Mobile App notifications while App is not Running

Application running on Android or IOS need not be running to receive on device notifications. Android provides ‘GCM’ and IOS provides ‘Apple Push’ service to send notifications to the application installed on Android and Apple mobile devices. Let us take the example of GCM to understand how it works.

Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is service provided by Google to enable delivery of notifications to applications on Android devices. GCM on android provides mechanism for unique identification of the target application to which the notification has to be delivered and communication with the application server which intends to send the notification to the mobile users.

GCM Notifications

 

For GCM implementation the device needs to be running Android 2.2 or greater with play store installed on it. For devices with less than 4.0.4 the device needs to have a signed in Google account. If the device is running 4.0.4 or higher then Google account sign-in is not required. The following credentials are required and are a part of the notification process:

• Sender ID: Used in registration to identify the delivery destination
• Application ID: The identifier of the application that registers to receive messages or notifications
• Sender Auth Token: The API key stored in the third party application server to access the Google services
• Registration ID: Helps uniquely identify the application running on the device that is supposed to receive messages/notifications
• Google account: Required for Android versions less than 4.0.4