Apple deprecates legacy binary protocol based notifications
Kapil Powar, Vivin Krishnan March 16, 2020
MobileFirst_Platform MobileFirst_Foundation_push iOS
Apple Push Notification Service Update announced the following.
If you send push notifications with the legacy binary protocol, we recommend updating to the HTTP/2-based APNs provider API as soon as possible. You will be able to take advantage of great modern features such as authentication with a JSON Web Token, improved error messaging, and per-notification feedback.
The Apple Push Notification service (APNs) will no longer support the legacy binary protocol as of November 2020.
Starting with iFix 8.0.0.0-MFPF-IF201812191602-CDUpdate-04, MobileFirst Platform v8.0 supports HTTP/2 based notifications for Apple devices.
Benefits of HTTP/2 based notifications
Moving to HTTP/2 based notifications provides various benefits, which includes the following.
- Universal certificate support - Single certificate for development and production.
- Instant Feedback - For any inactive tokens, feedback is provided by APNs immediately.
- Payload size - Notification payload size increases from 2 KB to 4 KB.
- Throughput increase - Compression helps in increasing the throughput for the notifications and reduces the need for simultaneous open connections.
Enabling HTTP/2 notifications
HTTP/2 based notifications can be enabled using a JNDI property,
<jndiEntry jndiName="imfpush/mfp.push.apns.http2.enabled" value= '"true"'/>
For more information on proxy setup, please refer HTTP/2 APNs Push Notifications using Apache HTTP Server as Proxy.
Inclusive terminology note: The Mobile First Platform team is making changes to support the IBM® initiative to replace racially biased and other discriminatory language in our code and content with more inclusive language. While IBM values the use of inclusive language, terms that are outside of IBM's direct influence are sometimes required for the sake of maintaining user understanding. As other industry leaders join IBM in embracing the use of inclusive language, IBM will continue to update the documentation to reflect those changes.