While reading through GCM documentation, I found the alert message from the site:
Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) is the new version of GCM. It inherits
the reliable and scalable GCM infrastructure, plus new features! See
the FAQ to learn more. If you are integrating messaging in a new app,
start with FCM. GCM users are strongly recommended to upgrade to FCM,
in order to benefit from new FCM features today and in the future.
How does it affect to current running PubNub configuration when I upgrading to FCM? I'm still not sure if ugprading from GCM to FCM will be just a snap.
Upgrade to GCM
PubNub Mobile Push Gateway - GCM to FCM
FCM is mostly just a rebranding of GCM (GCM used to be called C2DM and this is similar transition). It appears the changes are primarily client side (easier to user SDKs). PubNub (and other GCM push providers) do not have to make any changes on the server side at this time.
As always, PubNub will continue to monitor updates to push notifications services like GCM and APNS and provide new features as needed.
Please contact PubNub Support if you have any issues using GCM/FCM with your PubNub enabled applications.
For more details about using GCM/APNS with PubNub, see these resources:
Sending APNS and GCM Messages to Subscribers and Mobile Push Notification Services in One API Call
Android V4 Mobile Push Gateway Tutorial
Mobile Push Notification Gateways, APNS, GCM, and Data Streams Explained (video)
How can I troubleshoot my push notification issues?
I don't think there will be any issue moving your client from GCM to FCM. A client that implements FCM can receive messages sent to GCM, it is the same infrastructure. If PubNub is sending messages through GCM then your FCM client be able to handle those messages.
Note that GCM is still being supported. So if you are concerned about PubNub's implementation then sticking with GCM is a valid option.
Related
I'm working on react native push notifications. i'm looking for some answers before i make a purchase to any third party notification provider
Why do third party notifications providers such as OneSignal, Pusher & PubNub are based on Firebase Cloud Messaging?
Can't they send notifications independently without relying on Firebase. why pay more to third party providers when FCM does the work for free?
Firebase is a Brand of Services
First, Firebase is a brand that encompasses more than just 1 thing. For example, there is Firebase the realtime database, and there is FCM (Firebase Cloud Messaging) which is the current incarnation of GCM (Google Cloud Messaging) which came from the original product, C2DM (Cloud to Device Messaging).
PubNub and others are push gateway providers
Second, third party realtime messaging services are not push notification services, rather they offer push notification gateways to the push services: APNS for iOS and FCM for Android.
PubNub Realtime Messaging & Mobile Push Notifications
In PubNub's case (my employer), we provide a realtime messaging service (publish, subscribe and much more) and if you provide a valid APNS and/or FCM payload, we will not only deliver that realtime message to active subscribers, we will also send a mobile push notification to the devices that are properly registered for them on that channel you published the message to. This allows the message to be delivered when the app on the device is either not active (background) or not running and therefore, no active connection to PubNub unless it is running in a background service). Now you can have an active connection to PubNub in the background with proper implementation and permissions from the owner of the device (easier on Android than on iOS which also has a review process that rejects apps that don't qualify as valid background service apps).
For Your Consideration
If you did not use a service such as PubNub or one of the other realtime messaging vendors or a push notification specific service like Urban Airship, you would have to implement your own server-based push notification service which is possible but might be more work than you would expect especially if it needs to scale, be secure, robust, etc.
The real question you should ask is do you need realtime messaging in your app or just push notifications and to what level of scalability where it is worth paying a third party for all that goodness.
There are a lot of confusing answers on the web, hope someone can make it clear, I have an app that uses GCM.
The GCM to FCM FAQ states that:
Your GCM and FCM registration tokens are mutually interchangeable
Note that client SDKs and GCM tokens will continue to work indefinitely.
It is already very clear that the old GCM token is still valid after GCM service deprecation.
However it is not clear if new installation of my GCM app will still be able to generate new GCM token.
"client SDKs will continue to work indefinitely", does it only mean the notification receiving part will continue to work, or the generate new token part will continue to work too?
Any clarification from official Googlers are welcomed, thank you
What I understood from Frank's answer, the existing tokens from GCM will continue to work but new installations of your app which uses GCM may not generate tokens anymore.
But from mid-April:
You won't be able to compile code using the old client-side APIs on
a newer SDK/Google Play Services anymore
You won't be able to call the GCM REST API to send messages anymore
New installations of your existing GCM-using app may not be able to
get a token.
I also found this thread, according to Diego:
Both GCM sdk and FCM sdk use Google Play services to create tokens and
receive messages. Google Play services is not being deprecated. GCM
sdk is being deprecated in favor of the FCM sdk. In this context
deprecated means:
already released versions of the GCM sdk will keep working
GCM sdk will not receive updates, bugfixes or support
if future versions of Android will introduce breaking changes, the GCM sdk will NOT receive the necessary updates and therefore will not
work on the new devices.
On the Server side, the GCM endpoint is being deprecated in favor of
the FCM endpoint.
the FCM endpoint supports GCM token
we plan to disable the GCM endpoint in the future
Google is deprecating Google Cloud messaging in favor of Firebase Cloud Messaging:
Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) is the new version of GCM. It inherits
the reliable and scalable GCM infrastructure, plus new features! See
the FAQ to learn more. If you are integrating messaging in a new app,
start with FCM. GCM users are strongly recommended to upgrade to FCM,
in order to benefit from new FCM features today and in the future.
From some tests I made on my servers, the FCM URL (https://fcm.googleapis.com/fcm/send) works with GCM projects, and vice-versa - the GCM URL (https://android.googleapis.com/gcm/send) works with FCM projects.
Migrating all existing GCM push sending code to FCM would save a lot of trouble and refactoring (I will not have to check, for each push, whether the app version is FCM or GCM).
Is this backward and forward compatibility officially supported or documented?
If you refer to #IanBarber's answer here:
The tokens are different. Firebase Cloud Messaging (GCM) use gets registration tokens from the Instance ID API which means you'll get different tokens between that and GCM2.
You'll need to send that new token back to your server to send messages. On the server side the APIs should be fully compatible (just new endpoints for FCM).
However, if you're looking for any official documentation, I don't think there is one that explicitly states it. Since as much as possible, Google encourages the use of the corresponding APIs, endpoints, etc. depending on what you really intend to use.
Google is deprecating Google Cloud messaging in favor of Firebase Cloud Messaging:
Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) is the new version of GCM. It inherits
the reliable and scalable GCM infrastructure, plus new features! See
the FAQ to learn more. If you are integrating messaging in a new app,
start with FCM. GCM users are strongly recommended to upgrade to FCM,
in order to benefit from new FCM features today and in the future.
From some tests I made on my servers, the FCM URL (https://fcm.googleapis.com/fcm/send) works with GCM projects, and vice-versa - the GCM URL (https://android.googleapis.com/gcm/send) works with FCM projects.
Migrating all existing GCM push sending code to FCM would save a lot of trouble and refactoring (I will not have to check, for each push, whether the app version is FCM or GCM).
Is this backward and forward compatibility officially supported or documented?
If you refer to #IanBarber's answer here:
The tokens are different. Firebase Cloud Messaging (GCM) use gets registration tokens from the Instance ID API which means you'll get different tokens between that and GCM2.
You'll need to send that new token back to your server to send messages. On the server side the APIs should be fully compatible (just new endpoints for FCM).
However, if you're looking for any official documentation, I don't think there is one that explicitly states it. Since as much as possible, Google encourages the use of the corresponding APIs, endpoints, etc. depending on what you really intend to use.
I am using Firebase, but I don't know what is different between notifications in Firebase and FCM.
I think notifications of Firebase can only send messages, whereas FCM can send and get messages.
Is it right?
Firebase Notifications is built on Firebase Cloud Messaging and shares the same FCM SDK for client development. For testing or for sending marketing or engagement messages with powerful built-in targeting and analytics, you can use Notifications. For deployments with more complex messaging requirements, FCM is the right choice.
https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/#how_does_it_work
Use the Notifications console GUI to compose and send notifications to all supported message targets. Firebase Cloud Messaging handles the routing and delivery to targeted devices.
Firebase Notifications offer a console which users can use to send a notification without writing a single line of code. So, it is used to create and send the notification
Firebase Cloud Messaging is a cross-platform messaging solution that lets you reliably deliver messages at no cost. So, it is used to route and deliver the message/notification
source:
https://firebase.google.com/docs/notifications/
https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpTSpVh9SfY