Sparrow for iPhone launched last week with push email notifications notably absent, but a new tweak for jailbroken iPhones aims to change that. The free tweak dubbed "SparrowPush" uses the same APIs Apple denied Sparrow for its 1.0 release in the App Store. If you install SparrowPush, you won't need to open Sparrow and manually refresh it whenever you want to receive new emails; you'll get a push notification every time a new email hits your inbox. The tweak's developer claims that it doesn't use any more battery life than simply turning on push email notifications in Apple's Mail app for iPhone.

Sparrow developer Dom Leca told us that it could be months before Apple gives in and allows non-VoIP apps to utilize push notifications using its servers. If you don't want to jailbreak, you can dual wield the Mail app for notifications and Sparrow for mail management, or just request push from Apple using Sparrow's email form and cross your fingers. If you are considering jailbreaking, SparrowPush (which should be available soon from Cydia) might be the best new reason to do so.

For our full review of Sparrow for iPhone, click here.