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This is the first time that I approach the push notification service and I'm little bit confused. I 'd like to have just some conceptual help, not code.
I need to build an app that should receive and register for different kind of notifications. For instance in my app I'd like that users could register for PROMO notifications category and NEWS notifications category, I'd like that they could choose which one they want to be notified.
Reading the Apple doc, that was not so clear to me, it seems that once the app device is registered I receive just one token and seems impossible to receive more tokens for different kind of registration(NEWS and PROMO for instance), because the token is related to the app and the device. Is that correct?
The other thing that is not so clear to me is, if a device is registered for a specific notification is it possible to send the notification only to a set o devices?

If nothing of that is offered by Apple Push services do you think that is possible to manage everything like that: -I register the app device for notification if (PROMO || NEWS) are selected -I get the token -I send the token to my server giving also as additional info about the service which the user wants to subscribe -The server (provider) register the token and the kind of subscription (PROMO || NEWS) -Later when I have a notification to push I ask the server all the tokens registered for that specific category and then I send the notification only to those devices registered for that category.


Thanks for helping me out I'm really confused.

Andrea
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  • you must refer apple documentation first. a good start will be at : http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/Introduction/Introduction.html – YogiAR Jan 03 '12 at 13:28
  • Check out a provider like urbanairship who will help with a lot of the back-end stuff. I use them for their free push notifications and their service and support is excellent. They offer other services for a fee, but may be helpful to you (I don't work for them - just happy with the service I receive) – Nick Bull Jan 03 '12 at 13:53
  • thanks Nick I will look to those services – Andrea Jan 03 '12 at 14:26

3 Answers3

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"Reading the Apple doc, that was not so clear to me, it seems that once the app device is registered I receive just one token and seems impossible to receive more tokens for different kind of registration(NEWS and PROMO for instance), because the token is related to the app and the device. Is that correct?"

YES

The other thing that is not so clear to me is, if a device is registered for a specific notification is it possible to send the notification only to a set o devices?

YES, you need a DB where you connect a Push Token with the related Services (promo | news). If you have a new Promo Push Message you send the message to all related token. on the app site, everytime the user change the categorie (promo / news) you should prpvide these infos to your service with the push token.

CarlJ
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These are all problems that you have to solve yourself on the server side. The push service simply provides a means to send a single message to a single device. You have to figure out yourself which messages you want to send to which devices. Each message has to be sent individually, there's no way to "broadcast" a message to all your users directly.

You could think of the push tokens as email addresses – of course, one email address might be subscribed to different newsletters from the same publisher, but it's the publisher's job (yours) to figure out whom to send which newsletters, not the email provider's (Apple's).

omz
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You should think of the push notification registration like my I send the user push notifications. Not what kind of push notification can I send the user.

Then you need to do serverside filtering on you categories, like the ones in your example promo and news.

The perferance of the user should be stored on your server, so you will know what kind of notification to send to which user.

rckoenes
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