Edible Apple

Measured against every mobile OS currently out on the market, Apple’s iOS compares favorably in nearly ever area. But one realm where Apple has to play catchup is in its notification system. While Apple’s current implementation is alright, it was nowhere near as slick as the one Palm implemented on the Palm Pre way back when. Not only that, but the recently unveiled TouchPad from HP (which acquired Palm primarily for its WebOS) has a sleek and intuitive notifications that scream Apple.

In an exclusive scoop, Cult of Mac reports that Apple is looking to spruce up its notification system in a major way.

There were rumors last year that the iPhone’s notification system would be fixed after the chief architect of Palm’s system, Rich Dellinger, returned to work at Apple. However, the system still hasn’t been fixed, and according to our source, Apple is now trying to buy a small app developer to fix it.

Our source, who asked to remain anonymous, didn’t know the identity of the company, except it already has an iPhone app in the App Store.

One candidate is Boxcar, a free app from App Remix that enables push notifications for Twitter, Facebook, and email. Boxcar’s system has been highly praised, especially the new iPad version.

Cult of Mac’s Leander Kahney even reached out to App Remix CEO Jonathan George and asked if Apple was purchasing his company. George’s response? “No comment.”

So yeah, not too much to work on here, but hopefully we won’t have to wait too long before the iOS notification system sees some long-awaited improvements.

And as referenced by COM, Apple in June of 2010 hired Rich Dellinger as a Senior User Interface Designer. Previously, Delinger helped design the highly praised webOS notification system for Palm. And before that, Dellinger was, gasp!, an Apple designer.