By: Andrew Metzger
Submitted: 2012-02-21 06:27:09 | Word Count: 542
Ipad and iphone are two highly sophisticated devices that boast a huge potential which can be easily exploited through numerous applications covering a wide range of needs and requirements. Yet they were somehow limited by the fact that an application cannot keep running in the background if the user switches to another application. This is a major issue particularly for apps that require a permanent connection to the internet in order to be constantly updated in real-time. In order to solve this issues, Apple has created Apple Push Notification Service which is also known as APNs which is a service that enables users to always keep their devices connected to Apple's push notification server.
In order to take advantage of this opportunity and send a push notification to a certain application installed on their mobile devices, users must contact the APNs which will deliver a push message to that particular application. However, it is highly important to learn how to implement push notification given that sometimes too many notices for too many apps can be very annoying and apart from this they can drain battery power. Implement push notification might be difficult but programming push notification is really tricky especially for people who are not web developers.
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People who are interested in programming push notification should know that Apple offers comprehensive code documentation for the iphone OS code that is required when you implement push notification. It offers a clear understanding for the provider server side which needs to communicate with APNs in order to send the messages that address to the iphone. However, you must first become familiar with the code that allows you to build a push notification provider server and interact with the APNs. Typically, when programming push notification the communication between the provider and the APNs is realized over a binary interface which offers a high-capacity and high-speed for providers using a streaming TCP socket design along with binary content.
This binary interface for programming push notification is available through gateway.push.apple.com, port 2195. The best part is that you have the possibility to establish numerous, parallel connections to the same gateway or to various gateways instances. However, it is a major requirement to establish a secure provider identity and the certificate must be validated by APNs when you try to connect using peer-to-peer authentication. In addition, when you want to implement push notification, you must follow certain guidelines, ranging from the fact that you must design the notification payload and you must supply the badge number displayed on the application icon as well as take into consideration the feedback from the web server regarding those devices which have repeatedly reported failed-delivery attempts.
Apart from this, when programming push notification, you have the possibility to set up notification messages in multiple languages. Yet you should not use loc-key and loc-args properties of the applications payload dictionary for client-side, but rather to localize the text of alert messages on the server-side. However, when you implement push notification, you must keep in mind that it is not related to broadcast notification or key-value observing notification.
