How iPhone Developers Can Use Push Technology In iPhone Application Development?

IPhone developers can use push technology to their advantage because this would allow them to send content through server applications directly to apps installed on iPhone devices. This is a major technology boost that would help tremendously in outsource iPhone development. This aspect undoubtedly saves one the trouble as well as the cost associated with executing short message service (SMS) or multimedia messaging service (MMS) in different mobile messaging apps.

The fundamentals of iOS push for iPhone application development

The push requests from any iOS application needs to be authenticated through public-key certificates and therefore the first requirement is to make authentication keys and get them registered with Apple.

Subsequently, each of the device where the application is installed and chooses to get push notifications, the app needs to be identified. The following is the format through which iPhone development team will be able to know how it works:

1.Ideally an alert appears in the iOS apps that asks for the user's permission to get push notifications

2.If the user gives the permission, the iOS app then has to take an ID string from Apple Push Notification Service (APNs) that will work as an identifier for this application on this device

3.The particular iOS app then uploads the ID to the requisite server application

4.When the server application is required to send a message, it first authenticates and follows the above procedure as mentioned before specifying the message recipient

5.In case the recipient device is found online, it then receives as well as processes the message. In case of the device being offline, the message is queued and then delivered when it finds the device online.

The APNs allow the server applications to also validate the stored list of all the application IDs on a periodical basis. This does provide one a chance to remove those IDs who tend to later change their push opt-in status or delete their accounts. There are services available such as Urban Airship that iPhone developers can use that allow one to push messages without going into the hassle of running one's own server. Urban Airship provides web-based console to easily push message to the various users.

Registering the application

•In order to register the application, a pair of private or public keys for authentication needs to be created against the APNs servers. This can be done on the Mac through the Key Chain Access application. It will help the iPhone developer to develop a certificate signing-request file and this file not only contains the public-key pair but also saves the private key in the Key Chain access.

•The next step is to upload the signing-request file by logging into Apple's application portal and this is ideally connected to the provisioning profile. Once the signing request is uploaded, the portal automatically generates a digital certificate that one can download and this certificate carries the public key.

•The next step is to download and then double click on it. This particular iPhone application development process automatically imports the digital certificate and connects it with the private key that was generated.

•The key pair has to be exported to a file utilizing a format that is known as Personal Information Exchange. When this p12 file is created, Key Chain access will want iPhone developers to assign a password and one can even use an empty password.

Hence, all the API requests to the push server have to be encrypted through the private key in the p12 file and then digitally signed in the public key in the p12 file. In this way outsource iPhone development team can benefit greatly from using the iOS push technology.

For More Information:- Outsource iPhone Development || iPhone Developers

Article Source: Articlealley