Push notifications

Push notifications are important to engage users and provide real-time updates. They are useful to remind the user that there is an action pending. For instance, in the Qkr! app created by MasterCard, one can order food and drink in some restaurants, and if the user hasn't paid after a considerable period of time, they send a notification to remind the user that he/she needs to pay before leaving the restaurant.

They also work very well when we need to tell the user that we have new content or that other users have sent them a message. Any change that happens on the server side and requires informing the user is the perfect scenario to use notifications.

Notifications can also be sent locally from our own app; for example, we can schedule an alarm and show a notification. They don't necessarily have to be sent from a server.

They are shown at the top of the screen in the status bar, in a place called the notification area.

The minimum information required for a notification...