Can I install 2 Pusk SDK Service in an app (Android and iOS)? we need to migrate from ExactTarget to Parse or UrbanAirship, but managers need time to migrate, so, we want to use ExactTarget for Marketing automation process (already configured) AND use Parse internally for calling API triggers notifications.
if you are working on native android apps then i suggest to use google cloud messaging for sending push notifications,in my experience i use UrbanAirship for Web apps only,using multiple SDK is not good idea because if you are working with one technology/process for notifications then its easy to configure any problem if occurred in future..
There's nothing 'wrong' with using two SDKs to handle push notifications. For iOS, delivery is handled by APNS (Apple), and for Android, delivery is handled by GCM (Google). So, the delivery of the notifications will not change. The SDKs that are provided by the services you listed above are normally used to:
1) Handle the arrival of the notifications
2) Record/manage the audience to which notifications can be sent to
3) Provide analytics for the notifications that were just sent.
The biggest concern/issue that you probably will have will be the handling of your audience. Services such as Urban Airship and Parse, provide the convenience of managing your device information. Without going into too much detail, you have to know WHO you are sending notifications. Depending on which provider you choose, you will need to migrate that device information from old to new. Here's some links that will get you going on that, but let me know if you have any other questions:
Apple:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/Chapters/ApplePushService.html
Google:
https://developers.google.com/cloud-messaging/server-ref
Related
I want to send android push notification to the selected user without using gcm or firebase. The application is already built without firebase. Now I need to integrate push notification too.
Question:
How it's possible without firebase?
Actually I want a feature that, when an admin update the value in the one field in database table of particular user, the that user will get a push notification regarding the update. How it is possible?
The way is to create custom Service https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Service.html , which is holding connection via socket or polling some remote server with intervals.
But, I suggest that Firebase service is more advanced and optimized in battery consumption and, particularly, in utilizing the sleep mode. It's not trivial to make a service which will have fast response and CPU consumption. I think that a custom service development will lead to native (C++) coding of networking routines libs.
Also, take into account that Firebase provides own Authentication service with ability to seamless convert your anonymous user to registered. There is a lot of pros of Firebase services. And cons are: your users have to install Google Play Services, if your app will grow - you will pay to Firebase.
Look here Android push notification without Google service
It's possible using VAPID authentication.
Google for VAPID and you will find a very tortuous road that could lead to the answer you are looking for.
another option is Gotify. Gotify is self-hosted open source notification solution that you can use it to send push notification to your android app without need of Firebase.
with help of UnifiedPush you can receive push notifications in your android app.
you can easily host Gotify server on Docker and use it's Api or cli,... to send notifications.
here is a good article about Gotify: https://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2020/230/Gotify
I read a lot of articles about how to implement Push Notifications with Cordova (and Ionic 2) and I'm not sure how to implement that in China when not using Google's push server.
I think using https://github.com/phonegap/phonegap-plugin-push is a good idea. But all the Howtos are focussing on creating an account in Google's FCM which is not really helpful in China. I doubt Chinese phones use Google to poll for notifications. Which leads to my next question.
I was assuming that there exists only one central push service for all platforms (Android, iOS and Windows) and vendors for the following reasons:
One platform is only polling from one fixed push server to save battery life.
If an app (server side) is sending a push notification, it does not know anything about the receiver's device, so it can only count on a centralized service delivering the message to the device regardless of platform or vendor.
But do Apple, Google and Microsoft all use the same push service? I doubt it, and that's what makes me confused. Also, if I'm in China, as Google's services are unstable here, the Android phones distributed in China are not using Google and even not install Google Play Store.
When I install a Chinese app (hosted in China) on a German phone (Android) I still get all notifications for that app even if I'm obviously polling from Google's push server. That means, the notification messages of the Chinese app is somehow delivered to Google.
The only explanation for that is that the different push services are working together. Is that the case? If so, than does it make a difference where I create an account (Google FCM: https://medium.com/#ankushaggarwal/gcm-setup-for-android-push-notifications-656cfdd8adbd#.rr2lfivfh), it is still usable on different push servers? Also, when I send a notification, could I use any server all over the world?
How can I find out which push server my phone is connected with (Android)?
A lot of confusing here, I really appreciate if someone could bring light to that topic :-)
The reason GCM / FCM does not work in China is simply because the Great Firewall of China blocks connectivity to all the various Google services, FCM included.
Also, most, if not all, China-sold phones do not come with Google Play Services, a requirement for FCM to work.
Even if you were to take a German phone, as you mentioned, into China, it would not receive notifications albeit having Google Play Services, due to the firewall.
But there are alternative push notification gateways you could use instead, which are far more reliable and do not depend on Google Play Services. One of those is Pushy.
Pushy (https://pushy.me/) offers a highly-reliable push notification gateway for Android apps that works independently from FCM, using its own background MQTT connection. It also offers iOS support so you can push all of your users via a single API for cross-platform support.
Full disclosure: I founded Pushy.
With Cordova, you can use the plugin cordova-plugin-xiaomi-push done with the Xiaomi Android SDK. I have tested and it works well with all the phones when the application is running. And even when the app is closed with Xiaomi phones :)
The advantage to use Xiaomi is that their developer website is in English and their server's APIs are simple.
There are also 2 plugins for Huawei and Oppo, which work well with the respective brand phones, even if the app is closed. But the API side is more complicated than with Xiaomi. To cover all the supplier with notifications when app is closed, it seems necessary to build one version per manufacturer/stores which include the required plugin (That is possible using a bash script) + build a push server that would send the notification to the right provider.
Google FCM notification not works in china country. You have to use some different push notification provider like Pushy.
For China Country, I used pushy service. You can go through this link if you wanna interested to use pushy service. Please check this link.This will help you
We are developing step by step game and need to send a notification to all players of current game when someone made his turn. We have a REST server that uses jersey + jackson implementation.
We know that it is possible to use Google Cloud Messaging for this purpose, however it doesn't support windows phone platform (we want to support Android, iOS, Windows Phone). Yes, Microsoft has their own server, but it requires to learn API of 2 services. Also, we found that server sent events protocol exists that can help us.
Is it good idea to use SSE (on all mobile platforms) instead of push notifications or there are some better solutions?
Thanks.
Using SSE is a bad usage for your requirement, as it will only work when your app is running, no notifications will be received when your app is closed.
You should use the notification system of each plateform you target (GMC for Andorid, Apple Push Service for ios, etc.)
Each device needs to register to the notification server and then you can send notifications to registered devices.
Since your targetting multiple plateforms, it would be easier to use a third party service that will do the registering and message dispatching to all your targetted plateforms through a simple API.
As suggested by Rahul Mathur, Parse is a known and reliable provider. Other possibilities include AWS SNS, Urban Airship, PushWoosh, and a lot more !
I suggest you to use parse as it is easy to implement
For android : https://parse.com/tutorials/android-push-notifications
For iOS : https://parse.com/tutorials/ios-push-notifications
You can also customise your php script on parse console.
I am building an Android app with a server at back end. What I want to do is, whenever anything new is updated in server the app should trigger a notification into the users phone showing the newly added content.
EDITED TO ADD: This is even more important as of Android M and beyond. As part of a comprehensive effort to improve battery life, the OS actively restricts many of the techniques that apps have used in the past for sync and notifications. Use built-in methods like JobScheduler and GCM in order to avoid issues.
The core notification mechanism in Android is Google Cloud Messaging (GCM), documented here. It's built in to the platform at a low level and directly supported by mobile networks, so it's usually the most efficient choice. It doesn't have a guaranteed latency, so it may not be appropriate for very time-sensitive messages, but it's generally quite fast--at least as fast as sending SMS, for instance.
There are a number of different commercial products as well as FOSS libraries that wrap GCM in various ways, for instance to provide support for very old (pre-Froyo) devices or devices without Google enabled, or to provide a single cross-platform solution between various competing mobile platforms. Firebase, Parse, and Urban Airship are some that I'm aware of.
To use GCM, you need to get an API key from Google. You use this API key to authenticate requests to the GCM server. Once you have a key, sending a notification is as easy as sending a POST request to the GCM server. GCM also supports XMPP, but I haven't used it.
On the client side, your app needs to call the GCM API to register for messages. You provide the project name that you used to create the API key, so that GCM knows which server messages should go to your client app. Once your app has registered, incoming messages will be sent to it as intents, which you can receive by implementing a BroadcastReceiver.
There's a tutorial on the Android developer site that walks you through the GCM process.
I want to send a notification from some server to android device. The most obvious(and power-hungry) way is to keep searching some database for any new messages using a service/broadcast receiver.
I am sure there are other ways to get this job done. I took a look at GCM(google cloud messaging) , and it seems that google always keeps some TCP/IP connection active. This essentially means that using GCM will use less power.
However, I have a few questions regarding GCM.
Does a user NEED to have google services, and a registered play id ?
If a user side-loads an apk, will he still be able to receive notifications ?
I would like to know if there are alternatives to GCM
What about devices running forked android versions, like nokia X , kindle etc? How are push notifications sent to those devices ?
Does a user NEED to have google services, and a registered play id ?
Yes, it is necessary to use Google Play Services in your development. However users do not need to have a Google account or the Google Play Services Installed.
If a user side-loads an apk, will he still be able to receive notifications ?
Yes.
The steps that must be followed to send a notification to a device are:
Developer creates application in Google Developer Console
User installs application
Application gets a NotificationID and sends it to your database
You store the NotificationID at your servers with any other information related (your username, device info, etc.)
Whenever you want to send a Notification you connect to GCM sending one or more NotificationID and the notification content.
The users related to the NotificationID will receive in your Application the notification content.
Do any action you need.
Have a look here.
IMHO there is not any real alternative to GCM in Android (based on efficiency and simplicity). You may look for 3rd party services that will help you in the implementation and add value (marketing, business intelligence). As an example of this take a look to UrbanShip.
If you want to implement your own solution you should have a look to WebSockets. This will mantain an active communication between your server and the device. Those sockets are thought for real time communication between your server and the mobile.
Two issues:
How is the application affecting the battery depends on your implementation and the application use-case (how frecuent are you sending information, how long is the connection stablished).
I am not aware of any native implementation of this in Android but there are a few Libraries coming from open source projects. Google it.