iOS app notifications

Discussions
#1

I am brainstorming notification framework for an iOS app for non-profit orgs. They should be able to login to a web site, enter their notifications and due dates. My iOS app would be able to invoke a web service call to this website, and check for any notifications, and display the iOS nofitication based on this cloud service. Do I need to get some one to build this web service from scratch? I can take care of iOS notifications but I don’t know how to take care of cloud service that would take care of users notification entries. Are there 3rd party services out there out there that provide this kind of notification web services that interact with iOS app notification framework?

Thank you!

#2

iOS has two different ways of doing notifications: local and push. It sounds like you’re referring to your app polling a web service to check for notifications and then creating a local notification on the device.

The main problem I see with that method is that polling for messages tends to consume quite a bit of power and I think you’d be forced to keep the wi-fi or data connection active while the device sleeps so that it could handle notifications when the user isn’t actively using the device. An alternative approach would be to use Apple’s push notification service. The server would send a message to Apple’s notification endpoint with a given set of device IDs and the notification payload. The notification would then be pushed to the device by Apple’s systems in a much more energy efficient manner than polling.

There are lots of mobile notification frameworks out there that may or may not fit your exact use case:




http://aws.amazon.com/sns/ (specifically mobile messaging)

-Tim

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#3

Thanks Tim. I think I will go with ParsePush. Looks like the non-profit org could just use their white label UI to enter notifications and they will be pushed through my iOS app. This will help me concentrate on my iOS app and let other service take care of UI (entering / scheduling notificatoins, pushing etc.). My app will just deliver the notification to the end user.

#4

Best of luck to you!

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#5

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http://www.uberdeck.com/

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