Mobile: for push and sync. Goes through implementing push notifications with PHP on the various 4 major players: Android (C2DM), Apple (APNS), Windows Phone (MPNS), BlackBerry (maybe works?).

1. Mobile: Push for
Sync & Notifications
By Mike Willbanks
Software Engineering Manager
CaringBridge

2. About Mike…
• Software Engineering Manager at CaringBridge
• Open Source Contributor
• Organizer of MNPHP
• Where you can find me:
 Twitter: mwillbanks
 G+: Mike Willbanks
 IRC (freenode): lubs
 Blog: http://blog.digitalstruct.com
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3. Agenda
• Overview of Push Notifications
• Android Push Notifications (C2DM)
• Apple Push Notifications (APNS)
• Microsoft Push Notifications
• BlackBerry Push Notifications
• Questions
 Although you can bring them up at anytime!
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4. Overview
What are they?
What is the benefit?
High level; how do these things work?

5. What Are They
• 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.
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6. In Pictures…
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7. 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!

8. One word… Battery Life
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9. Impact of Polling
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10. Battery Life
• 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.
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11. Can We Deliver?
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12. Delivery
• 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.
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13. How These Things Work
The 10,000 foot view.

14. 10,000 Foot View of C2DM
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15. 10,000 Foot View of APNS
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16. 10,000 Foot View of Windows Push
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17. 10,000 Foot View of who?
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18. Oh, that’s right Blackberry!
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19. Walking Through Android
Understanding C2DM
Anatomy of a Message
Pushing Messages
Displaying Items on the Client

20. Understanding C2DM
• 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)
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21. Registering for C2DM
• 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; if you use get a
new Amazon Kindle Fire it would not work there.
• We will be utilizing a library based on ZF
 https://github.com/mwillbanks/Zend_Service_Google_C2dm
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22. Anatomy of the Mobile App
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23. How the Application Works
• We must update the Manifest file to state additional
permissions.
• We will then create a broadcast receiver that will handle
the messages and registration.
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24. Example Manifest
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25. 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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26. Example Receiver
More at: http://bit.ly/bxOoMO towards end of article.
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27. Implementing a Server
• Enough Java already; it is a PHP conference!
• Implementing the actual server is quick and pain free…
 At least in my opinion (I did build this PHP implementation of
C2DM)
• 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.
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28. How the Server Works
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29. Using Zend_Service_Google_Gdata
• Example is on GitHub:
https://github.com/mwillbanks/Zend_Service_Google_C2dm
 Code was a little too large to attempt to fit it into a slide 
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30. Apple Push Notifications
A brief walk-through on implementing notifications on the
iPhone.

31. Understanding APNS
• 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.
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32. Preparing to Implement Apple Push Notifications
• 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.
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33. Anatomy of the Application
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34. How the Application Works
• 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.
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35. Example of Handling Registration
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36. Example of Handling Remote Notification
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37. Implementing the Server
• Phew, through the Objective C.
• We will be leveraging APNS-PHP for this example as it
encompasses everything you will need to be able to send
notifications.
• http://code.google.com/p/apns-php/
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38. How the Server Works
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39. Example APNS-PHP Server
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40. Example APNS-PHP Feedback Loop
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41. 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!

42. Understanding MPNS
• 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
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43. Preparing to Implement MPNS
• 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.
• We will be using the following PHP class for this:
http://phpwindowsphonepush.codeplex.com/
43  Certainly not the most beautiful code but it works.

44. Anatomy of MPNS
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45. Registering for Push
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46. Implementing the Callbacks for Notifications
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47. Implementing the Server
• Real easy, real fast and a simple class…
 I’m not too fond on the code to repeat myself but it would be easy
to clean up 
 http://phpwindowsphonepush.codeplex.com/
• Pretty much nothing else left to do but show you the
options!
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48. Example Implementing MPNS w/ PHP
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49. BlackBerry Push Notifications
Are these even going to be needed in another year?

50. Understanding BlackBerry Push
• 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…
 Only a sample php push server has ever been published.
 Looks to be mainly for the Browser: http://bit.ly/fYl6rr
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51. Anatomy of BB Push
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52. Application Code
• 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
• You will see several areas to get the push notifications going… Let’s
take a look.
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53. Preparing to Implement
• 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
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54. Implementing BB Push w/ PHP
• Be aware… this code is highly alpha – never been tested.
• Let me know how it goes… Will be refactoring it and testing
it in the future.
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55. Moving Forward
• ZF 2
 I am looking as time permits to contribute implementations of the
4 big players push notification implementations to Zend
Framework. I am not sure when I will find the time but at some
point…
• 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.
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56. Resources
• 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:
 Apns-php: http://code.google.com/p/apns-php/
 ZF C2DM: https://github.com/mwillbanks/Zend_Service_Google_C2dm
 MS: http://phpwindowsphonepush.codeplex.com/
 BlackBerry: https://github.com/mwillbanks/BlackBerryPush
• Might be broken but at least better than what I found anywhere else 
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57. Questions?
Give me feedback: http://joind.in/3766
Slides will be posted at joind.in later this afternoon.