I'm using the ASIHttpRequest library to ask a web service every minute for updates. The app receives a json string and parses it. It works OK.
But I'd like to make this more efficient.. what would be the best way of getting the server to send to the app info whenever there is an update.. rather than constantly polling the web service?
Apple PUSH notification is not a good solution
1) You can only package a limited amount of data to it
2) It may be difficult to figure out if users have the app launched, or exited. If you keep sending PUSH even after users exit the app, they will end up with lots of spam. If you try to send something to the server to indicate that users have closed the app so it should stop sending PUSH, it may not work when the app crashes.
I suggest you use Sockets.
Or just use a scheduled loop to make requests every minute.
.....
But I wonder if you can just send a PUSH without alert body and sound, and just sending a 0 badge. If app it opened, it will be able to feedback to the server to continue sending update. If there is no feedback, stop sending push .
Apple's push notifications may be what you are looking for. However, you'd need to implement something on the website to support them I believe. I haven't used them myself (I haven't gotten that far into my application development), but here is a link to the developer documentation for it:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/Introduction/Introduction.html
Apple's push notification is one way. Here's a guide on building a push notification provider server.
Related
I work on application in swift3, my application receive data from web server, I need my application push notification when new item added in server side, Even when my application is closed, without consuming mobile resource or periodically update, How can I do that?
Push notifications does not consume resources, your app must not be open to make it work, so it looks like the solution to your problem is just to implement them on your server and app.
Please note that the user will be prompt to accept or decline the use of push notifications, and based on his answer he will receive or not your messages.
To know how to implement push notifications this tutorial might help you.
https://www.raywenderlich.com/123862/push-notifications-tutorial
This is the official apple documentation about push notifications:
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/APNSOverview.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008194-CH8-SW1
The official apple documentation explains how to implement the communication between your server and APNs.
Hope it is enough for you to get started with that. :)
In didReceiveRemoteNotification, is it possible to see if there are other/older push notifications that haven't been responded to?
I have a scenario where each notification contains different data, and unless you exit app and select every single notification for your app. You app wont be able to get to that data.
I'm thinking that iOS must be storing that information in an array somewhere, but haven't been able to find anything through Google.
Advice please? Last chance saloon would be re-writing it to poll a server for notifications.
You cannot guarantee that your app will ever receive any push notification sent to it. The only way it does is if it is running when it receives the message or if the notification is used to launch your app.
I would recommend implementing a web service on your server that allows your app to pull down the data it needs from these notifications when it is running.
We are developing an iPhone application that allow users to send messages to others via Apple Push Notification Service when the target user have installed our application or SMS when haven't.
We want to get notified immediately when our app is uninstalled so that we can decide how to send the message to the target user.
We find the APNS feedback server have a long time delay that doesn't agree with our requirement. So we use another way: when our server recorded the target user have installed our application, we send him message via APNS, if he haven't read the message in 30 minutes, we believe that he has uninstalled the application, so we send the message via SMS.
Is there any way better?
As Oleg said, there is no way to accurately detect if your app was uninstalled.
The APNS feedback service returns a timestamp and a push token for messages it was not able to deliver. Sometimes, this indicates an uninstallation but it can also simply indicate a user that was simply offline at that moment. The Feedback service does have some lag so can not be used for time-sensitive intel gathering.
Based on your requirements, I'd say you're doing it right.
One suggestion that may or may not work for you would be to include a link (via url handler) to your app when you resort to sending an SMS. If it makes sense for the user to return to your app, clicking on that link should launch the app and you'll have a trace on your server if you make a simple call. If, however, after sending the SMS the user is not detected as coming back into the app, chances are highly likely that the app was indeed uninstalled or that the user is offline for an unusually long amount of time which may require some other type of action on your part.
How reliable do you find push notification on the iPhone to be? Does it improve when moving from the sandbox to production server?
I am testing (with the sandbox of course) and have found that notifications are often delayed or not received at all. I am not talking about sending multiple messages and only the last one arriving, as the documentation indicates, but any notification never showing up.
Also, I noticed that if I send a notification with an alert, and then send one with just a badge number, that the second notification will close the alert even after it's already opened. Does this happen between apps as well? For instance, if I send an alert for my app, and then the Facebook app sends a badge, will the Facebook badge close my alert window?
I have no development experience with iPhone apps, but I do know that if you have an unofficial unlocked phone (by using pwnage tool/blackrain etc) then the PUSH notifications might NEVER go through. In fact, it does go through, but to another user's iPhone.
This is because when an iPhone is unofficially network unlocked, it uses the Unique ID of some random individual's iPhone, which causes Push notifications to arrive on either phone (and yes, sometimes also on the unlocked phone it was intended for, but usually not)
Not sure if this is the case with you though, but AFAIK the service is pretty reliable if you follow Apple's rules. :)
The push notification seams better on production. You can always test it using ad-hoc distrbution which uses the production chanel to send the notifications.
I can confirm that production push notifications using
Production Push Notification Certificate
Adhoc Distribution Mobile Provisioning
TestFlight deployment
Production APNS server
works well, no need to publish your app to test production notifications
Production push notifications are not always received. If notifications are machine gunned 1 second apart the first one is received and the rest are not sent, thats my experience.
Where as on a windows phone, they are all received using the windows notification service.
how do i send device token from my native iphone app with a specific timer request so that after the specified time push notification alert comes to device.
The title of your question and the text of it don't exactly match.
The easiest way to set up a timer request for push is to sign up with a push service provider that offers timed requests (UrbanAirship does but you may also want to check others like iLime or push.io).
The other option is to write a server where you can queue the requests then run a cron job to push them out. Obviously, that'll take more work. To actually post the message, you could use something like ASIHTTPRequest.
You may also want to tell your users not to rely on exact timing. A lot of variables enter into the process especially if user is on WiFi.