

Using iOS push notifications to provide "push this page to your iPhone" - simonw
http://lanyrd.com/blog/2012/push-to-iphone/

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simonw
I haven't seen any other apps using push notifications in this way - Tom Insam
came up with the idea based on our iOS app's extensive internal use of URLs.

The implementation is pretty simple - when a user enables push notifications
in their install of the Lanyrd iOS app we pass that token back to our server
(we actually pass the token back with every future API request as a custom
HTTP header, over SSL). The server records both the push token, the logged in
user and the user agent string sent by the app.

When a logged in user views an event page on <http://lanyrd.com/> (e.g.
<http://lanyrd.com/2012/oscon/> ) we check to see if they have any push tokens
associated with their account. If they do, we show them a "Push to your
iPhone" button - but we vary the copy and the icon depending on their user
agent string, so if they're running an iPad the button says "Push to your
iPad" instead, with a wider icon.

When they push the button, we send a custom URL to our app in a standard push
notification, along with a command to store the corresponding event in our
app's offline cache.

If the user has the Lanyrd app open, the event page is displayed instantly -
which is a pretty cool effect (click a button on a web page on your laptop,
watch the app on your phone instantly update). If they don't have the app open
they get a standard notification prompt which, when activated, will launch the
app and send it to the corresponding event page.

