iPhone Push Notifications

Question

I have a iPhone app that uses Push Notifications. My understanding of how this works is I need the "Device Token" of each iPhone before I can send a notification.

Using the test iPhones I have, I can obtain the Device Token from the xcode interface and store them in a data table which the Push Notification PHP script uses to send the notifications.

How do I send the Push Notifications to iPhones that install the app of which I do not know the Device Token ID.

I think my question is; do I need the Device Tokens before I can sent a notification to a iPhone.

If I do require the Device Token, how do I obtain it from iPhones using my app.

Answer 1

You can't receive any Push Notification with the Simulator.

You don't directly send a notification. You said to Apple's servers that there is a notification for this Device Token. Then iPhones themselves will ask automatically to receive push notifications is some are available.

To answer to your question : Yes you do. Without the Device Token you can't register your notification to Apple's server. Then you have to implement this register the device to get the DeviceToken:

- (void)application:(UIApplication *)app didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken:(NSData *)devToken

Answer 2

Here is you should look up == Push Notification Programming Guide

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)app {
   // other setup tasks here....
    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerForRemoteNotificationTypes:(UIRemoteNotificationTypeBadge | UIRemoteNotificationTypeSound)];
}

// Delegation methods
- (void)application:(UIApplication *)app didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken:(NSData *)devToken {
    const void *devTokenBytes = [devToken bytes];
    self.registered = YES;
    [self sendProviderDeviceToken:devTokenBytes]; // custom method
}

- (void)application:(UIApplication *)app didFailToRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithError:(NSError *)err {
    NSLog(@"Error in registration. Error: %@", err);
}

See the code from apple Local and Push Notification Programming Guide , first you have to call registerForRemoteNotificationTypes in your app, and then in two delegates, you can get dev token or not, this token is from APNS, so when you get it, you will send it to your service to store it. And you can't get a device token from simulator.

Your push notification service will have to use the device token to send notification to your app, so you will definitely need it. In additional, you will have to get SSL certificates from apple dev center, that requires an valid paid developer ID of iOS.

For more information, please check Push Notification Programming Guide , and it's a great help. Furthermore, I tried this PHP library to test push notification service, and it's good, you can just find its unit test, and paste the device token there, and run it, you will get message from it.

sly/notification-pusher