Imagine yourself implementing APN (Apple Push Notifications) using Urban Airship’s API and service. How do you go about testing the push functionality and possibly demonstrating it in front of your client?
The usual approach would be to peruse a web form on the Urban Airship site to send such notifications.
We felt a need to simplify the procedure and make it more fun for developers. So today we’re announcing UAC (Urban Airship Commander) which sets out to do exactly that.
We have identified to kinds of users that would want to use this app on their iPhone. 1) Developers who want to set up a few test devices and effortlessly be able to test their APN implementations. 2) Clients of said developers who would use the app to broadcast APNs to their users from a mobile app.
You start by setting up an app similar to how you do it on the Urban Airship web site. You can even set an app icon if you have one your device. You can configure custom fields that would get appended to the push notification and set a friendly short name and default value.
Once you have done the initial setup and your UA credentials have been validated you are good to go. Tap on the app, specify the message and custom values and send off the message. A log shows all past sent messages and also allows you to copy a recent message to a new push notification. This is especially useful for example if you send the same message (and custom values) every month.
We are now looking for a couple of BETA testers who will try out the app on their own UA implementations. Also we hope to gain feedback as to what the actual use cases for this app are. Limited BETA spots are available, email me info about how you plan to use this app and don’t forget to send me a UDID of the device you want to test it on.
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