Question

I went to SDK manager today and found google has released GCM update verison 3. I tried to find what is new in the update 3 but could not get hold of any document released by google.

My Question

1. What is new in GCM update version 3, can we find any documentation for the update?
2. Do we need to replace the older jars with the new ones on the client as well as server side?

Answer 1

Luckily I still have GCM v1 and I did a quick folder diff between v1 and v3. Besides some minor refactoring, a new feature added is:

the isRegisteredOnServer() method now has a lifespan, set to a default of 7 days. So if you follow their sample client for registration, your app will post its registration_id to your server for update, every 7 days.

Of course, you can change this by using the new getRegisterOnServerLifespan() and setRegisterOnServerLifespan() methods.

One interesting refactoring I noticed is: There are code changes throughout to support multiple SENDER_ID for registration. e.g. previously they use this to register:

GCMRegistrar.internalRegister(context, mSenderId); // mSenderId is a String

Now they use this:

GCMRegistrar.internalRegister(context, senderIds); // senderIds is a String array

I don’t think the official doc mentioning anything about registering for multiple SENDER_IDs. And even though the registration allows it, but on receiving the registration result, there’s no way to identify which registration_id belongs to which SENDER_ID.