Blogged: Coming Soon…AirBop

Comments

• farsight87

  October 2012

  Wow. Just checked out the site. This feature looks awesome. It is EXACTLY what ive been looking for to integrate into an app. I tried to sign up on airbop, but its invite only. Any chance of testing it out?
• zaineart

  November 2012

  What exactly is it? What is Push notifications and what do they do? sorry for my ignorance
  
• d4rnok

  November 2012

  Awesome feature, But we need to pay extra for it... that sucks
• turbomike

  November 2012

  Seems expensive at 24/mo. That is $288/yr. I might push 1 thing every 3mo to a handful of my 50+ apps. I feel like any more notifications than that will become a nuisance and my apps would get uninstalled. If we can get the free AirBop trial with Andromo I would give it a shot and go from there.
  
  It's essentially a very expensive text message.
• lorne

  November 2012 edited November 2012

  @turbomike:
  Yes, you will have access to the free trial with Andromo. AirBop is free for the first 1,000 devices. Push notifications can be very valuable to the apps that are able to take advantage of them.
  
  > It's essentially a very expensive text message.
  
  Actually, text messages are much more expensive than push notifications -- both in terms of the cost to send, and the potential cost for the user. (Many users are charged for SMS text. For example, the plan I'm on charges 25 cents for each text I receive.)
  
  However, there's a lot more to push notifications than simply sending text.
  
  @zaineart:
  Push notifications allow you to send information to an app even when it isn't running. This could be anything from a short message for the app to display in the notification list, to private data the app is meant to consume and act upon.
  
  In Andromo, push notifications will let you regain the user's attention when it isn't focused on your app, and build apps that are more responsive to external events.
  
  However, in custom apps, push notifications can serve as the engine that integrates the app with the cloud.
  
  A critically important feature of push notifications is that they are extremely efficient. In fact, AirBop uses the most efficient push notification transport possible on Android. This means an app can be ready to receive information at any time, with no additional battery drain or data use.
  
  Because AirBop uses Google Cloud Messaging, it doesn't need to keep a connection open and ping to keep it alive. Instead, it takes advantage of the existing connection used for Google Services on the device.
  
  AirBop push notifications get sent along the same channel as core Google services like Gmail and Play. Unlike other services, it completely avoids the continual battery drain of a separate long-polling connection.
  
• turbomike

  November 2012 edited November 2012

  I appreciate the info.   I really just want a watered down low cost version though.  It would seem to me that Andromo would have the upper hand and be able to get us a better deal since we have a collective buying power over the average developer that comes across AirBop.  Get us a $10 to $15 bare bones version and they would probably still profit by sheer volume of new users.  Just a thought.
  
  
  "Actually, text messages are much more expensive than push notifications -- both in terms of the cost to send, and the potential cost for the user. (Many users are charged for SMS text. For example, the plan I'm on charges 25 cents for each text I receive.)"
  
  I see what you're saying, but I use Sprint here in the US.  Unlimited everything. (Almost all carriers here have an unlimited everything plan now) . I can't imagine paying 25 cents per text.  So like I said, it's a very expensive text message to me. 
  
  Glad to hear that we will get the free trial for 1000 users!  Looking forward to it and thanks to you all for making this happen.
  
  Got an ETA yet?
  
  
• andromoappmaker

  November 2012

  @turbomike AirBop is live right now, you ca check it out here: https://www.airbop.com/