Apple Push Notification service(APNs) is not news. But I recently discovered that we can use APNs to circumvent internet censorship in China, probably someone has known it but doesn't share with us.
APNs lets third party service providers send messages through APNs to users on OS X and iOS, that means APNs is a de facto proxy server.
As long as Apple's APNs server is not blocked in China, that's very unlikely, since most apps on iOS are dependent on APNs to push notifications to users, those apps pushing notifications to users through APNs such as Twitter, Facebook, New York Times Now can be accessed in censorship countries like China.
But when accessing Twitter through APNs on iOS, there are some drawbacks, you can only read notifications on Notification Center and cannot in the Twitter app, since the app is still blocked. Also you can reply and retwitter in Notification Center. The most important drawback is when you log in Twitter the first time you should do it with connecting to VPN.
However, on OS X, the situation is far more exciting for censorship country users. You can directly use the Twitter app on OS X except the first time you log in you should connect to VPN. I guess the reason is Twitter on OS X is using a different server from its website while the log in server is still the same. So this makes Twitter on OS X more appealing than Twitter on iOS. Log in once and use Twitter like without censorship.
While most apps push notifications through APNs, the amount of websites are far more less. Now in Safari on OS X, only a handful websites utilize APNs, including CNN Breaking News, macrumors.com and some other Apple-related websites.
APNs lets third party service providers send messages through APNs to users on OS X and iOS, that means APNs is a de facto proxy server.
As long as Apple's APNs server is not blocked in China, that's very unlikely, since most apps on iOS are dependent on APNs to push notifications to users, those apps pushing notifications to users through APNs such as Twitter, Facebook, New York Times Now can be accessed in censorship countries like China.
But when accessing Twitter through APNs on iOS, there are some drawbacks, you can only read notifications on Notification Center and cannot in the Twitter app, since the app is still blocked. Also you can reply and retwitter in Notification Center. The most important drawback is when you log in Twitter the first time you should do it with connecting to VPN.
However, on OS X, the situation is far more exciting for censorship country users. You can directly use the Twitter app on OS X except the first time you log in you should connect to VPN. I guess the reason is Twitter on OS X is using a different server from its website while the log in server is still the same. So this makes Twitter on OS X more appealing than Twitter on iOS. Log in once and use Twitter like without censorship.
While most apps push notifications through APNs, the amount of websites are far more less. Now in Safari on OS X, only a handful websites utilize APNs, including CNN Breaking News, macrumors.com and some other Apple-related websites.