Yes, I completely agree that the fact that you must leave your computer on and awake is a big drawback but it’s not one that’s unadvertised.

I’ve been a little confused by the notification and where it takes you as well. I do not like, as it seems you don’t either, the fact that if you unlock right after a prowl notification it takes you directly into prowl and not the inbox. However, I think when a prowl notification comes in and you’re on the springboard, not the lock screen you get the option to close/view and view does take you to the inbox, so maybe launching mail from the notification on the lock screen is doable through an update.

Since I’m using Mobile Me I don’t think I’m having that issue since Me mail is pushed on an individual basis. I do see more than one (two maybe) messages in the prowl notification though when multiple messages arrive at the same time.

First, I found that the setup was pretty straightforward. The main problem is that when my iMac goes to sleep — so does growl.

Second, while technically prowl is a push notification (emphasis on notification) – clicking the pop up notification does NOT take you anywhere EXCEPT the prowl screen. You still have to navigate to the mail inbox to retrieve and read the mail.

The notifications that popped up in my testing were also a little less than helpful. They showed me only the last message that I’d received (assuming that two or three came in close together) which always forced me to open prowl or to go direct to my inbox to see what else had arrived.

As a pure “you’ve got mail” prowl does the trick. For an integrated pure email push notification system I still find it kludgy and the need to keep my iMac awake is a huge negative to the usability.