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Dont Understand Push Notification

R

rockbox

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 26, 2008
5
0
Please excuse a newbie, but I don't totally understand "Push Notification" that will be coming with 3.0.

Does this mean that an iPhone will now receive e-mails as they come in like a Blackberry?

If it does, then I might get rid of my Blackberry for an iPhone. This is pretty much what I have been waiting to have happen before I invested in one.

Thanks for any info in advance.
 
It means any app can push notifications to the iPhone. For example IM programs can now tell you when a new message comes in. Game requests from friends can pop up on screen. Updates to news and new features can now alert the user.
 
emails have always had push notification. I had mine to check every 10 minutes for new emails and a little number badge popped up telling me if i has any emails. So yes it does work with emails
 
The iPhone has limited push notification for email already - what this will allow it do is bring that functionality across the whole application line.

The way it works is that rather than having something running in the background, constantly querying the network for activity (like an email client checking for new messages, a game checking for updates, an IM client checking for replies, etc) the applications have their messages/updates/whatever "pushed" from a server directly to the phone as they come in - negating the use of having to run it in the background.

So to answer your question.... yes. It will mean you can have your email pushed to your iPhone like a BlackBerry.
 
X5-452 said:
The iPhone has limited push notification for email already - what this will allow it do is bring that functionality across the whole application line.

The way it works is that rather than having something running in the background, constantly querying the network for activity (like an email client checking for new messages, a game checking for updates, an IM client checking for replies, etc) the applications have their messages/updates/whatever "pushed" from a server directly to the phone as they come in - negating the use of having to run it in the background.

So to answer your question.... yes. It will mean you can have your email pushed to your iPhone like a BlackBerry.
Click to expand...



Kind of. They way push works is the apps server keeps a connection open with an Apple server. When something changes that needs to update the iPhone the app server send the message to the Apple server. The Apple server then locates and send the message to all the devices that need it. The iPhones actually have a little client running in the background that keeps a constant connection open to the Apple servers and receive all data that comes in.
 
detz said:
Kind of. They way push works is the apps server keeps a connection open with an Apple server. When something changes that needs to update the iPhone the app server send the message to the Apple server. The Apple server then locates and send the message to all the devices that need it. The iPhones actually have a little client running in the background that keeps a constant connection open to the Apple servers and receive all data that comes in.
Click to expand...

And I cant make heads or tails of their Apple server API. As usual, Apples documentation is written as if I already have an intimate knowledge of the subject at hand...
 
Smith288 said:
And I cant make heads or tails of their Apple server API. As usual, Apples documentation is written as if I already have an intimate knowledge of the subject at hand...
Click to expand...

They are written for people who understand computer science. If you don't have a solid computer science background that can be confusing because they deal with bytes, ssl, sockets, etc.. and not the standard easy to understand objective c stuff.
 
detz said:
They are written for people who understand computer science. If you don't have a solid computer science background that can be confusing because they deal with bytes, ssl, sockets, etc.. and not the standard easy to understand objective c stuff.
Click to expand...

Elitist much?
 
cellocello said:
I wonder how the phone's going to handle it when you get like 3 or 4 different 'pushes', from 3 or 4 different apps.
Click to expand...

Yes, I wonder if this would affect battery life. Shouldn't, since there's only one connection to Apple's push server.

Seems that this offering of push from Apple could be quite expensive for them to maintain. Neither devs nor end users are paying, so funding's got to come from surplus for now.
 
NewGenAdam said:
Yes, I wonder if this would affect battery life. Shouldn't, since there's only one connection to Apple's push server.

Seems that this offering of push from Apple could be quite expensive for them to maintain. Neither devs nor end users are paying, so funding's got to come from surplus for now.
Click to expand...

Um, 30% of every sale goes to apple! ;-)
 
fenderbass146 said:
emails have always had push notification. I had mine to check every 10 minutes for new emails and a little number badge popped up telling me if i has any emails. So yes it does work with emails
Click to expand...

That's not push, that's fetch. Push would be e-mails automatically displaying that badge when they hit the server, not in the intervals you set.

However, I think MobileMe allows push e-mail on the iPhone.
 
You know, it occurs to me that it's one thing to push email, sms, and other such message notifications, but something totally else to push application background processes. How is any server going to handle that much traffic? How is any *cell phone network* going to handle that much traffic? Or am I totally misunderstanding how push works with app background processing?
 
one thing i like about this push notification service is that. Lets say on the G1 if you have 1 process running in the background (like say aim), then you start having your yahoo app running in the background, then your chess game with your friend, then your myspace application (not sure if there is one.. but work with me here) you'll have tons of apps running in the background.

Where as the push is just one constant connection. while it will drain your battery. having 10 apps push info to you, would be just about the same as having one app send you push. I think this is going to be great. I hope that the small decrease in battery life isnt TO bad.
 
rockbox said:
So it has nothing to do with e-mail?
Click to expand...

No, because the iPhone already supports push e-mail.

MobileMe, Yahoo, and some Exchange servers already push to the iPhone. If your e-mail service doesn't offer that yet (Google doesn't, for example) then you need to complain to them, not Apple. The iPhone is perfectly happy to accept pushed e-mail.
 
Smith288 said:
Elitist much?
Click to expand...

That's like telling someone who's explaining Curling to me that they're elitist...He's (she's?) simply explaining something to you that you don't understand. If knowledge is elitism, then yes, they are being elitist. I more read it as a helpful gesture....
 
It'll be interesting to see how (few) apps implement push notification.

To use it, developers are going to have to learn to write extremely scalable server code, since half their darned application will be off in a server farm somewhere. And those kinds of apps aren't written in Objective-C, you know.

The server side won't be simple code either, since notifications aren't guaranteed to arrive, and you always have to keep track of the data that the app should know about.

In addition, the poor app server has to know WHEN you go offline, so it can start sending info via Apple instead of directly. Since that would be an enormous pain to figure out, I suspect most apps will simply use the notification service all the time.

Not to mention paying for those servers.

The whole Rube Goldberg scheme falls down for apps that should be able to run in the background, but your server is down. Or Apple's is, since they don't guarantee uptime. Or you're on an airplane.

And how many do you think will just use a badge? None, because how do they know that you'll ever see it? So be prepared for lots of alerts. Since they're individual, and not handled in a single Home screen location, be ready to remember what alerted you.

The Palm Pre (and the new HTCs) will be able to have processes that wake up, then go out while you're sleeping and pre-download the days' events, feeds, and your favorite websites. IPhone? No. That's just one example. What a pain for the user to have to click a popup every time that a background fetch should've happened.
 
kdarling said:
It'll be interesting to see how (few) apps implement push notification.

To use it, developers are going to have to learn to write extremely scalable server code, since half their darned application will be off in a server farm somewhere. And those kinds of apps aren't written in Objective-C, you know.

The server side won't be simple code either, since notifications aren't guaranteed to arrive, and you always have to keep track of the data that the app should know about.

In addition, the poor app server has to know WHEN you go offline, so it can start sending info via Apple instead of directly. Since that would be an enormous pain to figure out, I suspect most apps will simply use the notification service all the time.

Not to mention paying for those servers.

The whole Rube Goldberg scheme falls down for apps that should be able to run in the background, but your server is down. Or Apple's is, since they don't guarantee uptime. Or you're on an airplane.

And how many do you think will just use a badge? None, because how do they know that you'll ever see it? So be prepared for lots of alerts. Since they're individual, and not handled in a single Home screen location, be ready to remember what alerted you.

The Palm Pre (and the new HTCs) will be able to have processes that wake up, then go out while you're sleeping and pre-download the days' events, feeds, and your favorite websites. IPhone? No. That's just one example. What a pain for the user to have to click a popup every time that a background fetch should've happened.
Click to expand...

All very true.

Great post.
 
kdarling said:
And how many do you think will just use a badge? None
Click to expand...

Out of everything you wrote, this seems to be your biggest complaint.

I agree that it's a big one, but we also have to agree that it's just an opinion based on nothing.

Would this be bad? Could be.
Will it happen this way? Neither of us can say.

The fact that you think it will happen this way doesn't mean much.
 
Small White Car said:
(badges) Out of everything you wrote, this seems to be your biggest complaint.
Click to expand...

Then you didn't understand all the other, far more critical, issues.

But now I understand why Apple implemented subscription payments for apps. If an application has to partly live on a server, the developer is going to want to get paid per usage.

No freebie background apps here... without ads, anyway.
 
kdarling said:
Then you didn't understand all the other far more critical issues.
Click to expand...

No, I understood, but they fall into 2 camps:

1) Things that are hard for Apple: Yeah, they know. It took them an extra 8 months to work on it. They killed it the first time when it didn't work, so I don't see why they'd bring it out now if they weren't happy with it.

2) Things that are hard for developers: This service will be most useful to large organizations like ESPN, Google, and Facebook. I really don't think they'll have trouble paying the talent that's needed to do that kind of work. You're not getting push notifications to 'Trism' for any reason.

In other words, I don't consider any of that stuff things worth worrying about.
 
fenderbass146 said:
emails have always had push notification. I had mine to check every 10 minutes for new emails and a little number badge popped up telling me if i has any emails. So yes it does work with emails
Click to expand...

Wrong. Emails got push for MobileMe and Exchange on 7/11/08 when 2.0 and the iPhone 3G came out.
 
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