Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) for push notifications on iOS? - ios

Amazon Web Services have an SDK for iOS which supports the Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS).
Does this mean it would be possible to use SNS to send push notifications to a running iOS app? So for example you could make an real-time instant messaging app.
Is this right, or have I misunderstood what SNS does? It just seems to me that you would need to open a connection/socket in order to recieve push notifications from your server. How does the SDK actually work?
Update:
I've since asked this question on the AWS Mobile Development Forum: https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=81089&tstart=0
Apparently there is an article coming out (probably here: http://aws.amazon.com/articles/SDKs/iOS) shortly to explain everything.
Update 2
The article: http://aws.amazon.com/articles/9156883257507082

According to Apple documentation "Local notifications and push notifications are ways for an application that isn’t running in the foreground to let its users know it has information for them.".
So, technically speaking, any data, including notifications, received when the application is running in the foreground are not "Push Notifications" and can't be a reason for rejecting the application. They're simply data being consumed that way or the other by the application.
In this specific case you are not asking about Push Notifications per Apple's documentation, rather about a technology used to deliver data to the application when the application is running and user is interacting with it. It happens that the name Amazon SNS is similar to Push Notification.
In any case Apple wouldn't be able to see what is the technology behind delivering data to your application, whether it is Amazon SNS or anything else. All they can see is that the application may have some additional ports open when it's running, and that of course would be absolutely legal. In fact, many applications communicate with their back-end servers using sockets (not HTTP requests), and that is the same technology as used by Apple to deliver their Push Notifications.

According to the Amazon documentation, they in turn uses the APNS method and provide a much simpler frontend for Apple, Android and Kindle. A realtime instant messaging app could be considered as workable since by using the Amazon SNS platform, you could even consider the application to be available for all.
I mean by utilizing the Amazon SNS, the communication could be done between iOS and Android devices and to kindle also provided the applications are written accordingly. Though the Amazon documents do not provide a comprehensive example, there are bits and pieces. Also there is an upcoming event on the Aug 29 which could be seen from the Amazon SNS page.

Related

ionic app - APNS & GCM to multiple apps from one server

we have an app built in ionic that sends out push notifications.
We are now making branded versions of the same app for different companies that share the same user & code base.
The way we are currently sending out notifications is a cron job that runs a PHP script every minute which connects to a MySQL Database to find new notifications that need to be push out, however we are willing to change this if anyone has a better suggestion.
Having one server needing to send out notifications to multiple apps is the problem we are facing. If we open and close connections to APNS for each app every time we run our push cron job, we fear Apple will see it as a DDOS attack and block it.
The only other solution we can think of is making a new server on AWS for each branded app and having them send notifications out for only one app each. That way they would each have their own IP Address and Apple wouldn't pick it up as a DDOS attack.
We looked into AWS SNS but the only tutorials are for Swift, Obj-C & Android. Our app is fully made on ionic meaning its written in Angular so none of these tutorials are helpful for us.
I've been searching Google for awhile with no valuable information.
Please answer with a way to accomplish sending notifications to multiple apps. Thanks in advance for reading!

Is it possible to use the new Push Notifications support in Chrome without GCM?

Can I use a push service other than Google's GCM when using the new Push API with service workers?
Today, Chrome is the only browser that supports the standard push API so right now the short answer is No.
A longer answer involves doing different things for different browsers
Safari offers desktop notifications via APNS and a proprietary API
Firefox is shipping support for push notifications soon and presumably will use a different push server than GCM.
So to summarize, it seems that different combinations of Browser/OS will require different push servers. In the future there is an IETF draft (https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/webpush/documents/) that should mitigate this. There are also companies working on abstracting these problems for a fee. Just search for web push notifications to get a few of them.

iOS Push Notification not sent from server (Jetpack)

I'm implementing an iOS application to manage my self-hosted website. My app make use of the many features already built for WordPress-iOS app, but it has differences and extra features.
One of the problem I'm currently having is that push notification was not sent from Jetpack (WordPress.com server) to Apple's APNs, because I'm not getting any notification on my device. I have already registered successfully my device token with Jetpack during app launch.
My problem could be the certificate key (.pem) file not getting uploaded to Wordpress.com (which I do not have access). Is this the reason why I'm not receiving any push notification to my iphone?
Additionally, I'm not getting any result on the NotificationsViewController. I do not have Simperium account setup yet. Could that be my problem for getting no results in NotificationsViewController?
Many thanks.
Sorry about the delay!. For the time being, i'm afraid that WordPress iOS doesn't support 3rd party apps integrations with its Notifications stack.
Meaning that if you'd like to handle Push Notifications support, you'd need to implement a WordPress.org plugin to handle the APN message delivery.
As per the Simperium side, there is no 3rd party app support -at least for now!- due to security restrictions.
If there's anything we could help you with, you may find us on the WordPress Slack (#mobile channel!).
Best,
Jorge

Push notifications not received in some devices in iOS

I am implementing the push notification in iOS for sending offers and deals. Right now I am working in the development environment. I see that some of the devices are not being notified. Could anybody explain possible causes? I have also read that if a push is sent to same device multiple times then APPLE disables them for that particular device? Could some one verify this or provide any documentation where I can find the issue. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Not directly answering your question, but what you asked about in the comments and an alternative. You could use a push-notification service such as Parse.
They allow you to send Push Notifications to Web, iOS and Android, also offer data storage and backend infrastructure. The best thing about Parse is that they're free. Unless you have one million unique recipients, which is rather hard to accomplish. Parsee allows you tons end Push Notifications in multiple ways, some including automatic messages based on their tables or other events. You can program those in their cloud code. You can do so using their REST API or their Java Script API if you have a website. You could also send from the Push window on their website.
Setting up is fairly easy. I'll give you the most important links below.
iOS Quick Start Guide
Rest API
PHP Guide
Hope that helps, Julian
If you are dependent on APNS then there is no guarantee provided regarding the delivery of the push notification. And regarding sending multiple notifications. Like if you send notification every min then many may not deliver. Else it will. This service is free and many including myself using it on a regular basis. It has been delivered regularly even though apple will not provide any guarantee. i'm using a php script on server side to send push notification. Refer the below link if you want to know how to send a push notification using php.
tutorial

Blackberry push notification tutorial

I have registered with RIM for the push notification evaluation. But i cant find good sources for implementing push notifications. There are some samples in the sdk but i couldnt find out a way to implement them. So, i am looking for a good tutorial where i could find step by step implementation of push notification services...
RIM's samples for the server side involve setting up a web application container (e.g. Tomcat), setting up a backend database, and then building their Spring-based application. This sample web app handles things like device registration, content subscription, etc. and features a portal to manage everything.
The bare minimum that is required, though, is to send a WAP Push message which is just an HTTP POST to their Push Service servers. Here is a thread from the BlackBerry Support Forums that describes how to use their low-level PAP API to construct this message. Pay attention in particular to the messages by the user mdicesare.
There's also another SO question that has some tips.

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