I have a situation where I need to send server events to my iOS and Android app. Remote push notifications are working fine for updates that the user can see. For example when someone sends a friend request, the server sends the notification; if the app is in background it will show a notification, and if it is in foreground I have code to show or not to show the notification banner.
However there are events like when someone unsends a friend request. I need to send that event to the apps so that they (the apps) refresh their list of friend requests. A normal remote push notification will not be appropriate because if the app is in the background the user will see the notification. I want it to be a silent update while the mobile app is running.
For iOS at least there is a silent notification, which does the job. However Apple says try not to send more than 2 or 3 of these per hour, as they are only meant to tell your app to update itself while in background. So this will not work for continuous real time updates.
This may have been asked before but I cannot find any good information. Is using something like PubNub or Pusher Channels the way to go? Any good articles would be appreciated.
Considering the conditions in my question, something like SignalR or some other 3rd party solution like PubNub would do the job.
I chose to go with SignalR Core because it is already part of Asp Net Core and it is free.