I'd like to implement a push notification service in my iPad app. But before I do that I have to know further details about its contraints.
I know that the user has to accept the apps notification ability. But is that only for notifications which come in when the app is in the background or also when the app is active?
A user doesn't need to accept the ability to allow Push Notifications but they can turn them off from the Settings app. This will turn off all incoming push notifications if the app is in the Background. If your app is running:
If the application is running when the notification arrives, no alert is displayed or icon badged or sound played, even if (in iOS) the device screen is locked. Instead, the application delegate is informed of the notification and can handle it directly.
You can find loads more information on Push Notifications in Apple's Push Notification Programming Guide
Related
I implemented Remote Push notifications for my app. I can receive Push notifications just fine.
However my goal is to execute some code automatically when Remote Notification Arrives on my iphone.
For example i have a Google Nest mini Speaker. I would like to send Push notifications to my iPhone, which should trigger a "Audio Playback" on my Google mini speaker.
I got it to work, only if user TAPS the Notification Banner, however I would like to automate it, whether user taps the notification banner or not.
I have the same exact logic working on Android, however for ios i am having issues when it comes to handle push notification.
So Question is, it it even possible to receive a remove notification and trigger something automatically?
You can try to follow this guide: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/setting_up_a_remote_notification_server/pushing_background_updates_to_your_app
It is called Background Push Notification or Slient Push Notification.
But System will limit the number of times that your app can run in background to execute some codes.
I just took a look at Is Silent Remote Notifications possible if user has disabled push for the app?.
It basically says the Silent Notifications disregard notification settings for user. It then says:
Users still have the ability to switch off your app’s ability to
process a “silent push” by means of the “Background App Refresh”
control. Even though Apple Push Notification service (APNs) will
deliver a push marked “content-available” to your phone, the OS will
not wake up your app to receive it, effectively dropping it on the
floor.
This is confusing to me. I want to make silent notifications go out only while the app is open, to update state of the app while in use only. So I wouldn't care if background app refresh is off because I wouldn't need to "wake up [my] app to receive it".
Secondarily Silent push notifications only delivered if device is charging and/or app is foreground talks about needing to have your phone plugged in to receive these notifications.
Both questions are from iOS 8, which is quite a ways back. Do they hold up all this time?
My answers are based on observation and my work on the apple notification.
Before iOS 13
Silent notification is not received even if notification is force killed by the user even if the background app refresh is on. Silent push received in case of foreground, background or killed by iOS
After iOS 13
Silent notification are received always if background app refresh is on.But if background app refresh is off silent push received only in foreground and background case.
If you want to only send silent push in foreground or background you should not add background mode in capability in Xcode. So it will receive only when the application is in the foreground or background
When app is not running (terminated NOT in background) and a remote push notifications is received, is there any way to inform the app about it so that the app can update something locally such as simple int counter?
I want to store something so that when the app is launched the next time, app knows that notification was received when app wasn't running and something needs to be done.
If user launches an app by tapping on a notification, obviously the app is notified about it through AppDelegate methods but these methods are never called if user launches an app by tapping on the app's icon.
To be aware of notification when user launches app by tapping on icon, i need some way to let app know that notification was received when app was in background.
There is no way you can achieve this with simple push notifications.
According to apple docs if the user has manually killed your application by swiping it out of memory, your app will never be started in the background to process data until after the user chooses to launch it again.
One solution to this problem is using VOIP push.
According to apple docs -
Your app is automatically relaunched if it’s not running when a VoIP
push is received.
But you need a strong reason for using it and apple may ask that before approving your app on the app store.
To read more about VOIP push please go through this doc - https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Performance/Conceptual/EnergyGuide-iOS/OptimizeVoIP.html
You can also be used the "Silent Push Notifications".Which are confirming that their is something available on the server, which you need to download to your app,The payload format of the Silent push notification is like
{ content-available:1 }
The Best part of the silent notification is that they do not notify the iPhone user
Here 1 is for their is something available to download from the server.
here below i have attached the apple's silent notification slide.
Your App is getting Refresh in the Background.
Is there any way to handle remote notification payloads before they’re delivered and display in notification centre?
With push notifications of default type there is no way to filter out notifications if the app is not in foreground.
The possible solution to this is to use VoIP push notifications in conjunction with PushKit.
VoIP pushes are always waking up the application, however they are not presented to the user and don't modify app badge value, so it's up to the developer to show a local notification upon the received VoIP push and to deal with app badge.
There is a technique with additional silent push that for example Facebook is using, to delete notification on iOS device when the message has been read on desktop web site. It's described here: https://www.pushwoosh.com/docs/deletable-ios-push
We need to calculate some numbers and display the calculations in local notification on receiving a silent push message from the server.
This works when the app is active/open in background.
This does not work if the app is killed/not in background.
So is there anyway to perform tasks when app is closed and the silent push arrives?
FYI I have enabled background fetch.
Apple's Documentation states:
Note: The ability of APNs to deliver remote notifications to a nonrunning
app requires the app to have been launched at least once.
On an iOS device, if a user force-quits your app using the app
multitasking UI, the app does not receive remote notifications until
the user relaunches it.
The second sentence pertains directly to your question; likely not the answer you hoped for...
↳ Configuring Remote Notification Support