push notifications on all 3 platforms (android,ios,windows phone)

Question

I'm planning a cross-platform app. Is it possible to implement push notifications on all 3 of them (iphone, android, windowsphone) using only one API/module? Is there any other alternative? What needs to be done server-side? Please point me in the right direction. (Documentation, example code if exists) Thanks in advance.

Solution 1

In Android push notification is handled by Google c2dm servers and same for iphone(Apple Servers) and Windows(MPNS). You have to register your app to all three services separately to enable push notification in your app. So while registering user you should send the the information which phone user is currently using to your server and save it in user table and then you have to call remote methods to appropriate servers for sending push notification to particular user.

Solution 2

Also, take a look at this github projects:

• PushSharp: It was made in C#, but seems to be solid.

• pushd: It was made using Javascript (actually coffeescript), and requires Node.js.

Both of them supports Andoird, Windows Phone and iOS. I haven't tested them, so I can't give you more insights.

Solution 3

There's also Urban Airship, who seems to be leading the space at the moment. What are your requirements? They offer 1,000,000 free push messages per month.

Unwired Nation and RhoMobile also have solutions if your product is more B2B focused. RhoMobile has a Ruby SDK and Unwired offers an XML API with basic user registration. Unwired Nation's package also includes a basic 2way messaging UI for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

@Raspu BTW, thanks for pointing out pushd, looks cool!

• Disclaimer: I built the Push-Composer equivalent for the Unwired Nation solution.

Comments

[Felix]

How about the pushd performance?

[JP Illanes]

No idea, I didn't tested them...

[angularsen]

parse.com looks good so far, gives you a huge 1M/month notifications on the free plan.

[Kroltan]

@AndreasLarsen No! It's a trap! Our company uses Parse for a product, it's absolute hell to work with. API changes without reflected documentations, silly rate limits and no batch requesting.

[angularsen]

Thanks for the heads up. The only problem I have had so far is they do not automatically clean up the user database when users uninstall and later reinstall the app, causing multiple push notifications to the same user as well cost you double for that user.

[Marcello Grechi Lins]

Honestly, i am not sure about why this got downvoted. This guy explained the pushing problem, saying that you can basically do the push manually for each platform.

[Bek]

Urban Airship has moved away from the free push messages model and now their minimum monthly price is $200/month, so I no longer recommend them. Currently looking for the best replacement, myself.

[mikermcneil]

Thanks Bek, great point. I'd edit my answer but I don't have any better suggestions either. I took a look at pushwoosh as recommended by @achukrishnan, and it looks great (free unlimited pushes for all platforms) but I can't recommend it with any additional gusto because I haven't tried it personally.

[Simon K.]

Unwired Nation section has a broken link. Same with RhoMobile

[elnygren]

While correct, this is not a super helpful answer as the original question was about finding a single service that could handle all major platforms.