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I'm developing a web/mobile app and need to figure out how to do push notifications in each environment. My app is Html 5, CSS, jQueryMobile and can be used in a website, iPhone, Android, etc. I've researched UrbanAirship as a possible solution. Does this work with a web environment?

My app allows users can invite friends to participate in the app. I need to be able to push the invitation to their friend. Their friend could be an existing user of the app, or could be someone not known to the app. I suppose I could send an email to the friend letting them know of the invitation, but that seems so 10 years ago. Any suggestions?

Mathieu
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Tom Schreck
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2 Answers2

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I suppose for chrome you could use html5 notifications. http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/notifications/quick/

Internet Explorer 9 has the pinned sites icon overlays that may be useful. http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/notifications/quick/

Perhaps others can add to this answer on how to accomplish this in mobile browsers.

codaniel
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  • Since it's mobile we're talking about, are you aware of anything like this for Mobile Safari or the Android Browser? – Jasper Mar 29 '12 at 21:59
  • This would be a good open source project to start. Does anyone know of an already existing open source project for something like UrbanAirship? – codaniel Mar 29 '12 at 22:28
  • @Jasper : The question states "for web AND mobile application" – Mathieu May 29 '12 at 18:08
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The main supported method of using push notifications is through the Android/Apple servers. UrbanAirship helps streamline this process for you since you would otherwise have to setup your server to handle the push notification processing.

Users must have your app installed first before they can receive any push notifications (all devices that receive push notifications must be added to a database and keys have to be exchanged between the device and the server).

That being said, almost anybody that has a smart phone will also have an email account hooked-up to the phone so you can use push notifications for current users of your app and emails for possible new users.

Btw, if you check-out Google and Apple's documentation about setting-up your server for push notifications you'll quickly see how great UrbanAirship really is. Especially if your usage falls within the free product from UrbanAirship.

Jasper
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  • thanks for the input Jasper. Will Urban Airship also work for pushing notifications to web users of the app? – Tom Schreck Mar 30 '12 at 00:57
  • You'll have to ask them about that, I would just call them and ask your question directly. They almost certainly have the ability to send text messages though. You can also send emails as text messages, each carrier has a domain to which you can send emails that will be then translated into text messages. I haven't done this in a while so you'll have to look-up the domain names (Verizon used to be something like `5555555555@vtext.com`). – Jasper Mar 30 '12 at 18:48