iOS Push Notifications - APNS or Google Cloud?

[kamy]

Hey Guys,

I'm developing an iOS app which uses Push Notifications.

Now apparently Google are claiming it is easier and less painful to develop a push notifications system using their infrastructure as compared to APNS (Apple Push Notification Service)

https://cloud.google.com/developers/articles/ios-push-notifications/

Now my question is has anyone developed apps which use PN using the Google Cloud Platform?

What are the risks?
Or is it a better idea to use the APNs service?


Of course i still need do the following to make PN work for my app

• Generate an SSL signing certificate you can use to generate a .p12 certificate.
• Create an Apple App ID through which you can associate push notifications support with your app.
• Generate a .p12 certificate you can use to create an API BaaS notifier. The certificate will be sent to APNs with push notification requests.

 

[Sean7512]

What is your back-end going to be written in? APNS is really drop-dead simple, there isn't that much to it to be honest.

I've used the django-push-notifications (https://github.com/jleclanche/django-push-notifications) plugin in the past and it makes APNS absolutely trivial. There are many other plugins for other back-ends (Java, Grails, PHP, Node, etc).

I would definitely favor not going through Google's back-end for something as simple as sending a message to a server

 

[kamy]

What is your back-end going to be written in? APNS is really drop-dead simple, there isn't that much to it to be honest.

I've used the django-push-notifications (https://github.com/jleclanche/django-push-notifications) plugin in the past and it makes APNS absolutely trivial. There are many other plugins for other back-ends (Java, Grails, PHP, Node, etc).

I would definitely favor not going through Google's back-end for something as simple as sending a message to a server

Hi

I would be using NodeJS.
Am considering using some Node Modules. Do you know some?

I tried this Node Module
https://github.com/logicalparadox/apnagent-playground

And it works fine. I can see beautiful notifications and badge numbers.

Yeah i agree - Going through Google App Engine etc is not worth it.

Thanks for replying!!!!

 

[Sean7512]

Hi

I would be using NodeJS.
Am considering using some Node Modules. Do you know some?

I tried this Node Module
https://github.com/logicalparadox/apnagent-playground

And it works fine. I can see beautiful notifications and badge numbers.

Yeah i agree - Going through Google App Engine etc is not worth it.

Thanks for replying!!!!

I know people who have used this: https://www.npmjs.org/package/node-pushserver

Personally, I'd go with a library that allows you to send messages to iOS and Android. Even if you aren't planning on supporting Android now, at least this won't stop you from doing it.

Happy coding!

 

[kamy]

I know people who have used this: https://www.npmjs.org/package/node-pushserver

Personally, I'd go with a library that allows you to send messages to iOS and Android. Even if you aren't planning on supporting Android now, at least this won't stop you from doing it.

Happy coding!

Thanks for the pointer. It helps.

My partner is working on the Android app and has already developed it using node-gcm and i was seriously considering node-apn.

If that was the case we would have to run 2 Node apps for both platforms!

Now this single module, gives us food for thought.....

Thanx again!!!