Notifications that arrive, open the right screen and can be measured — Firebase Cloud Messaging and APNs wired across Android, iOS and your backend, including the quiet failure cases most apps never notice.
FCM · APNs · Topics · Deep links · Scheduled campaigns
Push is not guaranteed. Tokens expire, users disable notifications, iOS throttles background delivery, and Android battery optimisation can delay messages for hours. Apps that assume every send arrives build the wrong product behaviour around it.
The reliable pattern is: notifications are a nudge, and the app always fetches current state from the API when it opens.
Android uses FCM channels with user-visible importance levels, and Android 13+ requires a runtime permission prompt. iOS uses APNs with its own permission flow, provisional delivery and notification service extensions for images.
Both need correct handling for foreground, background and terminated states, plus deep links so tapping a notification lands on the relevant screen rather than the home tab.
Sending from the backend means storing device tokens per user and platform, removing stale tokens when FCM reports them, and choosing between topic broadcasts and direct user targeting.
Scheduled and triggered messages — cart reminders, booking updates, subscription expiry — are usually built as backend jobs rather than admin broadcasts.
Delivery is only half the story. Tracking opens, taps and the screen reached tells you whether the copy and timing are working. Without that, notification strategy becomes guesswork and users start disabling them.
I wire notification events into your analytics alongside the in-app action they trigger.
Explore examples of mobile, Smart TV and integrated product work.
The usual causes are a missing APNs key, the wrong entitlement, testing on a simulator instead of a device, or sending an FCM payload without the required alert structure. iOS also needs explicit user permission.
Yes, by storing a user-to-token mapping on your backend and sending to that token. Topic subscriptions handle broader segments.
Yes, with platform limits. Android may delay non-priority messages under battery optimisation, and iOS decides delivery timing for background notifications.
