iOS - "Simulate" Push Notifications

Question

I'm developing an application that in my head needs push notifications. It's a simple app that make something like "orders management". It works like:

• a user makes his order using his iPhone
• this order it's remotely saved using a web service
• the order "appears" to the retailer
• once the order is completed, a notification is sent to the user

So I think that I need remote notifications to build this app. But I'm not able to create certificates because my type of Apple Membership is bound with my university (Politecnico di Milano) and I haven't permissions to create ids, certificates and so on.

How can I work around my problem? A solution can be to use a separate thread to cyclically look for changes in my web service and then use a local notification?

Answer 1

The Simulator can not receive notification, however you can try to use https://github.com/acoomans/SimulatorRemoteNotifications which can simulate the fact that your app receive a notification. It basically create a tunel that you can use to send notification in your App. You will not be able to get it to work from your device or when the app is in the background.

Answer 2

there are no other ways to create a Push notification. You need to create some certificates to communicate with Apple Push Notification Server.
You can simulate something similar in app by using local notification, but it will be a sort of alarm at a specific time, useful if you want to "demo" something.
The other way as you said is poll the server at a specific interval to check if you have some pending information.
If you don't mind to spend 99$you can open your account and probably (if it is for your thesis) ask for a refund to Politecnico ( I did the same while I working for my thesis to cover some expenses).
Andrea (PoliMi Alumni)