Push Notifications allow receiving alerts in Smart Devices from our remote servers (web applications) even when the Smart Device applications are not running. This mechanism describes a style of communication where the request for a given transaction is initiated by the publisher or central server. It is usually contrasted with Pull comunications.
In the Smart Devices arena, this is an essential piece to create effective communication between devices and server side applications.
The basic idea is that after the Server knows which its clients are, it is able to send dedicated messages or broadcast a general message to all of them. The canonical case is an Email Client Application, which receives notifications from the server side every time a new message arrives to the Inbox.
Each Smart Devices provider has its own technology to implement this mechanism:
This is a basic diagram of all the process.
We have three main components:
- Smart Device Application, which will be the "client-side" (receiver) of the Push Notification service.
- Web Application, which will be the "server-side" (sender) of the Push Notifications.
- Push Notification Service, an external resource that provides Push Notification delivery.
Want to know how to include Push Notifications in GeneXus-generated Smart Device applications?
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