Apple Turns on Push Notification Services for Developer Testing

[MacRumors]

Apple notified developers yesterday that Push notifications have been turned on and that iPhone developers can now start testing their applications with the service.

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

The Push Notification service is Apple's substitute for background processes and was originally planned for a September 2008 release. Apple announced in March that they would finally be delivering the service alongside iPhone 3.0 which is due this summer.

This system allows iPhone applications to receive updates while they are not actively running. Apple has claimed that allowing background processes on the current iPhone would sacrifice too much battery power for it to be practical.

Article Link: Apple Turns on Push Notification Services for Developer Testing

 

[wrldwzrd89]

YAY! This is good news for app developers - at least for anyone that could make use of Push Notification Services.

Alas, I can't afford the $99 fee to actually put an app in the App Store, so...

 

[JP M.]

The time has come!

 

[instaxgirl]

I find the icon kind of creepy. Otherwise,

 

[neil1980]

about time

 

[Mac-Addict]

Ahh only nearly a year late.

 

[hhaeschen]

I'm quite curious about what the developers have to say about it.
I just hope push notifications won't get annoying in practical experience...

 

[Aqueus]

bring it on.. oh wait.. don't have an iphone yet.. mdr

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

I'm glad that it appears that they will get push notification working soon. I'm also glad they waited to "get it right"

 

[Prenvo]

Using push notifications is a lot simpler than I had originally thought: I'm expecting a lot of apps to use it as soon as 3.0 apps are available on the App Store.

Thankfully you'll have the option to selectively turn them off (or globally) in the Settings app

 

[JoelHodder]

Finally

 

[stevejobbers]

I find the icon kind of creepy. Otherwise,

Who Watches the Watchmen?

 

[harry20larry]

his puffy cheeks are so cute!...
anyways
can anybody up the quick guided tour to youtube?

 

[Voidness]

Push Notifications is a great idea, but it definitely won't scale well with the iPhone's current notification pop-up.

What if I'm doing something on the iPhone (i.e. writing an e-mail), and I get a continuous stream of notifications from different applications (SMS, IM, Facebook, an RSS client, etc). First it'll be difficult to keep track of which notification from which application, and second I'll be constantly interrupted from what I'm doing.

I think Palm webOS notification system is a perfect solution to this problem. I hope Apple comes up with something similar if not better.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Push Notifications is a great idea, but it definitely won't scale well with the iPhone's current notification pop-up.

What if I'm doing something on the iPhone (i.e. writing an e-mail), and I get a continuous stream of notifications from different applications (SMS, IM, Facebook, an RSS client, etc). First it'll be difficult to keep track of which notification from which application, and second I'll be constantly interrupted from what I'm doing.

I think Palm webOS notification system is a perfect solution to this problem. I hope Apple comes up with something similar if not better.

PNS doesn't have to be implemented in the way you describe. It could (and probably will) be as simple as a badge over the app's icon in the home screen. Completely unobtrusive.

 

[Michael73]

Push Notifications is a great idea, but it definitely won't scale well with the iPhone's current notification pop-up.

What if I'm doing something on the iPhone (i.e. writing an e-mail), and I get a continuous stream of notifications from different applications (SMS, IM, Facebook, an RSS client, etc). First it'll be difficult to keep track of which notification from which application, and second I'll be constantly interrupted from what I'm doing.

+1. I think of it like when I'm on my phone at home and during a conversation I keep getting interrupted by my call waiting. I hear that little click sound and I say, "hold on" while I pull the phone away from my ear to check the caller ID to see if I want to switch over. If not, I can't tell you how many times I saw the name, made a mental note to call the person back after my conversation was over and then forgot.

 

[koobcamuk]

+1. I think of it like when I'm on my phone at home and during a conversation I keep getting interrupted by my call waiting. I hear that little click sound and I say, "hold on" while I pull the phone away from my ear to check the caller ID to see if I want to switch over. If not, I can't tell you how many times I saw the name, made a mental note to call the person back after my conversation was over and then forgot.

a) I assume there's a way to turn off push for each app

b) I also assume that a little red marker will pop up, rather than a full scren interruption... ??

 

[scottness]

This is good, but I still want background apps.

 

[Voidness]

PNS doesn't have to be implemented in the way you describe. It could (and probably will) be as simple as a badge over the app's icon in the home screen. Completely unobtrusive.

True, but what's stopping developers from using the notification pop-ups? All the applications that were demoed during the iPhone OS 3.0 Event were using those pop-ups for Push Notifications, in addition to the red badges.

 

[arubinst]

It's up to the developer. You may:

(a) Put a (short) notification on screen, just like sms pup-ups,
(b) Play a sound (any sound, can be customized by the developer)
(c) Update a badge on the app icon
(d) either combination of the former 3 points

 

[Craiger]

It's up to the developer. You may:

(a) Put a (short) notification on screen, just like sms pup-ups,
(b) Play a sound (any sound, can be customized by the developer)
(c) Update a badge on the app icon
(d) either combination of the former 3 points

Well in that case,

To any devs reading this,

If you annoy the heck out of me, I will not buy your app! Can you have the USER choose which one to do? Like in the app's settings...

 

[AAPLaday]

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Your quite The Comedian

 

[Voidness]

Well in that case,

To any devs reading this,

If you annoy the heck out of me, I will not buy your app! Can you have the USER choose which one to do? Like in the app's settings...

See, that's the thing. Applications should not be able to annoy the user when the it's not running, no matter what the developer does.

 

[babyj]

Can someone provide a simple explanation of how push works?

From what I've read, the developer has to send the push to a central Apple server which in turn sends the push to the mobile network the phone is on which in turn delivers it to the phone - basically the same way an sms is handled.

Is that right?

 

[diamond.g]

Can someone provide a simple explanation of how push works?

From what I've read, the developer has to send the push to a central Apple server which in turn sends the push to the mobile network the phone is on which in turn delivers it to the phone - basically the same way an sms is handled.

Is that right?

Yup that pretty much is it.