Push to Me: Mobile Push Notifications (Zend Framework)
1. ThatConference August 14th 2012
Push to Me!
Mobile Push Notifications
By Mike Willbanks
Sr. Web Architect Manager
Barnes and Noble
2. Housekeeping…
• Talk
Slides will be online later!
• Me
Sr. Web Architect Manager at Barnes and Noble
Prior MNPHP Organizer
Open Source Contributor (Zend Framework and various others)
Where you can find me:
• Twitter: mwillbanks G+: Mike Willbanks
• IRC (freenode): mwillbanks Blog: http://blog.digitalstruct.com
• GitHub: https://github.com/mwillbanks
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3. Agenda
• Overview of Push Notifications
• Android Push Notifications (C2DM)
• Apple Push Notifications (APNS)
• Microsoft Push Notifications
• BlackBerry Push Notifications
• Questions
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5. What Are They
• Push Notifications…
Are a message pushed to a central location and delivered to you.
Are (often) the same thing as a pub/sub model.
In the Mobile Space…
• These messages often contain other technologies such as alerts, tiles,
or raw data.
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10. Battery Life
• Push notification services for mobile are highly efficient; it
runs in the device background and enables your application
to receive the message.
• The other part of this; if you implemented it otherwise you
would be polling. This not only wastes precious battery but
also wastes their bandwidth.
NOTE: This is not always true; if you are sending data to the phone
more often than a poll would do in 15 minutes; you are better off
implementing polling.
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12. Delivery
• When you poll; things are generally 15+ minutes out to save
on battery. In a push notification these happen almost
instantly.
In practice have seen 1-3s between sending a push notification to
seeing it arrive on the device.
• Additionally; push notifications can be sent to the device
even if it is offline or turned off.
• However, not all messages are guaranteed for delivery
You may hit quotas
Some notification servers only allow a single message to be in
queue at 1 time (some group by collapse key), and others remove
duplicates.
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18. Overview of Zend_Mobile_Push
• Created Zend_Mobile component
Consistency, Quality, Ease of Use
• Requires Zend Framework 1.x
Committed in the ZF trunk; waiting for 1.12 release.
• Handles sending push notifications to 3 systems
APNS, C2DM and MPNS
• Library is located in my GitHub account & ZF Trunk
https://github.com/mwillbanks/Zend_Mobile
http://framework.zend.com/svn/framework/standard/trunk/
library/Zend/Mobile/
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19. Setting up the Library
• Manual Setup (Current Method)
svn checkout from ZF OR through github
Adjust your include_path (likely set in index.php)
• ZF 1.12
Once released; no manual setup necessary.
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21. Understanding GCM
• Allows application servers to send their app messages.
• Is no guarantee for delivery or the order of messages.
• Application does not need to be running to receive messages.
• It does not provide any built-in user interface or other
handling for message data.
• Requires Android 2.2 with Google Play store installed.
• It uses an existing connection for Google services
Pre 3.0 devices requires a Google Account to be setup.
4.0.4 or higher does not.
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22. Registering for GCM
• Sign in to the Google API’s console page
https://code.google.com/apis/console
Create a Project – keep note of the project #
Select Services
Turn on Google Cloud Messaging
Accept terms of use
Create an API key
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23. Anatomy of the Mobile App
Google
Your Application Cloud Your Web Service
Messaging
Register
Registration ID
Save Registration ID
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24. How the Application Works
• Import the GCM libraries
/path/to/sdk-dir/extras/google/gcm-client/dist/gcm.jar
• Update AndroidManifest.xml
We need certain permissions for GCM to run.
• Create GCMIntentService
Receives the GCM messages from the GCMBroadcastReceiver
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29. Implementing a Server
• Some limitations
No Quota!
4KB payload maximum
You must implement incremental back off.
• Old Limitations of C2DM
200K messages per day by default; use them wisely however you
may request more.
1K message payload maximum.
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30. How the Server Works
Google
Your Web
Your Application Cloud
Application
Messaging
Message sent to Message with
Application Registration IDs
Queues t
ill Requires
ust Project #
Device m sent or
be online expires and API
token
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33. Understanding APNS
• The maximum size allowed for a notification payload is 256
bytes.
• Allows application servers to send their app messages.
• No guarantees about delivery or the order of messages.
• Application does not need to be running to receive messages.
• Message adheres to strict JSON but is abstracted away for us in
how we will be using it today.
• Messages should be sent in batches.
• A feedback service must be listened to.
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34. Preparing to Implement Apple Push Notifications
• You must create a SSL certificate and key from the
provisioning portal
• After this is completed the provisioning profile will need to
be utilized for the application.
• Lastly, you will need to install the certificate and key on the
server.
In this case; you will be making a pem certificate.
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36. How the Application Works
• Registration
The application calls the registerForRemoteNotificationTypes:
method.
The delegate implements the
application:didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken:
method to receive the device token.
It passes the device token to its provider as a non-object, binary
value.
• Notification
By default this just works based on the payload; for syncing you
would implement this on the launch.
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39. Implementing the Server
• Some Limitations
Don’t send too many through at a time; meaning around 100K J
• Every once in a while use a usleep
Max payload is 256 bytes
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44. Understanding MPNS
• Allows application servers to send their app messages.
• No guarantee about delivery or the order of messages.
• 3 types of messages: Tile, Toast or Raw
• Limitations:
One push channel per app, 30 push channels per device, additional
adherence in order to send messages
3K Payload, 1K Header
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402537.aspx
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45. Preparing to Implement MPNS
• Upload a TLS certificate to Windows Marketplace
The Key-Usage value of the TLS certificate must be set to include
client authentication.
The Root Certificate Authority (CA) of the certificate must be one
of the CAs listed at: SSL Root Certificates for Windows Phone.
Stays authenticated for 4 months.
Set Service Name to the Common Name (CN) found in the
certificate's Subject value.
Install the TLS certificate on your web service and enable HTTP
client authentication.
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53. Understanding BlackBerry Push
• It allows third-party application servers to send lightweight
messages to their BlackBerry applications.
• Allows a whopping 8K or the payload
• Uses WAP PAP 2.2 as the protocol
• Mileage may vary…
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55. Application Code
• They have a “Sample” but it is deep within their Push SDK.
Many of which are pre-compiled.
Documentation is hard to follow and the sample isn’t exactly
straight forward:
• Install the SDK then go to BPSS/pushsdk-low-level/sample-push-
enabled-app/ and unzip sample-push-enabled-app-1.1.0.16-sources.jar
Completely uncertain on how to make it all work…
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56. Preparing to Implement
• You need to register with BlackBerry and have all of the
application details ready to go:
https://www.blackberry.com/profile/?eventId=8121
• Download the PHP library:
NOTE: I am not certain if any of these actually work…
Updated to be OO; non-tested and a bit sloppy:
https://github.com/mwillbanks/BlackBerryPush
Original source: http://bit.ly/nfbHXp
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57. Implementing BB Push w/ PHP
• Again, never tested nor do I know if it works.
• If you do use BlackBerry push messages; please connect
with me
I would like to allow us to get these into the component.
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59. Next steps
• ZF 2
Working on Service Modules that will implement underlying
functionality soon.
• Hopefully by October?
• BlackBerry
There is a need for a quality implementation in PHP but RIM’s
documentation and how they work with developers makes this
increasingly difficult.
• Register, Forums and bad documentation… all for?
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60. Resources
• Main Sites
Apple Push Notifications:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/NetworkingInternet/
Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/Introduction/Introduction.html
Google C2DM (Android): http://code.google.com/android/c2dm/
Microsoft Push Notifications:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402558(v=vs.92).aspx
BlackBerry Push Notifications:
http://us.blackberry.com/developers/platform/pushapi.jsp
• Push Clients:
Zend_Mobile:
• https://github.com/mwillbanks/Zend_Mobile
• http://framework.zend.com/svn/framework/standard/trunk/library/Zend/Mobile/
BlackBerry: https://github.com/mwillbanks/BlackBerryPush
• Might be broken but at least better than what I found anywhere else J
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61. Questions?
These slides will be posted to SlideShare & SpeakerDeck.
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/mwillbanks
SpeakerDeck: http://speakerdeck.com/u/mwillbanks
Twitter: mwillbanks
G+: Mike Willbanks
IRC (freenode): mwillbanks
Blog: http://blog.digitalstruct.com
GitHub: https://github.com/mwillbanks