Push Notification helps you in sending events and alerts to your App users even when they are offline to the App. App42 uses APNS (Apple Push Notification Service) to send Push Notification on iOS devices. Here are few easy steps to integrate App42 Push Notification Service in iOS Apps and Games. Check out our website http://api.shephertz.com

1. Push Notification Service

2. Push Notifications
Message
Pop-Up
Increase User
Engagement
Latest
Updates
Calendar Events

3. Benefits of Push Notification
Increases user-engagement
e.g. In a turn-based game like Tic-Tac-Toe, it can notify a user of his turn (suppose
he gets a phone call in between and forgets that he was playing!!)
Allows to send messages to users even when the app is not running; thus helps in
reminding them of your App
Helps to build a fan community around your game by pushing to a targeted
audience – like your regular gamers
Allows an App to notify its users of new events without needing to actually open it,
i.e. by a sound or a screen pop up

4. App42 Push Notification supports
Coming Soon!!
&

5. Why App42 Push Notification?
Our Push Notification API can be used to send crossplatform push messages to devices running on iOS,
Android and Windows Phone with a single API call
No infrastructure & scalability worries
• Send Image/Text/URLs text-based Push Notifications
• Send messages in Channel Subscription Mode
• Send Scheduled Push as per Time-Zone
Push Analytics
• Analyze your Push Campaign with App42 Analytics
• Evaluate the number of Push messages sent, delivered
and opened.

6. Creating a channel & scheduling
Push messages through AppHQ

7. Push Analytics
A very useful feature that can track:

How many Push Notifications were sent from your side

How many were delivered, and

Push Notification Campaign
How many users opened the message
31%
100%
Sent
Delivered
Opened
These analytics can be viewed from our AppHQ console.
74%
Why Push Analytics?
When you use our Push Notification Service, each Push goes from the App42 server to
GCM/APNS/MPNS and then to the user device.
• Delivery of Push Notification is not guaranteed even from the service provider
• Once delivered, there might be a chance that user just clears it without opening the message
Thus, Analytics gives you a better insight of your Push Notification campaign.

8. Integrating with iOS

9. 10 steps to PUSH
First create a certificate from iOS Dev Center. (Visit tutorial: http://app42.sh/12dpgQW)
Install the.cer file, which was downloaded in the above step.
Convert the iPhone developer certificate into a .p12 file:
•
Go to Applications/Utilities folder > Keychain Access application folder > Keys category
•
Select the private key associated with your iPhone Development Certificate (The private key is
identified by the iPhone Developer as: public certificate that is paired with it).
•
Select File > Export Items
•
Save your key in the (.p12) format.
•
You will be prompted to create a password which will be used when you will attempt to import this
key on another computer.

10. Contd..
Make your .p12 file compatible with App42 server:
•
Keep your .cer file and .p12 file in a single folder
•
Open terminal and go to the folder that has both the files.
shephertz-technologiess-iMac:~ shephertztechnologies$ cd "your folder path"
•
Now execute the following commands in the terminal:
1 openssl x509 -in developer_identity.cer -inform DER -out developer_identity.pem -outform PEM
2 openssl pkcs12 -nocerts -in yourPrivateKey.p12 -out yourPrivateKey.pem
3 openssl pkcs12 -export -inkey yourPrivateKey.pem -in developer_identity.pem -out iphone_dev.p12
Where,
- developer_identity.cer <= certificate you downloaded from Apple
- yourPrivateKey.p12
<= your private key

11. Contd..
Upload iphone_dev.p12 file to the AppHQ console:
Open your Xcode project and navigate to the
AppDelegate.m class and change the
application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method
to look like this:
1 - (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
2 {
3
// Let the device know we want to receive push notifications
4
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerForRemoteNotificationTypes:
5
(UIRemoteNotificationTypeBadge | UIRemoteNotificationTypeSound | UIRemoteNotificationTypeAlert)];
6
return YES;
7 }
The above code tells the OS that this App wants to receive push notifications.

12. Contd..
Add the following delegate methods in your AppDelegate.m in order to receive pushes:
1 - (void)application:(UIApplication*)application didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken:(NSData*)deviceToken
2 {
3
NSLog(@"My token is: %@", deviceToken);
4
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// Prepare the Device Token for Registration (remove spaces and &lt;
&gt;)
6
NSString *devToken = [[[[deviceToken description]
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stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"&lt;"withString:@""] stringBy
ReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"&gt;" withString:@""]
stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString: @" " withString: @""];
NSLog(@"My Device token is: %@", devToken);
}
- (void)application:(UIApplication*)application didFailToRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithError:(NSError*)error
{
NSLog(@"Failed to get token, error: %@", error);
}
When your App registers for remote (push) notifications, it tries to obtain a “device token”
(a 32-byte address of your device).

13. Contd..
Now register your device with the App42 Server. Change the delegate method
application:didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken: in the AppDelegate.m class to look like this:
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- (void)application:(UIApplication*)application didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken:(NSData*)deviceToken
{ NSLog(@"My token is: %@", deviceToken);
// Prepare the Device Token for Registration (remove spaces and &lt; &gt;)
NSString *devToken = [[[[deviceToken description]
5 stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"&lt;"withString:@""] stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"&gt;" withString:@""]
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stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString: @" " withString: @""];
NSLog(@"My Device token is: %@", devToken);
/** * Register the device token for App42 Push notification services */
[self registerUserForPushNotificationToApp42Cloud:devToken];
}
-(void)registerUserForPushNotificationToApp42Cloud:(NSString*)deviceToken
{ ServiceAPI *serviceObj = [[ServiceAPI alloc]init];
serviceObj.apiKey = APP42_APP_KEY;
serviceObj.secretKey = APP42_SECRET_KEY;
PushNotificationService *pushObj = [serviceObj buildPushService];
@try
{ PushNotification *pushNotification =[pushObj registerDeviceToken:deviceToken withUser:@"User Name"];
[pushNotification release]; }
@catch (App42Exception *exception)
{ NSLog(@"%@",exception.reason); }
@finally
{ [serviceObj release];
[pushObj release]; }
}

14. Contd..
Now to send a Push Notification, call the following method in a commonly used class in your
project so that you can call this whenever you want to:
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-(void)sendPush:(NSString*)message
{
ServiceAPI *serviceObj = [[ServiceAPI alloc]init];
serviceObj.apiKey = APP42_APP_KEY;
serviceObj.secretKey = APP42_SECRET_KEY;
PushNotificationService *pushObj = [serviceObj buildPushService];
@try
{ NSMutableDictionary *pushDictionary = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
[pushDictionary setObject:message forKey:@"alert"];
[pushDictionary setObject:@"default" forKey:@"sound"];
[pushDictionary setObject:@"1" forKey:@"badge"];
12 PushNotification *pushNotification = [pushObj sendPushMessageToUser:@"User Name" withMessageDictionary: pushDictionary];
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[pushNotification release]; }
@catch (App42Exception *exception)
{ NSLog(@"%@",exception.reason); }
@finally
{ [serviceObj release];
[pushObj release]; }
}

15. Contd..
The pushDictionary in the above code should always follow the same structure as mentioned
above to deliver the push notification successfully using App42 Server.
•
You can remove or add the items to the pushDictionary if needed as per the Apple guidelines.
•
If you want to take any actions when you receive push notification then you need to add the
following delegate method in the AppDelegate.m class:
1 - (void)application:(UIApplication *)application didReceiveRemoteNotification:(NSDictionary *)userInfo
2 {
3 NSLog(@"%s..userInfo=%@",__FUNCTION__,userInfo);
4 /** * Dump your code here according to your requirement after receiving push */
5 }
•
With the above mentioned step, your App has been successfully set up to receive/send Push
Notifications through our App42 Server using App42 Push Notification Service.

16. IT IS THAT SIMPLE!!!

17. Some useful links
Getting Started:
Downloads:
Quick Start Guide
App42 Cloud SDKs
Sign-up for Free
App 42 Modules
Game Development Center
Blogs:
Concepts:
Why BaaS?
Backend as a Service
Push Notification for iOS
Massive Multiplayer Gaming Engine
Push Notification for Android
App Analytics
Real-time Multiplayer Games using Unity3D
Integrating Facebook in your Android App
Products:
Making a Turn-based Game
App42 Cloud APIs - BaaS
Using Query Interface
AppWarp – Multiplayer Gaming Engine
When to use NoSQL?
AppHQ – Management Console
Add ‘Social’ to your Game
AppHawk – Project Management Tool
AppClay – Custom App Builder

18. Links for Reference :
http://www.shephertz.com
http://api.shephertz.com
http://appwarp.shephertz.com
http://app42paas.shephertz.com
Contact: sales@shephertz.com
Skype: ShepHertz
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