Silently send push notifications from my server to my app - ios

Question

Setup: I have successfully deployed a push notification system on my server! That being said, I am able to send notifications to my iOS devices which can send alert messages when something happens on the webserver, for example: when a new customer is added to the system.
This displays a nice message like so
You have a new customer. More money baby!
And the notification is of course silent when my application is open but simply automatically updates the customers table for me so I don't have to manually keep refreshing my table.
Problem: Since then the system has scaled up and now I'm getting messages like that to my device all the time at least a few every hour, this bothers me.
My proposed solution is to only update my table every single time a new user is added so this would require a push notification to be sent for every new user that is created, thats perfect, but for it to not display messages on my notification center like it did before.
Question: Is there a way to silently send push notification so that I don't get any messages like that on my device, but when the application is running for the push notification to still pop through so that I can update the UI without having to manually refresh my customer's table?
Is it just a case of leaving blank body parameter of the json push notification sent from my server?
What I don't want: I don't want to resolve to having to hide the notification from my own application :')

Answer 1

You could use the silent push notifications of iOS 7+.
If into the payload that you send from your server you add the key "content-available" with value 1 and remove the key "alert", you will get the push but with out get the message on your screen.
When you receive this kind of push you will have 30 seconds of execution time*, time that could be enough to refresh your user table and next time you open the app you will have up to date the table data.
The system will wake up your app and call the method
- (void)application:(UIApplication *)application didReceiveRemoteNotification:(NSDictionary *)userInfo fetchCompletionHandler:(void (^)(UIBackgroundFetchResult result))handler
on the AppDelegate.m
The format payload should be that:
{"aps":{"content-available":1}}
also you could add more fields if you want like badge or extra dictionary data to use it, are optionals.
{"aps":{"content-available":1, "sound":"", "badge":1}}
If for some reason you are not getting the push try adding "sound": "", seems like could be a bug around the silent push.
*Don't forget that execution time due to silent push won't happen if the you or the use swipe up the app and terminate it.
I hope this is useful for you! :)

Answer 2

According to the "Local and Push Notification Programming Guide", the aps dictionary contains one or more properties that specify the following actions:
An alert message to display to the user
A number to badge the application icon with
A sound to play
So you could send a notification that contains a badge count only. The payload would
look just like
{
"aps" : {
"badge" : 9
}
}

Answer 3

here it the format
/*
aps =
{
Name = "";
alert = "Testing";
price = 0;
//sound = default;//do not send it from server
type = add;
};
*/

Answer 4

in swift get remote notification when app is open
func application(application: UIApplication, didReceiveRemoteNotification userInfo: [NSObject : AnyObject])
{
if let aps = userInfo["aps"] as? NSDictionary {
var message = aps["alert"]
println("my messages : \(message)")
}
}