Google said Tuesday that it will add push Gmail support to the iPhone, iPod Touch and Windows Mobile devices, with help from Microsoft.

The push support, where your email connection is always on, is done via Google Sync. The addition of the new device types means that Google Apps users can get email, contacts and calendar information pushed to most major devices such as the Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Android.

Ironically, Google relied on Microsoft Exchange’s ActiveSync protocol to make it happen. To get push Gmail on your iPhone you have to set up an Exchange account with your Google information.

This option was previously available for some Google apps like Calendar and Contacts, but now Gmail is supported, which means that users will be instantly notified when a new message comes in.

Read more about the process here.

Apple doesn’t support push Gmail for the iPhone, but Google found ways around that problem. One downside to this method is that iPhone only supports one Exchange account, so if you use one for something like work, you can’t also use it for your personal Google account.

Tags: Apple iPhone, Google Inc., Google Gmail, Microsoft Corp., E-mail Providers, Smart Phones, Cloud Computing, Internet, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology

Google inc Google Software Iphone