Pushbullet Can Now Send Your iOS Notifications To Your Mac, Raises $1.5M

Since around March of last year, Pushbullet has done a damned good job of forwarding messages and notifications from your Android phone to your Mac.

Today, Pushbullet gains support for iOS — and while they’re at it, they’ve launched a dedicated Mac app and raised $1.5 million.

They’ve put together a pretty solid demo video of their new iOS app, but here’s the basic rundown of what Pushbullet can do:

  • Forward notifications — including ones from third-party apps, and without any modifications to the app by the developer — from your phone to your Mac (a Windows client is available, but in beta). Are your buddies texting but your phone is across the room in your bag? They’ll show up right in the corner of your screen.
  • You can silence alerts on an app-by-app basis in case you don’t want Facebook alerts popping up endlessly.
  • You can dismiss phone notifications from your computer
  • Send links/files from your desktop to your phone (or vice versa) with just a click or two. It’s a pretty slick way to copy/paste between devices.
  • On iOS, it uses Bluetooth LE to make sure you’re actually relatively near your computer when it’s forwarding alerts. If you walk away from your computer or lend it to a buddy, your notifications automatically stop forwarding.

Simultaneously, the company is announcing that it raised a seed round of $1.5 million. Investors in this round are General Catalyst, SV Angel, Paul Bucheit (creator of Gmail), Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder; part time YC Partner), Garry Tan (Posthaven co-founder; YC Partner) and other angel investors that were not disclosed.

And to round off a day of news, the company also launched a dedicated Mac app and a Safari extension. Pushbullet originally began its life as a Chrome extension, eventually finding its way to Firefox and Opera. Now it’s compatible with just about every major browser — or as its own thing, no browser required. You can find the dedicated Mac app right here, and the new iOS app here.

I’ve been using Pushbullet since I first wrote about it back in March — and without realizing it, it’s become something of a staple in my workflow. I didn’t notice how much I leaned on it until I had to clear off my Android phone and subsequently spent a few days without it; until I got around to reinstalling it, my phone felt hobbled.

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