5 events that show how much the role of Push-notifications in 2013 changes

Since Apple introduced Push notifications in iOS on this scene in 2008, it has been relatively quiet. The only more or less major event was the announcement of Google Cloud Messaging for Android. But until recently, he was more likely just a “trick” for most Android developers.

This year, the mobile notification ecosystem began to change rapidly and for service providers, including Parse, Urban Airship, Pusher, the time has come for a drastic change.

Here are 5 main events that will help to understand and appreciate this change, as well as foresee the immediate prospects.

1. Google and Apple presented to the public major changes in their notification services.

The Corporation of Good has made many changes to its notification service during Google I / O 2013. Among these changes are synchronization of notifications and upstream notifications, which greatly affect the user experience for the end user.
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Recently, Google has also hit the advertising model Push-notifications. At some point, the mobile notification center in Android has turned into an advertising trash, but now everything has to change.

Apple representatives also announced new features during the WWDC 2013 conference. The most important of these is the ability to truly wake up the program by sending a notification, transferring to it a part of the processor's processing power without the need for user interaction.

The problem for service providers is that they have to develop new features very quickly and focus on the constant changes in the push-API provided by each mobile OS developer.

It also means that Apple and Google notifications are becoming more and more different, with their own features and special features. Good providers of mobile backend platforms cannot implement only the smallest common set of features available in each platform. They should offer an API that allows you to use the specific features of each mobile OS. This is quite a laborious task and will require these services to continually improve and refine their platforms.

2. Push notifications - the key to modern mobile applications.

Push notifications are now recognized as the most important factor in improving battery saving in a mobile environment. Changes made by both Apple and Google make proper use of push notifications mandatory for the vast majority of mobile applications. On the face, the transition from “nice-to-have” to “must have”, if the developer builds a connection between a constantly working backend and a high-quality, convenient and economical (from the battery point of view) application on the device.

Working with background applications is one of the very important functions that will appear in IOS 7. Improving the way such applications work can really change the pattern of use of devices by end users. The push notification service is a key component for background applications, as it is the most flexible way to manage them from the server.

3. New services are launched - full cross-platform now costs more.

All established players in this market support IOS (although some decide to focus only on Android). However, besides IOS, cross-platform support is sometimes very limited even for the second platform: Google Cloud Messaging.

Today, a modern notification service should have a very wide coverage:

• Apple Support: iOS Push Notification, including new iOS 7 features.
• Google support: GCM notifications, including XMPP notifications, upstream notifications, and sync notifications.
• Support for native web applications, PhoneGap compatibility.
• Microsoft push notifications for Windows Phone
• Kindle Fire is quite popular in the US and the UK, so now it’s important to support Amazon.

Supporting a large number of push backends is becoming more and more critical, it is no longer enough to be limited to just a small part of the publicly available functions.

4. Big players like Amazon want their share of the mobile backend market.

On August 13, Amazon launched and began promoting its notification service for iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire.

This is a good move that shows how important push notifications become. You can also assume that Amazon decided to catch up with Microsoft at this step, who launched a similar service on their cloud platform Azure in 2012.

Big players greatly change the distribution of forces in this market by their aggressive pricing, as well as cross-integration with their services. If sufficiently large, but less flexible services like Parse or Urban Airship will not be able to properly rebuild the positioning of their offer, their position in this market will be under threat.

5. New niche players enter the market with competitive business models.

Due to the appearance on the market of monsters such as Azure and Amazon, it is also filled and will be filled with niche products - those who will satisfy specific cases of the use of push-notifications. And they will do it better and more flexible.
Of these categories can be identified:

• Advertising projects (which are now actively thinking about how to interact with the new terms of Google), such as Airpush or LeadBolt
• Generators of mobile applications that give and the ability to use push-notifications, for example IbuildApp , Jupitee or ShoutEm
• Push backends that work not only with mobile notifications, such as Xtify , Push.io and OpenPush
• Platforms for sending custom push-notifications (ready mobile application for receiving + API): Pushover , ProwlApp , Jeapie
• other.

Conclusion

In a relatively short period of time, push notifications from a merely important function in the mobile development infrastructure have moved into the key one. They can no longer be called solely a marketing tool or a trick to increase user engagement. They can be a harbinger of a revolution in technology using devices and building communication between a user and a modern smart device. And maybe they are just overvalued and will only be an additional intrusive channel of spam, as many skeptics think.

One thing is clear - the changes we see in the market are only the beginning. In the coming months, we will see a lot of innovations on the field of mobile notifications - both announced in advance (Windows Phone Notification Center, iOS7 presentation), and, possibly, completely unexpected.