Adding Graphics and Emoji characters to Apple push notifications

In this article, I’m going to show you how you can add some graphics to your Apple Push Notifications.

Basically you can’t add custom images to your payloads, because payloads are Json formatted strings and Json does not support binary data, but you can still add some Unicode characters called Emoji characters.

This will work on all IPhones since firmware 2.2 and there is no need to install any additional application on IPhone to use them. All you need to do is aading these characters including the forward slash in your message section of payloads.

Bellow is a full list of Emoji characters and their image:

\ue415	\ue056	\ue057	\ue414	\ue405	\ue106	\ue418
\ue417	\ue40d	\ue40a	\ue404	\ue105	\ue409	\ue40e
\ue402	\ue108	\ue403	\ue058	\ue407	\ue401	\ue40f
\ue40b	\ue406	\ue413	\ue411	\ue412	\ue410	\ue107
\ue059	\ue416	\ue408	\ue40c	\ue11a	\ue10c	\ue32c
\ue32a	\ue32d	\ue328	\ue32b	\ue022	\ue023	\ue327
\ue329	\ue32e	\ue32f	\ue335	\ue334	\ue021	\ue337
\ue020	\ue336	\ue13c	\ue330	\ue331	\ue326	\ue03e
\ue11d	\ue05a	\ue00e	\ue421	\ue420	\ue00d	\ue010
\ue011	\ue41e	\ue012	\ue422	\ue22e	\ue22f	\ue231
\ue230	\ue427	\ue41d	\ue00f	\ue41f	\ue14c	\ue201
\ue115	\ue428	\ue51f	\ue429	\ue424	\ue423	\ue253
\ue426	\ue111	\ue425	\ue31e	\ue31f	\ue31d	\ue001
\ue002	\ue005	\ue004	\ue51a	\ue519	\ue518	\ue515
\ue516	\ue517	\ue51b	\ue152	\ue04e	\ue51c	\ue51e
\ue11c	\ue536	\ue003	\ue41c	\ue41b	\ue419	\ue41a

\ue04a	\ue04b	\ue049	\ue048	\ue04c	\ue13d	\ue443
\ue43e	\ue04f	\ue052	\ue053	\ue524	\ue52c	\ue52a
\ue531	\ue050	\ue527	\ue051	\ue10b	\ue52b	\ue52f
\ue528	\ue01a	\ue134	\ue530	\ue529	\ue526	\ue52d
\ue521	\ue523	\ue52e	\ue055	\ue525	\ue10a	\ue109
\ue522	\ue019	\ue054	\ue520	\ue306	\ue030	\ue304
\ue110	\ue032	\ue305	\ue303	\ue118	\ue447	\ue119
\ue307	\ue308	\ue444	\ue441

\ue436	\ue437	\ue438	\ue43a	\ue439	\ue43b	\ue117
\ue440	\ue442	\ue446	\ue445	\ue11b	\ue448	\ue033
\ue112	\ue325	\ue312	\ue310	\ue126	\ue127	\ue008
\ue03d	\ue00c	\ue12a	\ue00a	\ue00b	\ue009	\ue316
\ue129	\ue141	\ue142	\ue317	\ue128	\ue14b	\ue211
\ue114	\ue145	\ue144	\ue03f	\ue313	\ue116	\ue10f
\ue104	\ue103	\ue101	\ue102	\ue13f	\ue140	\ue11f
\ue12f	\ue031	\ue30e	\ue311	\ue113	\ue30f	\ue13b
\ue42b	\ue42a	\ue018	\ue016	\ue015	\ue014	\ue42c
\ue42d	\ue017	\ue013	\ue20e	\ue20c	\ue20f	\ue20d
\ue131	\ue12b	\ue130	\ue12d	\ue324	\ue301	\ue148
\ue502	\ue03c	\ue30a	\ue042	\ue040	\ue041	\ue12c
\ue007	\ue31a	\ue13e	\ue31b	\ue006	\ue302	\ue319
\ue321	\ue322	\ue314	\ue503	\ue10e	\ue318	\ue43c
\ue11e	\ue323	\ue31c	\ue034	\ue035	\ue045	\ue338
\ue047	\ue30c	\ue044	\ue30b	\ue043	\ue120	\ue33b
\ue33f	\ue341	\ue34c	\ue344	\ue342	\ue33d	\ue33e
\ue340	\ue34d	\ue339	\ue147	\ue343	\ue33c	\ue33a
\ue43f	\ue34b	\ue046	\ue345	\ue346	\ue348	\ue347
\ue34a	\ue349

\ue036	\ue157	\ue038	\ue153	\ue155	\ue14d	\ue156
\ue501	\ue158	\ue43d	\ue037	\ue504	\ue44a	\ue146
\ue50a	\ue505	\ue506	\ue122	\ue508	\ue509	\ue03b
\ue04d	\ue449	\ue44b	\ue51d	\ue44c	\ue124	\ue121
\ue433	\ue202	\ue135	\ue01c	\ue01d	\ue10d	\ue136
\ue42e	\ue01b	\ue15a	\ue159	\ue432	\ue430	\ue431
\ue42f	\ue01e	\ue039	\ue435	\ue01f	\ue125	\ue03a
\ue14e	\ue252	\ue137	\ue209	\ue154	\ue133	\ue150
\ue320	\ue123	\ue132	\ue143	\ue50b	\ue514	\ue513
\ue50c	\ue50d	\ue511	\ue50f	\ue512	\ue510	\ue50e

\ue21c	\ue21d	\ue21e	\ue21f	\ue220	\ue221	\ue222
\ue223	\ue224	\ue225	\ue210	\ue232	\ue233	\ue235
\ue234	\ue236	\ue237	\ue238	\ue239	\ue23b	\ue23a
\ue23d	\ue23c	\ue24d	\ue212	\ue24c	\ue213	\ue214
\ue507	\ue203	\ue20b	\ue22a	\ue22b	\ue226	\ue227
\ue22c	\ue22d	\ue215	\ue216	\ue217	\ue218	\ue228
\ue151	\ue138	\ue139	\ue13a	\ue208	\ue14f	\ue20a
\ue434	\ue309	\ue315	\ue30d	\ue207	\ue229	\ue206
\ue205	\ue204	\ue12e	\ue250	\ue251	\ue14a	\ue149
\ue23f	\ue240	\ue241	\ue242	\ue243	\ue244	\ue245
\ue246	\ue247	\ue248	\ue249	\ue24a	\ue24b	\ue23e
\ue532	\ue533	\ue534	\ue535	\ue21a	\ue219	\ue21b
\ue02f	\ue024	\ue025	\ue026	\ue027	\ue028	\ue029
\ue02a	\ue02b	\ue02c	\ue02d	\ue02e	\ue332	\ue333
\ue24e	\ue24f	\ue537

I hope this helps you add more color to your Push notifications.

same as usual email me on toofan164@hotmail.com or leave a comment for me if you have any questions. I will be more than happy to assist you.

iOS Push Notifications in C# with Moon-APNS

I have been busy developing backend of an IPhone application which is sending considerable number of push notifications twice a day. Trying to fix some issues and bugs on other free and open source c# push notification libraries I came up with the idea of writing my own c# library and as a big fan of open source I’m going to share the library on GitHub.

The library is called Moon-APNS and it can be downloaded from here.

This is the first version of the library, but It has been tested under pressure and on a production version of an application so feel safe to plug it to you application. Moon-APNS can be used in any .net application web or windows based.

Moon-APNS is benefiting from new Apple Push Notification structure, called Enhanced Push Notification. Which enables the library to receive feedback on each notification sent to apple server asynchronously, you may say we can receive that response with apple feedback service, but unfortunately if you send a payload to apple server with wrong format, broken or missing device tokens apple will terminate the connection straight away and it’s really hard to figure out which one was the faulty payload when you are sending them one after each other because it takes up to 2 seconds for the connection to be closed. Using Enhanced push notification you can sign each payload with a unique identifier and even better you can set TTL on each payload so apple know how long they should try to deliver the push notification before it expires. Moon-APNS will send payloads and receive feedback asynchronously and will re connect and resume sending the queue in case of any errors. All device tokens of rejected payloads will return as a list when the queue is sent and feedback is received from apple with error code sent by apple so you will know why the payload was rejected.

In Moon-APNS I’m using free and open source NLog library to log all events happening behind the scene which makes it really easy to debug the application while you are on production and you can’t attach a debugger.

Sending Apple push notification has never been so easy with Moon-APNS you will need less than 10 lines of code to send push notification and receive the feedback.

Ok enough talking I think it’s time for some coding.

1) You should generate your payloads:

 1:  var payload1 = new NotificationPayload("DeviceToken","Hello !",1,"default");

Feel free to add custom parameters to your payload as bellow:

 1: payload1.AddCustom("CustomKey", "CustomValue");

2) Moon-APNS accepts a list of payloads, so I will add my payloads to a List:

 1: var notificationList = new List {payload1, payload2, payload3};

3) create an instance of Moon-APNS push notification class, and pass true or false for using sandbox, location of your p12 file, and password for thep12 file if you have one and blank string if you don’t have one.

 1: var push = new PushNotification(false, "P12File location","password");

4) Create a list for your feedback, returned from library which will contain rejected payloads list.

5) Saved best for last call SendToApple method and pass list of your payload.

 1: var rejected = push.SendToApple(notificationList);

Is that all? Well yes it is! So if we ignore lines for generating payloads I can say we are sending push notification ad receiving feedback in 2 lines of code. Everything you need to do is handled by Moon-APNS library for you so you can have more time to consider on your application logic.

Feel free to email me or post your questions as a comment and I’ll be more than happy to assist you as much as I can.

This is the first version and I will commit new builds with new features soon.

Sending Apple Push Notifications in ASP.NET and C# – part 4 (Moon-APNS C# wrapper class)

Sorry for the delay, please email me on toofan164@hotmail.com if you had any questions about this article series and Ill help you as much as i can.

Bellow is a wrapper class for Moon-APNS Library, using this wrapper class is really easy.

First you need to reference Moon-APNS project in your solution, also you can build them and reference dll files.

I have added a detailed post about Moon-APNS and how you can use it here :

https://arashnorouzi.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/ios-push-notifications-in-c-with-moon-apns/

I have added lots of comments in the source code,so its really easy to find your way around the code. but feel free to email me if you had any questions.

Sending Apple Push Notifications in ASP.NET and C# – part 3 (APNS Certificates Registration on Windows)

Now that we have our certificate and our key for that, Its time to install them on Development Machine we will use t send the apple push notifications.

The approach for this task is pretty strait forward but unfortunately I could not find a complete article about it when i was developing my first application.

Step one : Open Microsoft Management Console

To do this press Windows + R keys at the same time to open Run. Type ‘mmc’ and press enter.

This should open Following window on your screen:

Step Two: Add Certificates Snap-in to your console

Click on file and select Add/Remove snap-in from menu. This will open a new window with a list of available snap-ins on the left .

Select Certificates form list on the left and hit Add button. Select Computer Account form the next prompt , Local computer form next one and click on finish.

Your Add snap-in window should look like this:

And when you click ok button you will see :

Step Three: Certificate installation

Click on Certificates(local Computer) to expand the list. Right click on personal, then select all tasks and click on import. This will open Certificate import wizard.

Click on next ,and select your .cer file in next step. In next step select second option to place all certificates in Personal store.

Press finish and you should see a confirmation message about successful installation on Certificate.

Repeat above step to import your .P12 file, now Expand Personal on left side and click on certificates.You should be able to see your certificate in right panel. If your .p12 is password protected , you need to enter the password in the wizard.

Repeat all import process to import your certificate and .p12 files to ” Trusted Root Certification Authorities ” Section.

Now you have imported required certificates to sign your APNS messages to Apple push notification server.

In Next and last part of this Article series, I will cover how you can send apple push notifications from your ASP.net application.

Sending Apple Push Notifications in ASP.NET and C# – part 2 (Generating APNS Certificates)

In last post we covered concepts of push notification, and in this post we will learn how to generate Apple Push Notification certificate to sign our requests.

Why do you need an Apple APNS certificate?

Apple requires that each organization maintain their own certificate to ensure a secure mechanism for their corporate devices to communicate across Apple’s push notification messaging network.

Generating the Apple Push Notification SSL certificate on Mac:

To request an iPhone Development Certificate, you first need to generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) utilizing the Keychain Access application in Mac OS X Leopard. The creation of a CSR will prompt Keychain Access to simultaneously generate your public and private key pair establishing your iPhone Developer identity. Your private key is stored in the login Keychain by default and can be viewed in the Keychain Access application under the ‘Keys’ category. To generate a CSR:

1. In your Applications folder, open the Utilities folder and launch Keychain Access.
2. In the Preferences menu, set Online Certificate Status Protocol (OSCP) and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) to “Off”.

3. Choose Keychain Access -> Certificate Assistant -> Request a Certificate from a Certificate Authority. Note: If you have a noncompliant private key highlighted in the Keychain during this process, the resulting Certificate Request will not be accepted by the Program Portal. Confirm that you are selecting “Request a Certificate From a Certificate Authority…” and not selecting “Request a Certificate From a Certificate Authority with …”

4. In the User Email Address field, enter your email address. Please ensure that the email address entered matches the information that was submitted when you registered as an iPhone Developer.

5. In the Common Name field enter your name. Please ensure that the name entered matches the information that was submitted when you registered as an iPhone Developer.

6. No CA (Certificate Authority) Email Address is required. The ‘Required’ message will be removed after completing the following step.

7.Select the ‘Saved to Disk’ radio button and if prompted, select ‘Let me specify key pair information’ and click ‘Continue’.

8.If ‘Let me specify key pair’ was selected, specify a file name and click ‘Save’. In the following screen select ‘2048 bits’ for the Key Size and ‘RSA’ for the Algorithm. Click ‘Continue’.

9.The Certificate Assistant will create a CSR file on your desktop.

Submitting a Certificate Signing Request for Approval

1. After creating a CSR, log in to the iPhone Developer Program Portal and navigate to ‘Certificates’ > ‘Development’ and click ‘Add Certificate’.
2. Click the ‘Choose file’ button, select your CSR and click ‘Submit’. If the Key Size was not set to 2048 bits during the CSR creation process, the Portal will reject the CSR.
3. Upon submission, Team Admins will be notified via email of the certificate request.
4. Once your CSR is approved or rejected by a Team Admin, you will be notified via email of the change in your certificate status.

Approving Certificate Signing Requests

1. After submitting a CSR for approval, Team Admins will be directed to the ‘Development’ tab of the ‘Certificates’ section. Here, CSRs can be approved or rejected by clicking the corresponding action next to each request.
2. Once a CSR is approved or rejected, the requesting Team Member is notified via email of the change in their certificate status. Each iPhone Development Certificate is available to both the Team Member who submitted the CSR for approval and to the Team Admin(s).

Downloading and Installing Development Certificates

1. In the ‘Certificates’ > ’Distribution’ section of the Portal, control-click the WWDR Intermediate Certificate link and select “Saved Linked File to Downloads” to initiate download of the certificate.
2. On your local machine, double-click the WWDR Intermediate certificate to launch Keychain Access and install.
3. Upon CSR approval, Team Members and Team Admins can download their certificates via the ‘Certificates’ section of the Program Portal. Click ‘Download’ next to the certificate name to download your iPhone Development Certificate to your local machine.
4. On your local machine, double-click the downloaded .cer file to launch Keychain Access and install your certificate.
5. Team Members can only download their own iPhone Development Certificates. Team Admins have the authority to download the public certificates of all of their Team Members. Apple never receives the private key for a CSR. The private keys are not available to anyone except the original key pair creator and are stored in the system keychain of that Team Member.

Generating an App ID

1. Team Agents or Team Admins should navigate to the ‘App ID’ section of the Program Portal.
2. Click ‘Add ID’.
3. Enter a common name for your App ID. This is a name for easy reference and identification within the Program Portal.
4. Enter a Bundle Identifier in the free-form text field. The recommended usage is a reverse-domain name style string, e.g., com.domainname.applicationname. For a suite of applications sharing the same Keychain access, you should use a wild-card character in the Bundle Identifier
   (e.g. com.domainname.* or *). This Bundle Identifier will need to match whatever CF Bundle Identifier you use for your application in Xcode.
5. You need to create an App ID without .* in the iPhone developer Portal. An App ID without .* means its unique and works only for a single application(for Push-Notification).
6. Click ‘Submit’. At this time, the 10 character Bundle Seed ID is generated and concatenated with the Bundle Identifier you entered. This resulting string is your App ID. Note: The Bundle Seed ID does not need to be entered into Xcode.
7. Generate a new App ID for each set of applications with shared Keychain Access needs. If you are creating a suite of applications that will share the same Keychain access (e.g. sharing passwords between applications) or have a set of applications with no Keychain Access requirements, create a single App ID for all applications utilizing a trailing asterisk as a wild-card character.

Registering an App ID for Apple Push Notification service

1. In the App ID section of the Program Portal, locate the App ID you wish to use with the Apple Push Notification service. Only App IDs with a specific bundle ID can be used with the APNs. You cannot use a “wild-card” application ID. You must see “Available” under the Apple Push Notification service column to register this App ID and configure a certificate for this App ID.
2. Click the ‘Details’ link next to your desired App ID.
3. In the Configure App ID page, check the Enable Push Notification Services box and click the Configure button. Clicking this button launches the APNs Assistant, which guides you through the next series of steps that create your App ID specific Client SSL certificate.
4. Download the Client SSL certificate file to your download location. Navigate to that location and double-click the certificate file (which has an extension of cer) to install it in your keychain.
5. When you are finished, click Done in the APNS Assistant.
6. Double-clicking the file launches Keychain Access. Make sure you install the certificate in your login keychain on the computer you are using for provider development. The APNs SSL certificate should be installed on your notification server.
7. When you finish these steps you are returned to the Configure App ID page of the iPhone Dev Center portal. The certificate should be badged with a green circle and the label “Enabled”.
8. To complete the APNs set-up process, you will need to create a new provisioning profile containing your APNs-enabled App ID.

Creating a Development Provisioning Profile

1. In the ‘Provisioning’ section of the Portal, Team Admins should click ‘Add’ on the Development tab.
2. Enter a name for the provisioning profile.
3. Specify which devices will be associated with the provisioning profile. You must specify a device in order for that device to utilize the provisioning profile. If a device’s UDID is not included in the provisioning profile the profile and your application cannot be installed on that device.
4. Specify which iPhone Development Certificates will be associated with the provisioning profile. You must specify an iPhone Development Certificate in order for the application code signed with that same certificate to run on the device.
5. Specify a single App ID for the Development Provisioning Profile. Each Development Provisioning Profile can specify only ONE App ID, therefore, if you have applications requiring different Keychain access, you will need to create a separate Development Provisioning Profile for each of those applications. If you are installing a suite of applications with the same required Keychain access or have a set of applications not requiring access to the Keychain, use an App ID containing the wild-card asterisk character to build all of your applications.
6. Click ‘Submit’ to generate your Development Provisioning Profile.

Installing a Development Provisioning Profile

All Team Agents, Admins and Members can download a Development Provisioning Profile from the ‘Provisioning’ section of the Portal after it has been created. Only those developers whose Apple device IDs and iPhone Development Certificates are included in the provisioning profile will be able to install and test their application on their device.

1. In the ‘Provisioning’ section of the Program Portal, click the download button next to the desired provisioning profile.
2. Drag the downloaded file onto the Xcode application icon in the dock or into the ‘Organizer’ window within Xcode. This will automatically copy the .mobileprovision file to the proper directory. Alternatively, you can drag the .mobileprovision file onto the iTunes icon in the dock or copy the file to ‘~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles’. If the directory does not exist you will need to create it. Click on the ‘+’ button in the Provisioning section of the Organizer window to install your .mobileprovision file.

Building and Installing your Development Application

Now that you have an approved iPhone Development Certificate, an assigned Apple device and a properly installed Development Provisioning Profile, Xcode can now build your application and install it on your development device. If you have a single iPhone Development Certificate and iPhone Development Provisioning Profile, you don’t need to change any settings in Xcode to start running your applications. To compile and install your code:

1. Launch Xcode and open your project.
2. In the Project Window, select ‘Device – iPhone OS’ from the ‘Device | Debug’ drop down menu in the upper-left hand corner.
   
3. Highlight the project Target and select the ‘Info’ icon from the top menu bar.
   
4. In the Target Info window, navigate to the ‘Build’ pane. Click the ‘Any iPhone OS Device’ pop-up menu below the ‘Code Signing Identity’ field and select the iPhone Development Certificate/Provisioning Profile pair you wish to sign and install your code with. Your iPhone Development certificate will be in bold with the Provisioning Profile associated with it in grey above. In the example below, ‘iPhone Developer: Team Leader’ is the Development Certificate and ‘My First Development Provisioning Profile’ is the .mobileprovision file paired with it.Note: If the private key for your iPhone Development certificate is missing, or if your iPhone Development certificate is not included in a provisioning profile, you will be unable to select the iPhone Development Certificate/Provisioning Profile pair and you will see the following. Re-installing the private key or downloading a provisioning profile with your iPhone Development certificate included in it will correct this.
5. In the Properties Pane of the Target Info window, enter the Bundle Identifier portion of your App ID. If you have used an explicit App ID you must enter the Bundle Identifier portion of the App ID in the Identifier field. For example enter com.domainname.applicationname if your App ID is A1B2C3D4E5.com.domainname.applicationname. If you have used a wildcard asterisk character in your App ID, replace the asterisk with whatever string you choose.
   

In my next post, I will cover Apple Push Notifications certificates installation on windows.

Sending Apple Push Notifications in ASP.NET and C# – part 1

In this article series i will cover sending apple push notifications form asp.net application. This will be a detailed article so I will break it down to 5 parts.

Part 1 will cover key concepts about APNS service, how we can use it and its restrictions.

Part 2 will cover generating required certificates for sending push notification.

part 3 will cover installation of certificates on your computer.

part 4 will cover sending push notification using Moon-APNS library.

What is Push Notifications?

One of the widely anticipated features of the new iPhone OS 3.0 is push notifications which allow messages to be sent directly to an individual device relevant to the application that has been installed. Apple has demoed this as useful for news alerts, or IM notifications.

Apple provides detailed code documentation for the iPhone OS code that is needed to implement and handle the alerts on the device but only provides a higher level guide for the provider server side.

As a provider, you need to communicate with the Apple Push Notification Service (APNS) to send the messages that are then pushed to the phone. This is necessary so that the device only needs to maintain 1 connection to the APNS, helping to reduce battery usage.

This tutorial will go into code-level detail about how we built our push notification provider server to allow us to interact with the APNS. Since we develop in asp.net, our examples will be in C#.

Bellow is a sample push notification on iPhone screen:

Basic Structure for APNS

1. You connect to the APNS using your unique SSL certificate
2. Cycle through the messages you want to send
3. Construct the payload for each message
4. Disconnect from APNS

The flow of remote-notification data is one-way. The provider composes a notification package that includes the device token for a client application and the payload. The provider sends the notification to APNs which in turn pushes the notification to the device.

Apple documentation

Restrictions

• The payload is limited to 256 bytes in total – this includes both the actual body message and all of the optional and additional attributes you might wish to send. Push notifications are not designed for large data transfer, only for small alerts. For example we only send a short alert message detailing the server monitoring alert triggered.
• APNS provides limited status feedback as to whether your message was successfully delivered. One reason for this is that messages are queued to be sent to the device if it is unreachable, however only the last sent message will be queued – overwriting any previously sent but undelivered messages. Only feedback available is for devices Tokens that were previously but are no longer valid, such as if the user has uninstalled your iPhone application and do not receive notifications any more.
• Push notifications should not be used for critical alerts because the message will only be delivered if the device has internet connectivity.
• The SSL certificates used to communicate with APNS, discussed below, are generated on an application level. The implementation discussed in this tutorial only concerns a single iPhone application so if you have several, you will need to adapt the code to use the appropriate certificate(s) where necessary.

Device Token

Each push message must be “addressed” to a specific device. This is achieved by using a unique device Token generated by APNS within your iPhone application. Once this token has been retrieved, you need to store it on your server, not within your iPhone application itself. It looks something like this:

c9d4c07c fbbc26d6 ef87a44d 53e16983 1096a5d5 fd825475 56659ddd f715defc

On This Tutorial we will use an open source library called “Moon-APNS” to create notification, send them to apple servers and receive feedback. This library can be downloaded from https://github.com/arashnorouzi/Moon-APNS

Feedback Service

Apple provides a feedback service which you are supposed to occasionally poll. This will provide a list of device Tokens that were previously but are no longer valid, such as if the user has uninstalled your iPhone application. You can then remove the devices Tokens from your database so you do not communicate with an invalid device.

Payload Contents

The payload is formatted in JSON, compliant with the RFC 4627 standard. It consists of several parts:

• Alert – the text string to display on the device
• Badge – the integer number to display as a badge by the application icon on the device home screen
• Sound – the text string of the name of the sound to accompany the display of the message on the device

*This tutorial will only deal with the basics by sending a simple alert text string but this can also be another dictionary containing various options to display custom buttons and the like.

The raw interface

Once an alert is generated within Server Density, the payload is built and then inserted into a queue. This is processed separately so that we can send multiple payloads in one go if necessary.

Apple recommends this method because if you are constantly connecting and disconnecting to send each payload, APNS may block your IP.

As described by Apple:

In Next article we will cover how we can generate required certificates for sending push notifications.