Why not offer push notifications solution

[Black Tiger]

2 hours ago, Matt said:

Xenforo supports push notifications for Android devices only.

No it's not. It's also for PC. It uses push notifications in my browser.

 

[SeNioR-]

2 hours ago, Matt said:

for Android devices only.

so what? better this than nothing 👍

[Black Tiger]

Seems it's apples fault it isn't supported in ios based browsers, Macos and Safari.

[The Old Man]

I'm confused, not hard to achieve these days but I must be missing the glaringly obvious.

IPS keeps you up to date with activity and content which you can extend further with services like Zapier. There are browser notifications, in-line IPS notifications and I receive notifications coming through of replies to this topic via Gmail app. Admittedly, those notifications are actually notifications of new unread emails, but a snippet of the content is displayed, there is an audio alert, a pop up I can choose the format of even on my lock screen etc.

So is there any benefit or improvement with say end user experience with these extra proposed push notifications that we are currently missing out on? Or is it just reinventing the wheel?

😊

[opentype]

51 minutes ago, The Old Man said:

So is there any benefit or improvement with say end user experience with these extra proposed push notifications that we are currently missing out on?

It’s instant and on the system level. You don’t need to open the site manually or check your emails. You get a notification on your mobile device. Whatever you do, wherever you are. It’s how the big players like Facebook and Twitter get people to open their app over and over again. 

[Maxxius]

On 5/14/2019 at 6:08 PM, Matt said:

For push notifications on iPhone, you need an app downloadable from the App Store. There's no way to push notifications to iPhones in any other way.

I say leave Apple and it's iPhones in the dust. Why must everybody wait for some company which may end up NEVER doing that? I sincerely believe that you should go with Android which has a HUGE userbase. That would benefit IPS users NOW bring more profit NOW. I honestly can't think why you haven't done this yet. It's not like Apple has 98% of the users and 2% are Android ones..

[marklcfc]

2 hours ago, Maxxius said:

I say leave Apple and it's iPhones in the dust. Why must everybody wait for some company which may end up NEVER doing that? I sincerely believe that you should go with Android which has a HUGE userbase. That would benefit IPS users NOW bring more profit NOW. I honestly can't think why you haven't done this yet. It's not like Apple has 98% of the users and 2% are Android ones..

I'm an iPhone user but completely agree, if the technology is there lets have it available for those who can make use of it, falling behind XF if you're going to wait on Apple

Edited June 10, 2019 by marklcfc

[opentype]

What is the experience like for Android users? Do you make use of that feature for websites that have it? Does it feel overwhelming per site or across all sites which have push notifications?

[Duken]

1 hour ago, opentype said:

What is the experience like for Android users? Do you make use of that feature for websites that have it? Does it feel overwhelming per site or across all sites which have push notifications?

I have it active on a few sites like tweakers.net . It's so fine to get a ping when someone replys or names you. 

You can change what notifications are send to the device. I love it. 

I don't like the "we are going mobile all the way", but this looks like the way to go. More and more visitors comes from mobile devices.

So please ipb, make a notification profile for supported devices like Android.

[Asprin]

On 5/16/2019 at 12:53 PM, Matt said:

There's little point investing a lot of energy into a system that does not work on one of the top two phone platforms.

On my forum the last month. Android - 49,4%, iOS - 12% 

Push on Android would be great.

 

[Morgin]

https://medium.com/dev-channel/progressive-web-app-progress-in-ios-12-2-beta-1-build-16e5181f-a18cd05ca361 is a great article that summarizes the state of PWA in ios, and has a call to action at the bottom of the article.

https://twitter.com/othermaciej is the apple dev on webkit who has been the public face of PWAs.

As recently as last month, it appears apple is still only "considering" push support https://twitter.com/othermaciej/status/1132795589068910592

I would urge all of you to offer feedback in the official channels. 

[Day_]

11 hours ago, Asprin said:

On my forum the last month. Android - 49,4%, iOS - 12% 

Push on Android would be great.

 

Dear me, what are your visitors thinking, 49.4% Android? Ouch! 😂

[Dll]

On 6/10/2019 at 10:46 AM, Matt said:

Xenforo supports push notifications for Android devices only.

We considered this,  but would rather implement it when we have a complete strategy.

That doesn't really make sense to me. You've implemented browser notifications before all browsers could make use of them, as an example. Web development and design has always been a game of trying to support features in the latest browsers whilst keeping some backward compatibility with things like IE. So, why is this situation any different?

Edited June 11, 2019 by Dll

[Morgin]

nm

Edited June 12, 2019 by Morgin

[Morgin]

FYI, in response to being asked about the list from the medium article, Apple PWA dev responded as follows:

 

Quote

There's lots of things on that list that we'll do over time. Can't make specific promises about future products. If you want to provide info about Push API, you can comment on the bug. Preferably concrete use cases, especially things you are doing or plan to do with it.

EVERYONE WHO IS READING THIS, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK HERE: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=182566 EXPLAINING WHY PWA PUSH NOTIFICATIONS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO SOFTWARE LIKE INVISION WHERE A WHITE LABEL MOBILE APP FOR EACH COMMUNITY IS NOT FEASIBLE. PLEASE TRY TO AVOID "+1 I NEED THIS" AND PROVIDE AS MUCH SPECIFIC, CONCRETE DETAIL ON HOW YOU WOULD MAKE USE OF THE ABILITY TO SEND PUSH NOTIFICATIONS TO MOBILE USERS AND WHY A NATIVE APP ISNT A SOLUTION

I asked Invision if they had plans to make a formal use case proposal through this channel and as of right now they do not, so it is on us as a community to advocate loud and often for why push needs to be implemented on iOS with concrete examples of how our communities would use it (and just as importantly, not abuse it).

@Matt, I appreciate that the view is that Apple is strategically holding back push support in iOS so as not to cannibalize the app store, but when the Apple dev who is responsible for implementation is specifically asking for concrete examples from people who would benefit from push API PWA support in iOS, we should still work together to provide that feedback even if it's ultimately a dead-end. 

@Joel R you are probably one of the best in this community at taking all the noise from in here and distilling into actionable efforts, so anything you can do to help wrangle us into a coherent community driven effort to make our request heard loud and clear to Apple here would be sincerely appreciated. 

Also tagging some of the devs I see posting often who might be able to help provide the technical info submissions for their apps, etc. 

@Fosters @Adriano Faria @CodingJungle @opentype @newbie LAC @TheJackal84 @All Astronauts

Quote

If you want Push Notifications support, chime in on WebKit Bug 182566.
If you want Background Sync support, chime in on WebKit Bug 182565.
If you want Storage Estimation support, chime in on WebKit Bug 185405.
If you want Web App Manifest icons for PWAs, chime in on WebKit Bug 183937.
If you want Add to Home Screen support for PWAs, chime in on WebKit bug 193959.
If you want Web Share Target API support, chime in on WebKit bug 194593.
If you want Web Share API — Level 2 support (file sharing), chime in on WebKit bug 198606.
If you want Navigation Preload API support, chime in on WebKit bug 182852.

Also, as a final thought, I'm not sure how much communication there is between the development teams for Invision, Xenforo, NodeBB, Discourse, Vanilla, etc. etc., but this is one of those topics where forming a lobbying group of developers where you can aggregate the number of users across all platforms and deliver some consistent messaging would be really helpful IMO. Any victories we can make with PWA in iOS ultimately serves to keep all of our communities alive and able to compete with other closed platforms, as ultimately user engagement on mobile through notifications (and in the case of iOS, the complete lack thereof) is going to make or break many of us.

Edited June 12, 2019 by Morgin

[aia]

Not sure about the first sentence in this quote, but second is definitely worth to try:

Quote

The WebKit bugzilla is not the best place to make feature requests, and especially piling on in comments is unlikely to raise the priority of this request.

Please use Apple's Feedback Assistant tool to report feedback and request this feature: https://feedbackassistant.apple.com

Apple uses duplicate reports to assess priority of issues, so you can reference this bugzilla report and also Radar #34829517 to help them associate the duplicate reports.

Edited June 12, 2019 by Mr 13

[Morgin]

4 minutes ago, Mr 13 said:

 

That guy is not an official spokesperson for webkit or apple, however.

Apple's dev Maciej Stachowiak (who is one of the lead PWA devs from the looks of it) and Webkit's engineer Chris Dumez have both confirmed on twitter to use the webkit bugzilla for providing the use case feedback on the request. Providing through official apple feedback channels is obviously a good idea too, but feedback of any sort is the key here.

Edited June 12, 2019 by Morgin

[FASEOFMARS]

+1 for push notifications.

[CodingJungle]

On 6/12/2019 at 11:40 AM, Morgin said:

FYI, in response to being asked about the list from the medium article, Apple PWA dev responded as follows:

 

EVERYONE WHO IS READING THIS, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK HERE: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=182566 EXPLAINING WHY PWA PUSH NOTIFICATIONS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO SOFTWARE LIKE INVISION WHERE A WHITE LABEL MOBILE APP FOR EACH COMMUNITY IS NOT FEASIBLE. PLEASE TRY TO AVOID "+1 I NEED THIS" AND PROVIDE AS MUCH SPECIFIC, CONCRETE DETAIL ON HOW YOU WOULD MAKE USE OF THE ABILITY TO SEND PUSH NOTIFICATIONS TO MOBILE USERS AND WHY A NATIVE APP ISNT A SOLUTION

I asked Invision if they had plans to make a formal use case proposal through this channel and as of right now they do not, so it is on us as a community to advocate loud and often for why push needs to be implemented on iOS with concrete examples of how our communities would use it (and just as importantly, not abuse it).

@Matt, I appreciate that the view is that Apple is strategically holding back push support in iOS so as not to cannibalize the app store, but when the Apple dev who is responsible for implementation is specifically asking for concrete examples from people who would benefit from push API PWA support in iOS, we should still work together to provide that feedback even if it's ultimately a dead-end. 

@Joel R you are probably one of the best in this community at taking all the noise from in here and distilling into actionable efforts, so anything you can do to help wrangle us into a coherent community driven effort to make our request heard loud and clear to Apple here would be sincerely appreciated. 

Also tagging some of the devs I see posting often who might be able to help provide the technical info submissions for their apps, etc. 

@Fosters @Adriano Faria @CodingJungle @opentype @newbie LAC @TheJackal84 @All Astronauts

Also, as a final thought, I'm not sure how much communication there is between the development teams for Invision, Xenforo, NodeBB, Discourse, Vanilla, etc. etc., but this is one of those topics where forming a lobbying group of developers where you can aggregate the number of users across all platforms and deliver some consistent messaging would be really helpful IMO. Any victories we can make with PWA in iOS ultimately serves to keep all of our communities alive and able to compete with other closed platforms, as ultimately user engagement on mobile through notifications (and in the case of iOS, the complete lack thereof) is going to make or break many of us.

not sure what i could add to the discussion tbh. 

i've been playing with this:

https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-pushnotifications

not sure how well it would work in a live situation. it would require a nodejs server, and some sort of interface between it and IPS to be able to get notifications and send them out (alone with what to be sending them). 

[eskaiter]

+1 push (again)
 

[Morgin]

13 hours ago, eskaiter said:

+1 push (again)
 

Did you provide feedback to the WebKit team as per the above note? Getting push on iOS is key to getting push in invision. 

[aia]

2 hours ago, Morgin said:

Getting push on iOS is key to getting push in invision.

That's pretty annoying because most of IPS customers don't care about iOS(in context of this topic) and want to have push without waiting while iOS dinosaur will support it.

Also, it would be more productive to come to apple and say what you're already have push on your website and it works great for all visitors except of iOS users, which suffer from lack of it's support in iOS, than just saying "hey apple i want this feature but i did nothing to implement this on my website even while there is a much more numerous group of users who already could use push notifications, than iOS users".

Edited July 29, 2019 by Mr 13

[Morgin]

20 minutes ago, Mr 13 said:

That's pretty annoying because most of IPS customers don't care about iOS(in context of this topic) and want to have push without waiting while iOS dinosaur will support it.

Doesn’t really matter. How can IPS offer a feature that a huge portion of their customer’s users can’t use? It’s a splintered and impractical approach. If you want IPS to have a fully workable PWA with push, then you need to advocate for iOS. Sucks, but is what it is. 

I see your edit - look, Xenforo took the approach you suggest, and now has a bunch of people on their site complaining about no iOS support, and no one has stepped up to file a bug report as was requested by the WebKit devs explaining the use case. 

IPS devs above say they are waiting until they can solve for everyone. 

People can +1 the request here all they want, but if you actually want to see movement, there’s a path to speak directly to the people who can make it happen outlined above. We have hundreds of clients here, xenforo in the same boat, and no one has bothered to follow the process yet (myself included) to put this in front of WebKit. Can’t be that important I guess. 

Edited July 29, 2019 by Morgin

[aia]

16 minutes ago, Morgin said:

If you want IPS to have a fully workable PWA with push, then you need to advocate for iOS.

Or move to software which already supports push notifications not paying attention to iOS, which only slows down progress and is used by a very small number of users? 🤔

I'd prefer to see what IPS changed their mind and started working on what customers need, and not what supports some always-lagging OS with a smaller share of users.

When PWA will be widespread, iOS will support it. Not in other order.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Mr 13

[Morgin]

9 hours ago, Mr 13 said:

Or move to software which already supports push notifications not paying attention to iOS, which only slows down progress and is used by a very small number of users? 🤔

“A very small number of users” is your opinion. It may be informed by your own site’s statistics, but I trust IPS to have better overall data that is informing their development priorities. If iOS was as insignificant as you believe, I have no doubt we’d have a mobile push strategy in place here. 

Also, for what it’s worth, it’s not even that straightforward on android yet. Copying the Xenforo implementation requires additional php plugins that invision would have to vet to make sure are going to be supported long term, requires a version of php that something like 50% of the userbase doesn’t even use yet, and requires sites to be using https. 

IPS has always been methodical and user-focused when introducing features. I can’t really think of any circumstances where they split their customer base by introducing something only a subset can use. Based on their comments in this thread and what has historically been their entire development philosophy, IPS community will have mobile push when the web widely supports mobile push for all users. Again, on that basis, the task now shifts to us to advocate to make that a reality. Personally, I’m disappointed IPS hasn’t put together their own submissions to the webkit team as I think they are in the strongest position to advocate, but if they won’t then it falls to us to do so. I’ve inspired myself to write something up and submit today, I hope everyone else does as well.