Android Push Notification Service and C2DM

Apple has support push notification since iOS 3.0
But what about Android??
Android can do this using a long-polling service or keep connected to server.
There are implementations of Android push notification.

1. Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM) official service by Google
2. AndriodPN at http://sourceforge.net/projects/androidpn/files/
3. Urban Airship Service
4. IBM's MQTT



(1) Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM)
 Recently, I noticed that Android has announced push notification service called Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM) since May 2010.

How to make it work ? check this: C2DM Implementation Checklist Step by Step

One example is the Chrome to Phone extension.
the flow of registration and message-sending is similar to Apple push notification.

I will go into some detail in next post.
To send C2DM messag, you must first check this How to Get C2DM ClientLogin Token

more info on the C2DM home page

(2) AndriodPN is an open-source project at googlecode
It's a xmpp based notification server and a client tool kit.
Also includes a demo app.

(3)Urban Airship
I knew Urban Airship when I used Apple Push Notification.
It's a good solution to implement your push service without buying or renting a server. For the device without C2DM, it use a urban airship helper app to communication with it's server.

It has many nice features.

• Cross platform messaging, iOS/Android/Blackberry
• Customized Messaging
• Customer Control
• ...

check this link for details:http://urbanairship.com/products/push-notifications/


(4)IBM's MQTT
There is an implementation by Dale Lane : Using MQTT in Android mobile applications
It creates a Service and keeps persistent TCP/IP connection with server.
one example: http://tokudu.com/2010/how-to-implement-push-notifications-for-android/

more reading materials:

• Android Cloud To Device Messaging
• Java Android Tutorials: Power your mobile apps with android push notification (C2DM)
• Urban Airship Brings Easy Push Notifications To Android