In-Depth Tutorial on iOS Push Notifications with Parse in 10 Minutes | Hacker News Reader

In-Depth Tutorial on iOS Push Notifications with Parse in 10 Minutes

parse.com

60 pointsjamesjyu9 comments

I'm trying to understand the use-case for Parse. Am I correct that it's not intended to be used for apps that requires server-side logic ... that any app requiring server-side logic would still need another server in the mix?

I've had a quick look, and it looks like it's primarily a simple online database, with a basic push notification API.

Obvious use-cases for the DB would be apps that need to share data between phones (e.g. multiplayer games/high score tables/chat etc).

You're right that it doesn't look like it's able to run any server-side logic, and if you need that you'll need a separate server, but it does provide what seems to be an easy way for that separate server to do things like send push notifications.

We've been using Parse for about a month in building the backend for an iOS app and we are loving it. It is very simple to use and still pretty powerful. Also, Parse is pretty good at responding to questions quickly.

About two months ago I tried their notifications API for an iPhone app that I was building. I found their tools to be less mature that urban airship. My only question to them went unanswered.

That is strange. I've emailed them a couple of times with specific questions and they have always gotten back detailed response.

They have everything we need in regards to notifications. They allow us to send notifications to everyone at once, or allow users to be able to push notifications sent when they receive a message from another user.

I am sure it all works fantastically when set up properly. For me, I was new to remote notifications, and I was struggling to get my notification certificates copasetic. The Parse debugging tools (logging) made it a challenge for me to find the root cause, which ended up being an improper setup on my part. If I remember correctly, I tried asking them for help over Twitter(?), so probably a poor choice on my part.

To the downvoter(s), I would appreciate your open feedback if you take issue with my straight critique (based on my real experiences) of the company's service.

Yeah, I don't know why anyone would downvote you for you telling your experiences. In the future, I would email them, that is what I did.

Hi Ryan, I'm sorry we didn't respond in time. We respond to most requests in minutes, not even hours, so I'll look into what happened here. Email me -- tikhon @ parse. Thanks!

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