Receiving push notification in iOS when the app is closed using GCM - ios

Question

My app receives push notifications using GCM. My android app works perfectly in that when i completely close the app i still receive notifications however if i do the same with my iOS version i don't receive anything.
Note this will of course be after the app has registered for the first time and then the app is closed. I cant find much information about this. some posts are saying you cant do it. but the likes of facebook and facebook messenger all do it. Does anyone know how this is done?
this is my
DidReceiveRemoteNotification method which is taken from the GCM documentation
// [START ack_message_reception]
- (void)application:(UIApplication *)application didReceiveRemoteNotification:(NSDictionary *)userInfo
{
NSLog(#"Notification received: %#", userInfo);
// This works only if the app started the GCM service
[[GCMService sharedInstance] appDidReceiveMessage:userInfo];
// Handle the received message
// [START_EXCLUDE]
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:_messageKey
object:nil
userInfo:userInfo];
// [END_EXCLUDE]
}
- (void)application:(UIApplication *)application didReceiveRemoteNotification:(NSDictionary *)userInfo fetchCompletionHandler:(void (^)(UIBackgroundFetchResult))handler
{
NSLog(#"Notification received: %#", userInfo);
// This works only if the app started the GCM service
[[GCMService sharedInstance] appDidReceiveMessage:userInfo];
// Handle the received message
// Invoke the completion handler passing the appropriate UIBackgroundFetchResult value
// [START_EXCLUDE]
[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:_messageKey
object:nil
userInfo:userInfo];
handler(UIBackgroundFetchResultNoData);
// [END_EXCLUDE]
}
// [END ack_message_reception]
my payload sent looks like this
$payload = array('registration_ids' => $Regids,
'content_available' => false,
'notification' => array("body"=> $_POST['message'],
"sound" => "default",
'badge' => '1'
)
);
note this works if the app is in the background

Answer 1

I managed to get this working by adding this to my pay load
"priority" => "high"
maybe someone can comment why this worked as i have no idea

Answer 2

It also does work with iOS when the app is closed - if it doesn't, something is wrong.
However, you cannot use silent pushes with iOS when the app was closed by the user (up-swipe in task switcher) - so if your app wants to react on a push without the user having to tap on it, you can't do that when the app was closed.

Answer 3

I Think you are not specifying the alert key in the notification payload. The message provided in the alert key of the notification payload will be displayed on the device when the app is closed.
{
"aps" : { "alert" : "Message received from Bob" },
"acme2" : [ "bang", "whiz" ]
}
In the above payload check the alert key. The Message Message received from Bob will be displayed in the notification center of the iPhone when the app is closed.