Chapter 10. Sending Notifications

You need to keep your users informed of the fantastic new feature that you have added to your website. Or you want to tell them that their favorite band is appearing in town tonight. Push notifications when used correctly will significantly increase the use of your app and help to retain your user base. This chapter will show you how to make best use of them.

Push notifications were first introduced with iOS 3 as a way to extend battery life of devices. Battery life was being used up by applications which needed to keep checking for new information, such as sports apps checking for the latest scores. Prior to iOS 3 these apps would have to poll a server to check if there was any new information, this would use up battery life and network allowance. Push notifications changed all that.

Now notifications could be sent to devices via Apple Push Notification Service (APNS), which would deliver them to devices. Apps would no longer have to poll for new information...