PAPER A PROPOSED SYSTEM FOR PUSH MESSAGING ON ANDROID A Proposed System for Push Messaging on Android http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v10i3.5567 Rasha el Stohy1, Nashaat el Khamesy 2 and Haitham el Ghareeb1 1 El Mansoura University, El Mansoura, Egypt 2 Sadat Academy for Management Sciences, Cairo, Egypt Abstract—Rapid proliferation of mobile computing technol- Message Service [GSM-SMS], SIPMESSAGE ogy has massive potential for enhancing the interactions [RFC3428], or OMA Push [OMA-PUSH]), or via brows- between different partners in educational institutions, par- er-specific methods [4].A significant character of mobile ticularly in schools. However, how communicating with push services is the real-time notifications to subscribers parents via applications anytime anywhere is quite a chal- based on current contexts such as identity, location, status lenging demand. On the other hand, the addressed success as well as emotions. However, implementation of mobile of the supporting Android features provides a good candi- push notifications has proved challenging due to some date to aid applications with real time information. Moreo- reasons such as they require a third party service like ver the Android platforms supports efficiently customizable Apple or Google for their implementation[4]. notifications, which allow applications based on Google In this research, we focused on push notification service Cloud Messaging (GCM) to specify the pushed events. In on Android (PNS) because it is an important aspect for this paper, we look at different push messaging alternatives application developers, Unlike SMS and Bluetooth; PNS available for Android. Push messaging provides an im- are free and have no coverage problem. Push messaging in portant aspect of server to device communication, and we specifically focus on the integration of cloud computing with many situations is a vital aspect of the usability and func- mobile devices through the use of push-based technologies. tionality of an application. As stated by Gartner [5], the The paper presents a proposed notification system; ToPar- popularity of android Platform means that this area of ent, that actively provide alerts and messaging between research highlights challenges that affect a considerable parents and schools. Also, we investigate the performance of amount of software developers. In addition to the good the two relevant push technologies for the Android devices, support of GCM and third party application server which push notification service (PNS) and the short messaging ser- promise high reliability and excellent performance, an- vice(SMS) .The proposed system was implemented using droid is an open platform which provides a good candidate Eclipse. The system has been tested and validated. Evalua- to reuse its components and easier in programming [4]. tion have proven that the proposed ToParent enabled better Accordingly, in this paper, our contribution exposes on efficiency, which satisfy both parties; parents and school proposing a new type of a mobile application that utilizes administrations. (PNS) and (SMS) in Android. The proposed system has been designed and implemented using Eclipse integrated Index Terms—Mobile Computing, Android Systems, Push with third party services. Our proposed Toparent system is Notifications, Real-time Information. for informing parents of their school updating messages, real-time news, and emergency messages. I. INTRODUCTION This novel is good for parents, administration and ser- As the society increasingly becomes dependent on vice providers. Parents would subscribe to get the infor- technology, schools are investing more time and money in mation as soon as it is available with minimum power technological means of communication [1]. Although consumption, and service providers would like to enable mobile technologies are vital in facilitating parental in- push service with minimum network bandwidth consump- volvement in schools, the cost involved in the technolo- tion, that administration need minimum communication gies have led to a lack of cell phone used in school admin- cost. istration. Mobile push notifications are an important fea- A comparison between the two technologies-PNS and ture of mobile application and have been widely applied SMS- has been introduced at the end of this paper in re- due to the offered of mobile computing services [2]. The gards of efficiency and cost. most commonly used mobile applications such as Face- This paper organized as follows: the rest of this section book; hang out, a system like Tinder, instant messaging explores the related applications, Android push messaging systems including WeChat were all implemented using and related techniques, section 3 introduce the proposed mobile push notifications [3]. Other supporting services system architecture and functions section 4 clearly evalu- including weather, traffic and travel services were also set ate the proposed system experimentally and a comparison up using mobile push notifications to deliver real-time, between the used techniques is conducted. Lastly, section sensitive and personalized content to users. 5 concludes the study by offering some key points focused There are various technologies that can be used to de- on in other sections. velop a notification service, Push notifications may be delivered via various methods including standardized protocols (e.g. Server-Sent Events [SSE], the GSM Short iJIM ‒ Volume 10, Issue 3, 2016 29 PAPER A PROPOSED SYSTEM FOR PUSH MESSAGING ON ANDROID II. RELATED WORKS A. Push notification service(PNS) There is a diverse collection of work related to the in- Push service is a featured service that is gaining more vestigation of the influence of computing approaches in and more popularity. It allows third-party application push notifications. Applications can use notifications to servers to actively send data to their installed applications greatly improve user's experience. For instance, an email even if the installed application is currently not running. application might notify a user when new message arrive. To utilize the push service, the application vendor has to A news reader application might notify a user when there register at the service provider (e.g., Google and Apple). are new articles to read, a game might notify a user when However, the push service provider has no knowledge a friend has signed in or sent, an invitation to play or beat- about the contents of distributed message. Data distributed en a high score, and a weather application might notify a through the push service are messages that the vendor user of weather, Alerts. A stock market application might server wants to notify about. Depending on handling notify the user when certain stock price targets are met method defined in the installed application, the pushed [4]. data may or may not be displayed directly on the screen as The push messaging is researched across a wide variety notifications [14]. One popular push services provided of domains; Joseph paper [6] contributes in m-government include the Android Cloud to Device Messaging Frame- literature and provides insights on the user perceptions of work (C2DM) for Android, the Black-Berry Push Essen- m-government for emergency notifications. His study also tials and Push Plus for BlackBerry OS, the Apple Push has collaboration for all levels of government including Notification Service for iOS, and the Microsoft Push Noti- state, local, and federal. He concluded that mobile tech- fication Service for Windows Phone [15]. In the first two nology which has grown in the public domain advances services on Android and Blackberry, pushed data general- the goal of using information and communications tech- ly are used for data distribution. While, in the last two nologies (ICTs) to benefit human well-being. services on iOS and Windows Phone, pushed data are specifically for notification and can be displayed directly In Bhoi[7] android based child tracking system, he fo- via the local notification service. Despite the differences cused on tracking of child's movement to and from school. in design and implementation, notification services on A particular area was defined for each child separately, so existing smartphone platforms can be classified into three if child is moved outside of define area; an alert message types: will be given to parents. In addition if child is crying, an alert message will be sent to parents. The panic switch is 1. Pop-up Notification: notifies the user by popping up provided at child module which can be easily used by a notification dialog on screen, e.g., the toast Notifi- child to alert his parents. Because of these powerful op- cation on Android and Dialog Notification on tions, parents own tool to keep the observation on their BlackBerry OS. child even when they can't physically see them. 2. Status Bar Notification: adds a notification view as a In work more closed to ours using C2DM technology, status bar at the top of screen, e.g., message List on Minstrel [8] has been developed as push-based messaging BlackBerry OS 7, Status Bar Notification on An- system. droid, and the Notification Center on iOS. His system utilizes the standard push messaging library 3. Icon Notification: shows notification by making for Android, which is called Cloud to Device Messaging changes on the icon of a sender application in the (C2DM); subscribers must register at the content publisher main menu, e.g., the Badge notification on iOS and the Icon Update function on BlackBerry OS [14]. to receive the messages. In similar research, the Bakabs application has been We will focus on the push service on Android as an ex- created for Android and iOS, Paniagua et al. [9] used ample to demonstrate the application of push service using C2DM and the Apple Push Notification Service (APNS) local notification service and the latest service called to implement push messaging. His application targets to google cloud messaging (GCM) for a status bar and pop provide a management tool that allows retrieving infor- up notification. mation about the web application traffic and then launch B.