I just started developing with Parse's Push Notifications. I'm using them for pushing to Android right now and when I just started off, the notifications were delivered fast (instantaneous delivery).
However, as I'm sending more and more notifications to the same device - I'm noticing that it is taking about 10 minutes to deliver the notifications. Is this normal? If not, is this an issue with Parse or GCM?
Is there any way to "simulate" the notifications for development purposes so that they can be tested?
I'm generating the notifications from the REST API and have a Wifi enabled device.
According to my experience in GCM or any other related service, should only be used if you have to push notification to some target devices i.e. to selected users from your database.
--For Higher scalability and maintainability
You should make background service instead to fetch the notification and create a api for that, as there would be direct integration through your server, its is reliable fast and it has higher accuracy.
Whereas gcm does make a background service and hit gcm server and responds accordingly, but sometimes it misses the notification or delay as per the server load.
Related
I wonder how to push notifications to my Flutter app users in both Android and iOS devices Without using any external service like Firebase or OneSignal?
I want to implement a code in PHP which can send push real time notifications to all/spesific users in my Flutter app which works in both Android and iOS.
I found some solutions like flutter_local_notifications with workmanger which can fetch the API in the background only minimum 15 minuts. Workmanger is Not good solution because its work only during 15 min and it will consume the battery and internet.
I need an efficient solution to my flutter app for both Android & iOS devices, which can listen on real time to the coming messages from the server even when the app is closed.
How to fix that? thanks
iOS
You will always need to integrate with Apple's Push Notification Server (APNS) if your app needs make API calls in the background. The reason is that once an app is put into the background, iOS will often put the app to sleep soon afterwards.
The correct approach to this is to use a silent push notification to wake up the app. When received, no message is shown on device but the app get's about 30 seconds in order to make API calls.
In your case, the app can make the API call and then schedule a local push notification to display your message.
Background updates via push notifications
Scheduling local push notifications
Android
It looks like WorkManager is your best bet. I don't see how it can affect battery.
FYI
You don't need to use Firebase or OneSignal for push notifications, silent or otherwise. They are simply 3rd party services that interact with the official Apple or Google Push Notification Servers.
Unfortunately, I think this is not possible. Even OneSignal uses the Firebase API to deliver the notifications, as you can see here. For all other solutions, you will have to balance the update frequency with internet use and battery consumption.
Goal
Create a long-running background service with a network connection, similar to Zello app.
Problem
Starting with API level 26 (Oreo), there're tight restrictions on background services and their network activity.
Looking at the Zello app which has a constantly running background service which is able to accept audio and text messages even if the device is sleeping, I wonder how they achieved that?
Their service is not running on the foreground. Also, it doesn't look like they use push messages for that, since the app works quite stable in conditions where there's a problem with push messages reception (e.g. low-end Xiaomi phones).
Any ideas would be appreciated.
From what I gathered these apps use the Firebase Cloud messaging service:
https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/
The Firebase Service is embedded in the Android system and maintains a constant network connection to the firebase server. The apps then contact the firebase server which in turn to notifies the destination device.
Advantages:
The Android system is responsible of keeping the server connection alive and running
The network load is minimized because one connection is used for all apps using the firebase service.
Disadvantages:
All data is sent through the firebase server and is therefore (in theory) directly accessible by Google
Depedning on how many devices use your app, you need to pay for the service.
A similar question asked might be helpful in tackling the problem too:
How does push notification technology work on Android?
These apps don't have long-running services with constant network connections. They use push notifications. When there is a new message for a user, the server sends a push notification to wake the device up.
I am relatively new to Parse, and am finding that push notifications can take anywhere from being instantaneous, to taking a day or more to deliver. I can see the notifications registered in the admin panel immediately in every case, so issue is not on the send side.
I am developing on Android, but need the cross-platform capability of Parse so I can support iOS.
Well you should prefer to use Google Cloud Messaging GCM for push notifications rather than using 3rd Parties like Parse etc. GCM is super fast and i am using in all my apps which are live.
Here are Good Links to Startoff with GCM
http://developer.android.com/google/gcm/index.html
http://www.androidhive.info/2012/10/android-push-notifications-using-google-cloud-messaging-gcm-php-and-mysql/
I am aware about the parse notification.I am also having same problem,but the problem is because of the Wifi.
It means when you send an parse notification from panel it would take some time to deliver because of wifi is enable on your mobile.
So go with your mobile 3G connection it works within less time.
Turns out, Parse has a GCM handler, and it also needs to be added to the manifest. Otherwise Parse uses its own service, which can be very slow. Enabling GCM, I now have the notifications arriving in under 20 seconds.
I am creating a app in android 4.0.3 i.e ICS version, which connects to the server when client gets login into the app.I am trying to get status of an client when he gets online or offline through server & seen onto the app screen.I am unable to proceed. Can anyone say me:
Is it possible to get the status of an user through server?
1-- How to proceed for first step...?
2-- How should I get a response from the server that the client is connected & viewed to other client example - when we login into skype our status shows available with green radio button, In same way how can I get it.?
It ll be very help full, If anybody guide me.
Many Thanks..
I'm assuming you're trying to develop a chat app ?
If this is the case, try using an XMPP library. XMPP is widely used for chat apps, including Facebook chat (and Google talk I think) and there are plenty of open source libraries available.
Otherwise, if you only want real-time notifications as a part of a bigger picture, try using push notifications. Google supports Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM) for android. It allows to have push notifications to a specific device without you having to deal with persistent connections, battery and CPU use .etc.
C2DM approach comes down to this. When a client connects to your server, get a list of his friends and their 'C2DM IDs' and fire a C2DM push to their devices. This push is delivered to your app, and you can respond to it by firing a notification, or update UI .etc. (Your app doesn't necessarily have to be running. Push notification is delivered via a specific broadcast, and your app can register a receiver for it to wake up.)
Keep in mind that there is a quota for C2DM messages per device, per app and also a limit for the payload per message. So you're not supposed to send massive files via this. Just a notification to your app, so it can call your server and get an updated list, instead of polling.
You can get more info on C2DM and code samples here. https://developers.google.com/android/c2dm/
Hope this helps.
You may have moved on, but I'm posting for anyone who would run into this one in the future.
Firebase is a good solution to use in this scenario, if the app is always running when you want communication to happen. (It will not wake up your app as C2DM/CDM does, unless you have a service running all the time and still wouldn't wake up if the device is asleep... AFAIK)
It may be useful for some scenarios, but may be not for a chat app as you want the device to wake up when a message arrives.
Note that they have limitations on the free subscription though.
Is it possible to send push notifications to an android application without using Google server: C2DM?
So, I would like to have my own server which sends notifications directly to the app, but I'm not sure how are the notifications perceived by the device, because the device needs to receive notifications even if the app is not running and the notifications should appear in the notification center.
I think that the guys from www.airpush.com have managed to this, but I'm not sure how.
Can anyone help me with this please?
UPDATE:
Also I would like to know how to display the notifications in the notification center if I don't use C2DM? And if it is possible to configure the notification center to receive notifications from my server even if the user deletes the application developed by us, application which registered that device to receive notifications.
I want to send 3-4 notifications a day, but these notifications need to appear in the notification center and they should go only through our server. How can I configure the notification center within the app to make requests on my server for push notifications.
Thank You!
There is a solution from UrbanAirship called Helium push. According documentation Helium:
Works on Android 1.6 and higher
Does not require a Google Account
No default pushes per day limit
No default pushes per minute limit
Works on Amazon devices (e.g., Kindle Fire)
End to end Urban Airship support (i.e., API to to device)
Best throughput
The problem is that you need development app key for using this one.
Take a look at MQTT:
MQTT stands for MQ Telemetry Transport. It is a publish/subscribe, extremely simple and lightweight messaging protocol, designed for constrained devices and low-bandwidth, high-latency or unreliable networks.
It can be used (and was used in some applications) to implement custom server push solutions. One of the most well known applications using MQTT is Facebook Messanger.
You can easily find more information on MQTT in the Internet, e.g. in this SO question or in this blog post.
According to the FAQ on airpush.com, they're not using real push notifications but rather polling the server a few times per day. One reason I think this is a viable solution for you as well is that Android's C2DM apparently makes use of the Google Play Store, so it won't work on devices distributed outside of the Google eco-system. With over 5 Million Kindle Fires having sold already, that is worth thinking about.
From Airpush FAQ:
When executed once from the main activity of an Android™ application, the Airpush client utilizes Android™ OS's AlarmManager framework to schedule ongoing server polling events a few times per day. If an ad is polled from the server it is cached until optimal display time, which is algorithmically determined by the server.
Without using C2DM there's not option for a "real push notification". Because (afaik, correct me if I'm wrong) an android device registers at google (they can still deinstall malware from your phone via remote) and with this ip they are able to do a push notification. All other solutions could tend to be a "register at a server, keep the connection alive and wait for requests" or something and tend to be more battery-inefficient.
Parse has an excellent push notification service for Android, very easy to setup. More info here: Parse Android Notification Doc
If you want the user to only receive 3-4 messages per day and your messages are not bound to specific arrival times, you don't need pushing mechanisms.
Just create a service in your app that checks your own web service 5-10 times a day. If there is new data, make your app display it in the notification center.
If you don't want to have a service running all the time (like many messaging apps do), you can set up alarms (using the Android AlarmManager framework) that wake your app up regularily to check for new messages to display.
And if it is possible to configure the notification center to receive
notifications from my server even if the user deletes the application
developed by us, application which registered that device to receive
notifications.
That sounds like you want to write a virus or root kit ;-) You could use e-mails for your messages instead.
UPDATE 2013-12-30:
As just noted in my comment, rebuilding what GCM does is not a nice approach. It's enough when Google Services already load the device with this functionality. If your goal is just that Google does not see what messages you send to your users, you might aswell encrypt them. For Google not being able to actually read your messages, the client app should generate a key and send it to your server. All messages you send via GCM can then be encrypted using that key.
If you just want to circumvent Google's restriction on the amount of messages sent to users, you could pack multiple messages into one GCM notification and show them one after the other. But then again, we are back at some kind of polling solution as described before, with the exception that the user does not need to have internet access when you want to show the messages as they are cached on the device.