1. Xamarin
Seminar
Practical Push Notifications
28th February 2013

2. Introduction
Practical Push Notifications
Pierce Boggan
Software Engineering, Auburn University
Customer Support Engineer Intern
pierce@pierceboggan.com
Twitter: @pierceboggan
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3. Agenda
1. Why bother with push in the first place?
2. Identify a service that works for you and implement it.
3. Use push notifications effectively.
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4. Why Push?
1. If used correctly, it can provide value to your
application.
2. Push drives all of those awesome* analytical stats like
consecutive days used.
3. It really isn’t hard to implement, even for advanced
solutions.
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5. Platform Availability
Azure Mobile
Parse Urban Airship
Services
iOS X X X
OS X X
Android X X
Windows 8 X X X
Windows 8 Phone X X X
Blackberry X
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6. General Setup: iOS
• Enable Apple Push Notification Service (APNS)
• Export certificate as .p12
• Create a Provisioning Profile
•Development
•Distribution
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7. Usage: Parse
Advantages:
• Data, social, push, cloud code all in one service
• SDKs for many different platforms
• Parse Component from Xamarin’s Component Store
• Lots of documentation, tutorials, and samples
• Great pricing structure
• Simplistic API
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8. Urban Airship
Advantages:
• Established push notification platform
• SDKs for many different platforms
• Advanced targeting and metrics
• Lots of documentation and troubleshooting tips
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9. Azure Mobile Services
Advantages:
• Data, push, server-side scripting, and user authentication
• Azure Mobile Services Component
• Lots of documentation, video tutorials, samples
• Highly scalable
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10. Best Practices
1. Provide value.
2. Drive engagement.
3. Put the user in control.
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11. Final Remarks
•Plenty of other viable options
•PushSharp (see the Xamarin Seminar)
•Additional Reading
•Stop Abusing Push!
•10 Useful Tips for Awesome Push Notifications
•Urban Airship Whitepapers
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12. Questions?
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