I'm developing an iOS Newsstand app.
If it is suspended or not running and connected to a WLAN, Newsstand apps can be triggered by a Push remote notification to download the latest issue (in our case around 100MB) in the background.
I'm using Urban Airship for the delivery of the Push broadcast.
I'm now worrying about many many iOS devices hitting the web server for one big download more or less at the same time, because I expect the majority of the devices will receive the notification in a very short timeframe.
Instead of broadcasts to all devices, should I rather send individual notifications to batches of small groups of devices, spreading them out over a longer period of time?
And/or would a CDN like Amazon Cloudfront solve that issue easier/anyway?
Given that your development is not free either; and given that such staggered deliveries also carry on-going organisational and operational cost (and the complexity of explaining this to a 'news' customer); I'd suggest you seriously look into using a CDN for the actual delivery. It takes all complexity out of the problem - and removes a point of failure/risk and trades it for one which is easily shopped around for.
That is a win win for all involved.
Dw.