ZF: Push Notifications

By Mike Willbanks

Software Engineering Manager

CaringBridge

MNPHP January 5, 2012

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•Software Engineering Manager at CaringBridge

•Open Source Contributor

•Where you can find me:

Twitter: mwillbanks

G+: Mike Willbanks

IRC (freenode): lubs

Blog: http://blog.digitalstruct.com

About Mike…

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•Overview of Push Notifications

•Overview of Zend_Mobile [_Push]

Not currently implemented in ZF 1.x; maybe ZF 1.12.

•Android Push Notifications (C2DM)

•Apple Push Notifications (APNS)

•Microsoft Push Notifications

•BlackBerry Push Notifications

•Questions

Although you can bring them up at anytime!

Agenda

Overview What are they?

What is the benefit?

High level; how do these things work?

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•Push Notifications…

Are a message pushed to a central location and delivered to you.

Are (often) the same thing at a pub/sub model.

In the Mobile Space…

• These messages often contain other technologies such as alerts, tiles,

or raw data.

What Are They

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In Pictures…

Benefits of Push Notifications The benefits of push notifications are numerous; the

question is if you have an app and you are running services

to poll; why would you do such a thing!

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One word… Battery Life

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Impact of Polling

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•Push notification services for mobile are highly efficient; it

runs in the device background and enables your application

to receive the message.

•The other part of this; if you implemented it otherwise you

would be polling. This not only wastes precious battery but

also wastes their bandwidth.

NOTE: This is not always true; if you are sending data to the phone

more often than a poll would do in 15 minutes; you are better off

implementing polling.

Battery Life

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Can We Deliver?

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•When you poll; things are generally 15+ minutes out to save

on battery. In a push notification these happen almost

instantly.

We’ve generally seen within 1-3s between sending a push

notification to seeing it arrive on the device.

•Additionally; push notifications can be sent to the device

even if it is offline or turned off.

•However, not all messages are guaranteed for delivery

You may hit quotas

Some notification servers only allow a single message to be in

queue at 1 time (some group by collapse key), and others remove

duplicates.

Delivery

How These Things Work The 10,000 foot view.

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10,000 Foot View of C2DM

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10,000 Foot View of APNS

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10,000 Foot View of Windows Push

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10,000 Foot View of BlackBerry

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•Created Zend_Mobile component in November because I

was irritated with the other libraries that currently existed.

•More fluid way of sending push notifications.

•Requires Zend Framework 1.x

Hopefully will make it into the ZF 1.12 release planned within the

next month or two.

•Handles sending push notifications to 3 systems

APNS, C2DM and MPNS

•Library is located in my GitHub account

https://github.com/mwillbanks/Zend_Mobile

Overview of Zend_Mobile_Push

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•Git clone the package somewhere you would like it to live.

•Adjust your include_path (likely set in index.php)

•You’re ready to rock!

•Hopefully; in the future you won’t have to do anything

Setting up the Library

Walking Through Android Understanding C2DM

Anatomy of a Message

Pushing Messages

Displaying Items on the Client

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• It allows third-party application servers to send lightweight

messages to their Android applications.

•C2DM makes no guarantees about delivery or the order of

messages.

•An application on an Android device doesn’t need to be

running to receive messages.

• It does not provide any built-in user interface or other

handling for message data.

• It requires devices running Android 2.2 or higher that also have

the Market application installed.

• It uses an existing connection for Google services (Through the

Google Market)

Understanding C2DM

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•First things first – you must sign up to actually utilize C2DM

http://code.google.com/android/c2dm/signup.html

C2DM only works on Android w/ Google Market

• Basically excludes: Amazon Kindle Fire.

Registering for C2DM

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Anatomy of the Mobile App

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•We must update the Manifest file to state additional

permissions.

•We will then create a broadcast receiver that will handle

the messages and registration.

How the Application Works

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Example Manifest

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Handling the Registration (or Unregistering)

•Registration / Registration Updates and Unregistering.

•Registration is generally on app start up.

•Be nice and allow your users to unregister from the push

notification service

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Example Receiver

More at: http://bit.ly/bxOoMO towards end of article.

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•Some limitations

200K messages per day by default; use them wisely however you

may request more.

1K message payload maximum.

You must implement incremental back off.

Implementing a Server

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How the Server Works

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Using Zend_Mobile_Push_C2dm

Apple Push Notifications A brief walk-through on implementing notifications on the

iPhone.

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• The maximum size allowed for a notification payload is 256

bytes.

• It allows third-party application servers to send lightweight

messages to their iPhone/iPad applications.

•Apple makes no guarantees about delivery or the order of

messages.

•An application on an iPhone/iPad device doesn’t need to be

running to receive messages.

•Message adheres to strict JSON but is abstracted away for us in

how we will be using it today.

•Messages should be sent in batches.

•A feedback service must be listened to.

Understanding APNS

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•You must create a SSL certificate and key from the

provisioning portal

•After this is completed the provisioning profile will need to

be utilized for the application.

•Lastly, you will need to install the certificate and key on the

server.

In this case; you will be making a pem certificate.

Preparing to Implement Apple Push Notifications

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Anatomy of the Application

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•Registration

The application calls the registerForRemoteNotificationTypes:

method.

The delegate implements the

application:didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken:

method to receive the device token.

It passes the device token to its provider as a non-object, binary

value.

•Notification

By default this just works based on the payload; for syncing you

would implement this on the launch.

How the Application Works

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Example of Handling Registration

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Example of Handling Remote Notification

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•Some Limitations

Don’t send too many through at a time; meaning around 100K

• Every once in a while use a usleep

Max payload is 256 bytes

Implementing the Server

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How the Server Works

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Using Zend_Mobile_Push_Apns

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Using Zend_Mobile_Push_Apns Feedback

Microsoft Push Notifications Well, I am not certain if they will find the market share yet

but hey; some people need to build apps for it!

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• It allows third-party application servers to send lightweight

messages to their Windows Mobile applications.

•Microsoft makes no guarantees about delivery or the order of

messages. (See a pattern yet?)

•3 types of messages: Tile, Toast or Raw

•Limitations:

One push channel per app, 30 push channels per device, additional

adherence in order to send messages

3K Payload, 1K Header

•http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff402537.aspx

Understanding MPNS

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•Upload a TLS certificate to Windows Marketplace

The Key-Usage value of the TLS certificate must be set to include

client authentication.

The Root Certificate Authority (CA) of the certificate must be one

of the CAs listed at: SSL Root Certificates for Windows Phone.

Stays authenticated for 4 months.

Set Service Name to the Common Name (CN) found in the

certificate's Subject value.

Install the TLS certificate on your web service and enable HTTP

client authentication.

Preparing to Implement MPNS

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Anatomy of MPNS

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Registering for Push

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Implementing the Callbacks for Notifications

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Using Zend_Mobile_Push_Mpns Raw Messages

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Using Zend_Mobile_Push_Mpns Toast Messages

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Using Zend_Mobile_Push_Mpns Tile Messages

BlackBerry Push Notifications Are these even going to be needed in another year?

I keep thinking about adding them in; but I am completely

unsure if they work…

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• It allows third-party application servers to send lightweight

messages to their BlackBerry applications.

•Allows a whopping 8K or the payload

•Uses WAP PAP 2.2 as the protocol

•Mileage may vary…

Understanding BlackBerry Push

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Anatomy of BB Push

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•They have a “Sample” but it is deep within their Push SDK.

Many of which are pre-compiled.

Documentation is hard to follow and the sample isn’t exactly

straight forward:

• Install the SDK then go to BPSS/pushsdk-low-level/sample-push-

enabled-app/ and unzip sample-push-enabled-app-1.1.0.16-sources.jar

Since I do not touch blackberry; or have the desire, I would ensure

the library works for people that want it; just help me test it!

Application Code

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•You need to register with BlackBerry and have all of the

application details ready to go:

https://www.blackberry.com/profile/?eventId=8121

•Download the PHP library:

Updated to be OO; non-tested and a bit sloppy:

https://github.com/mwillbanks/BlackBerryPush

Original source: http://bit.ly/nfbHXp

Preparing to Implement

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•Be aware… this code is highly alpha – never been tested.

• If you do use BlackBerry push messages; please connect

with me so that I can include this in the Zend_Mobile_Push

component.

Implementing BB Push w/ PHP

Moving on… The future, resources and the end!

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•ZF 2

If / when this library makes it into ZF 1.x; I will be working on it

for 2.x. My first focus is ensuring it’s successful addition to ZF 1.x.

I have some code for the 2.x version but some minor refactoring is

due to fit the new model.

•BlackBerry

Who knows where they will end up. All I know is that developing

for it seems painful and the documentation is certainly not what I

would like to see.

There is a large need for a quality implementation but at the same

point developers are not highly interested in their platform.

Next steps

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• Main Sites

Apple Push Notifications:

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/NetworkingInternet/Con

ceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/Introduction/Introduction.html

Google C2DM (Android): http://code.google.com/android/c2dm/

Microsoft Push Notifications: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-

us/library/ff402558(v=vs.92).aspx

BlackBerry Push Notifications:

http://us.blackberry.com/developers/platform/pushapi.jsp

• Push Clients:

Zend_Mobile: https://github.com/mwillbanks/Zend_Mobile

BlackBerry: https://github.com/mwillbanks/BlackBerryPush

• Might be broken but at least better than what I found anywhere else

Resources

Questions? These slides will be posted to SlideShare after the meetup.

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/mwillbanks

Twitter: mwillbanks

G+: Mike Willbanks

IRC (freenode): lubs

Blog: http://blog.digitalstruct.com