How to properly implement mobile push notifications and how to scale them big? What technologies and infrastructure is needed? Check out these slides from #mDevTalk by Avast, Etnetera and Ackee to find out.

2. PETR DVOŘÁK
CEO at Lime

3. Push notifications.
The big way.

4. Should be part of every app.
Are not part of every app.
Are simple when done simple.
Mostly, they are pretty hard.
Push notifications

5. Why?

6. Users who opt in to push messages averaged 3x more
app launches than those who opted out.
— Localytics

7. 65% of users returned to an app in the 30 days after
the app’s initial download, if they have push enabled.
— Localytics

8. Forced social login
Privacy concerns
Intrusive ads
Bad UI/UX
Freezing
Complex sign-up
Annoying notifications
0 20 40 60 80
71%
68%
48%
42%
29%
23%
19%
Top 7 reasons why people uninstall mobile apps
Source: Appiterate Survey, as % of all respondent (each respondent picked 3 reasons)

9. Personalized and relevant content.
Delivered in the right time.
Spamming users results in uninstalls.
Test, measure, improve.
Automate engagement.
When it works?

10. Utility & Finance
Taxi & Ride sharing
Travel & Hospitality
Sport
Food & Beverage
Media
Social
Retail & e-commerce
0 10 20 30 40
11%
13%
19%
25%
26%
29%
30%
40%
Push notification engagement by industry
Source: Kahuna

11. In 2015, 49.8% of app users opted in to receiving
push notifications. In 2014, it was 52.0%.
— Localytics

12. Soft on-boarding, trust …

13. Implementation topics

14. APNs / GCM
Provider

15. 1. Register device at APNs and provider.
2. Identify (or segment) users.
3. Send push notifications.
4. Analyze data.
5. Remove unused devices.
What needs to be done?

16. Device registration

17. Registration
APNs
Provider
1. Ask for APNs token.
2. Get APNs token
3. Send APNs token to provider

18. APNs token
User identifier
Push notification settings
User demographics
User location
… and much more :-)
Data sent to provider

19. - (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)app
didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {
UIUserNotificationType types = UIUserNotificationTypeBadge |
UIUserNotificationTypeSound | UIUserNotificationTypeAlert;
UIUserNotificationSettings *set =
[UIUserNotificationSettings settingsForTypes:types
categories:nil];
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerUserNotificationSettings:set];
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerForRemoteNotifications];
}
AppDelegate.m
Register for remote notifications

20. - (void)application:(UIApplication *)app
didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken:(NSData *)devToken {
self.registered = YES;
[self sendProviderDeviceToken:devToken]; // custom method
}
- (void)application:(UIApplication *)app
didFailToRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithError:(NSError *)err {
NSLog(@"Error in registration. Error: %@", err);
}
AppDelegate.m
Register for remote notifications

21. Sending notifications

22. Send push notifications
APNs
Provider
1. Decide to send push
2. Send payload and APNs token
3. Deliver the push message

23. Push notification payload
{
"aps" : {
"alert" : {
"title" : "Hello there!",
"body" : "It has been a while."
}
}
}
Maximum payload length is 4096 bytes.

24. Ehm… security?
Push Certificate (*.pem, *.p12)

28. $ openssl pkcs12 -in apns-dev-cert.p12
-out apns-dev-cert.pem -nodes -clcerts

29. Provider code

30. $pushManager = new PushManager(PushManager::ENVIRONMENT_DEV);
$apnsAdapter = new ApnsAdapter(array(
'certificate' => '/path/to/your/apns-certificate.pem',
));
$devices = new DeviceCollection(array(
new Device('???????')
));
$message = new Message('Hello guys!');
$push = new Push($apnsAdapter, $devices, $message);
$pushManager->add($push);
$pushManager->push();
Send push notifications

31. Application code

32. - (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)app
didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {
UILocalNotification *remoteNotif =
launchOptions objectForKey:UIApplicationLaunchOptionsRemoteNotificationKey];
NSDictionary *userInfo = remoteNotif.userInfo;
}
- (void) application:(UIApplication *)application
didReceiveRemoteNotification:(NSDictionary *)userInfo {
}
Handle push notifications

33. Feedback service

34. Feedback service
APNs
Provider
1. Request expired tokens
2. Expired token list
3. Delete tokens

35. $pushManager = new PushManager(PushManager::ENVIRONMENT_DEV);
$apnsAdapter = new ApnsAdapter(array(
'certificate' => '/path/to/your/apns-certificate.pem',
));
$feedback = $pushManager->getFeedback($apnsAdapter);
// $feedback contains collection of [device_token, timestamp] pairs
Clean up device tokens

36. Silent push notifcation
Interactive actions
Localization
Badge number
Custom sound
Extras

37. Scaling big

38. User management - fast segmentation… by what?
Delivery time - 100k devices x 4096 … 1M devices?
Multiple apps - Reusing the push server
Hardware and infrastructure
Engineering - project grows big, multiple platforms
Dimensions of scaling

39. APNS / GCM
Provider

40. APNs
Provider
(business logic)
GCM
SDK SDK
APP KEY
App Management Service
Device Registration Service
User Segmentation Service
Analytics Data Service
APNS Node GCM Node
APP KEYAPP KEY

41. 1. Create campaign object
2. Select the audience
3. Send notifications
4. Collect analytics
Campaign planning

42. APNs
Provider
(business logic)
GCM
SDK SDKApp Management Service
Device Registration Service
User Segmentation Service
Analytics Data Service
MongoDBMongoDBMongoDB
APNS Node GCM Node
N instances
Partitioning

43. APNs GCM
SDK SDK
API, admin, workers

44. IBM Bluemix - price, HW scaling, connectivity, …
MongoDB - performance, queries, … (Compose)
Node.js - for “nodes”, speed, efficiency, …
RESTful API - standards, easy to work with, … (PHP, Nette)
Server Technologies at Lime

45. Device registration
Push notification processing
UI Features
User profile synchronization
Location monitoring
Analytics
Lime - Mobile SDK

46. - (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)app didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:
(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {
LimeEngate *lime = [LimeEngage sharedInstance];
[lime startFetchingContextForApplicationKey:@"app_8cb31c49a46df1fea11"];
[lime handleRemoteNotificationInfo:[launchOptions
objectForKey:UIApplicationLaunchOptionsRemoteNotificationKey]];
return YES;
}
Set up Lime SDK

47. - (void) application:(UIApplication *)application
didReceiveRemoteNotification:(NSDictionary *)userInfo {
LimeEngage *lime = [LimeEngage sharedInstance];
[lime handleRemoteNotificationInfo:userInfo];
}
Handle notifications

48. LimeEngage *lime = [LimeEngage sharedInstance];
lime.currentUser.internalId = @"4378924";
lime.currentUser.name = @"Jan";
lime.currentUser.surname = @"Novak";
lime.currentUser.sex = @"male";
[lime synchronizeCurrentUser];
Update user info

49. Demo

54. Open-source
04/2016

55. Thank you! :)
@joshis_tweets http://getlime.io/

56. WWW.MDEVTALK.CZ
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