Question

What is the easiest way to implement a simple app which does two things:

• receive push notifications (new messages in user’s inbox),
• open a page on my website in a webview or web browser.

It would be best if the solution was portable among iOS, Android and possibly other mobile systems like Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10, but I’m happy with separate solutions, if it’s the only way to do it.

Answer 1

There are solutions like http://xtify.com/ or http://urbanairship.com/products/push-notifications/ that provide an all in one package across platforms but I don’t know the quality of service or which one would be right for you, some research on your part will be necessary if you choose this path.

Or you could implement it yourself but it will require your own server. The server would notify both Androids C2DM And Apple Push Service at the same time. You will have to implement the client side on each.

For iPhone here’s a good tutorial for setting it up http://www.raywenderlich.com/3443/apple-push-notification-services-tutorial-part-12

For Android http://www.vogella.com/articles/AndroidCloudToDeviceMessaging/article.html

You register your app with both services then sends the push keys to your server. With the keys the server can then notify both platforms respective push services to send a notification .

I can’t really help with the server setup stuff as its not my area of expertise but this is how we implement push notifications for the apps my company makes.