Hotwire Native deep dive: Push Notifications

One of the biggest selling points of a mobile app is push notifications. Sometimes, it’s the reason my clients need an app over a website. This is because push notifications are instant and drive higher engagement than email or SMS. And even with recent enhancements to Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), native apps are still the best way to send reliable, timely notifications. Sadly, implementing push notifications isn’t exactly straightforward. There are a ton of pieces and everything has to line up perfectly for them to work. And that’s before we even get to Hotwire Native-specific code! The good news is that you’re in good hands. I’ve added push notifications to dozens of Hotwire Native apps over the past decade. I’ve watched as the requirements shift and tweaked my process to accommodate. What follows is the most succinct way to send push notifications your iOS and Android apps powered by Hotwire Native. Before we dive into code, let’s cover the different actors at play.