by visiting the site at this time, though I can imaging a browser extension is in the works.

Personally, I don't think I'll use it - I use dropbox when I want to sync a file with my phone, Evernote for notes and lists, and just Chrome to Phone for addresses (via google maps) or urls.

I'm glad that it's not just through extensions, that was the major thing I didn't like about Chrome to Phone (since sometimes I use public computers).

Please add feature to direct picture send to phone. Now I have to save it to disk than using "File" to send to phone. Anyway great idea.

I still email myself things, or text myself something, which sucks. This seems like a serious replacement for that. Wish it was on iOS!

I could definitely use something like this on iOS as well.

As a designer, I'm constantly making things I want to be able to show to others at any given time, so I constantly email mockups to my phone. The process currently sucks, and this would be really helpful.

Sounds like Dropbox would help you with your problem.

So what's your business model? How do we know that you won't sell our e-mail addresses you get by signing in via Google account?

No answer?

I guess the business model is to sell the e-mail addresses after all.

No, its not. I just haven't had the time to get that far. It's a hard problem but selling emails isn't an option.

Applaud a great start! Add iOS support and a chrome extension and reverse direction as well and I'd use this all day every day.

There's something quite similar for iOS already, it's called beamapp [ http://getbeamapp.com/ ].

Is it ready yet? it never worked for me :(

Why minimum version of PushBullet is android ICS? How about people that still use Gingerbread or below?

I optimized around getting the app out and supporting devices pre ICS got cut for now, that's all. (Holo theme + new apis means cleaner code and in my experience with other apps, ICS+ is much less quirky so I can guarantee a better quality of experience with much less effort)

Would love an API so I can push IRC alerts to my phone. Growl integration would also work well.

OMG, yes! I was wondering why it wasn't easier to do any of this! Downloading now.

Hello, why is the file limit 5MB? can you make it bigger?

Care to explain the difference with Chrome To Phone?

Pushbullet is a superset of Chrome to Phone. Chrome to Phone can only send link while push bullet can send other Media as well such as addresses and todo lists.

Nice!

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