All Articles Tagged push notification

As we mentioned yesterday, Apple has begun load testing of their Push Notification Service. Certain developers have been given promo codes to a special version of AP News that, when installed, can be configured to utilize Push Notification. This means that screens we’ve seen previously via code digging can now be seen for real, and there are a few interesting things therein.

The setup seems not dissimilar to how GPS was handled on the iPhone 3G. A popup identifies the app and requests permission to send you Push Notifications, and you can choose “Don’t Allow” or “OK”. A Notifications panel in Settings lets you choose to globally turn the service On or Off, and lists the apps using the service so you can individually toggle Sounds, Alerts, and Badges On or Off as well for each one. (i.e. if you want Twitter to badge but not alert, IM to sound but not badge, etc. you can have it your way).

More screenshots after the jump, and check out our massive iPhone 3.0 Walkthrough for even more!

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Apple Insider scored some iPhone 3.0 Beta 3 screen shots, some we’ve already seen before, but some showing off a new goodness like the Settings option for Notification (though where Apple’s usual Smiley Face w/Badge icon went to is anyone’s guess). We did a quick check, and no one we contacted had this pane visible yet, so it may only show for those actively receiving push notifications, or who have done some digging through the code.

It’s nice that Apple will apparently let users globally enable or disable the different types of Push Notification: Sounds, Alerts (text boxes), and Badges. It will be even nicer (perhaps vital) that we also get to selectively enable/disable them within individual apps as well. For example, Twitter can badge, IM can Alert, new RSS only Sound.

NOTE: “Carrier Settings” aren’t new. They have been visible on networks like Rogers since 2.0 (perhaps because Rogers subsidiary Fido also carries the iPhone in Canada?)

They also show off some evidence of battery percentage-level numeric indicators in both black (good) and red (danger!), as well as Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard-style data detectors, which we’ve seen in previous betas, but are highlighted for the Notes app.

Check out their full post for more screen shots.

Ars Technica is reporting that the way Push Notification works has been, according to developers they’ve spoken with, improved in the latest Beta 3 release of iPhone 3.0. To wit:

The major change in the UIKit API is that Apple has added separate types for the three notification methods: badge, text alert, and sound. Developers can register their apps for these different notification types individually for the needs of their users. Previously, apps registered to received remote notifications but controlled the type via settings. Developers we spoke to universally agreed that this was a welcome improvement.

Still nothing in the way of non-obtrusive, Google Android- or Palm Pre-style notification, nor any indication of how Apple will gracefully handle multiple modal dialogs popping up all at once, but there’s still time to wow us with something awesome come WWDC, right Apple?

Ars also mentions some interesting developments regarding Dashcode (widget development) for iPhone, and more, so be sure to check them out.

Apple has gone out of their way to point out the cons of multi-tasking background applications — a claimed 80% reduction in battery life while on standby with a single 3rd party IM client enabled. Push Notification, likewise, has been promoted by Apple as providing a single point of coordination for 3rd party alerts routed through servers on Apple’s end.

But unlike the code-once, release-done model of background processing for a single app, Push Notification requires developers to create a server system on their end as well, one that’s constantly and reliably available to send alerts to Apple, and scales to an iPhone and iPod touch user base already exceeding 30 million units.

Ars Technica’s Erica Sadun goes into detail on the process and problems:

Consider an application with just 10,000 users. It might service a million uses per day, assuming update checks every 15 minutes. More time-critical uses might demand checks every few minutes or even several times a minute. As the computational burden builds, so do the hosting costs. While cloud computing provides an excellent match to these kinds of needs, that kind of solution comes with a real price in development, maintenance, and day-to-day operations.

For more on additional issues, like security, and whether or not small developers will even be able to afford to implement Push Notification, check out the rest of the article.

Any developers out there avoiding Push Notification for just those reasons? What could Apple do to help you out? Offer a hosting system for small developers on Apple’s end?

Apple has just let developers know that they can start testing the upcoming Push Notification Service starting today!

Start testing your applications using the Apple Push Notification service today. Log in to the iPhone Dev Center and review the Apple Push Notification Programming Guide and Getting Started video. Team Agents can log in to the iPhone Developer Program Portal and proceed to the App ID section to create the components necessary to enable and test applications using the Apple Push Notification service.

So, what Apps do we want to see getting pushy? Twitter clients? Instant messengers? Fart Apps? Let us — and your favorite developers! — know.

Ars Technica’s iPhone wonder woman, Erica Sadun, has put together what must be the first expert level how-to: Pushing tweets to your iPhone with Apple Push notifications

Ars shows you how to create a Push-based Twitter update notification system for the iPhone without actually showing you any of the details due to the ongoing NDA. (But don’t worry, we tell you exactly where to find the instructions.)

Nin. Ja.

Now if you need help getting your code on, it just so happens that the Stanford iPhone Application Development course (the one being offered via iTunes U) looks like it has “make your own Twitter client” on the agenda.

Ready? Set? Push Tweet!

We’ve asked what happened to the Push Notification Service that iPhone Software VP, Scott Forstall first announced back at WWDC 2008. We’ve even wondered if Apple had changed their mind and gone with a true background multi-tasking approach. Or whether they’d simply scrapped the idea entirely?

Turns out Push Notification took a little longer to polish up than Apple anticipated, in addition to developers requesting features above and beyond what Apple initially expected (though, in all “truthiness”, we didn’t see anything new above the surface yet ourselves).

Apple claims to have tested Windows Mobile, Android, and other devices running background IM, and that battery drain was 80% compared with 20% for Push Notification. We’re not buying that yet, but we are happy Apple is taking their time with this. Better a rock-solid implementation than anything approaching MobileMe’s disastrous launch.

So what is Push Notification and how does it work? Read on after the break!

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Prior to Macworld 2009, Daring Fireball mused openly about how neat it would be for the iPod Shuffle to get voice functionality, and on Wednesday last it did. Now Gruber is reminding us that his “wish-list” for iPhone OS 3.0 includes:

a new home screen app (a.k.a. SpringBoard), designed from the ground up for a system where users have a few dozen or more extra apps installed. Managing dozens of apps on the iPhone today is simply a pain in the ass. Second, maybe an answer to the question of where the background notification API is — you know, the one we were told at WWDC to expect a few months ago, but which we haven’t heard a word about since. And maybe — pretty please, Mr. Forstall, with sugar on top — copy and paste.

But is this really a wish-list, or a (somewhat disingenuous?) way of passing along actual, leaked information on the new OS? MacRumors seems to think the latter, saying they have reason to believe a new SpringBoard, Push Notification (or Background Tasks), and Cut/Copy and Paste will indeed be on the iPhone OS 3.0 feature list. For good measure, they’re also tossing in magnetometer support (i.e. compass functionality like the Android G1 enjoys).

Added to yesterday’s rumors from Boy Genius about MMS and Tethering, however, and we’re afraid things are lining up just a little too much like a 3.0 panacea for iPhone’s previous OS “greatest misses”. And if that’s the case, it might be expectations — rather than notifications — that get “pushed” for next Tuesday’s iPhone OS 3.0 Sneak Peak. (We’re nothing if not fickle audiences, after all).

So, are these really inside information on what we’ll be seeing come March 17? Or are these truly more wish-lists than feature-lists?

(And are we waiting on Kevin Rose to add Mobile iChat to the 3.0 mix?)

Apple Insider is theorizing that Apple’s long delayed, potentially dead iPhone Push Notification Service (PNS) may simply be waiting on the next release of Apple’s server, OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

We all know the background already: Apple announced a PNS back at WWCD 2008 as a work around for some forms of multi-tasking. It would send status updates (numbered badges like Email, sound alarms and popups like Calendar) for things like IM and Twitter clients, but still wouldn’t do anything for streaming music apps, for example. Never-the-less, it’s September release window came and went, with the service disappearing from early betas, unseen and unheard from since. (Unless you’re one of those who believes the App Store icon is beta testing PNS already — and not too consistently if so).

Interestingly, Apple Insider goes into RIM’s and Microsoft’s push technology, the former using the carrier channel to push updates with SMS-like technology, the latter using specially formatted push emails to update calendars, tasks, etc. Apple, by contrast, is said to be using standards-based Instant Messenger technology (XMPP).

If Apple needs to make the PNS, you know, work before they release it, and Snow Leopard Server is providing the back-end needed for it to work, then a delay is certainly better than a disastrous release like MobileMe’s. We’ll need to see more, however, before we really know if Snow Leopard Server is really connected and, if so, whether or not we’ll really see PNS released with it, or if PNS is truly dead and Apple is investigating true multitasking for the iPhone.

So, we’re left with the age-old questions: Is Apple still planning on releasing PNS? And are we willing to wait for a rock-solid solution? Or do we just want real multi-tasking now?

We’ve asked whatever happened to the iPhone’s Push-Notification Service quite a bit recently, even secretly hoped they may find it too difficult and just start to allow some “favored nation” background multitasking…

Now MacRumors is rumoring that that is exactly what might be happening in a future firmware:

While we aren’t sure what the specific issues are, we’ve heard that as an alternative Apple is considering allowing apps to run as user selectable background processes. If so, this feature would likely come in the rumored iPhone 3.0 software update but would be limited to only one or two processes on current hardware. The next generation iPhone, however, would likely see less restricted background process support due to its improved hardware.

So how does that work for you, fellow TiPbsters? Better than Push notification? Worse? And is a few user-selectable apps enough? If the next gen iPhone allows more multitasking, is that a compelling reason to upgrade in and of itself?