I've been searching for a proper APNS (Apple Push Notification Service) application I can use on my iPhone, to send me push-based notifications about important events. The main advantage over say SMS, is obviously the cost (APNS is in essence free, if you have a data plan with your mobile provider), and the ability to link additional actions to them (custom sound to be played etc.)
So, I've look into a few of them, and the following remain "open for evaluation".
- im.kayac.com: a free service, with a simply to use API (GET/POST to a certain URL) to send events to your mobile phone. App cost: free. (there's a 'lite' version, and a full version which costs 1,59€. The lite version works just fine.)
- Prowl: originally developed for "Growl" as a way to send push notifications, but the API allows unlimited use cases (GET/POST url style). App cost: 2,39€.
- Howl: another push service originally developed for "Growl", but their API again allows you to use it for any service. App cost: 2,39€.
- Boxcar: This seems to be slighly more complicated, as you have to create a provider using the API in order to get your notifications through. Cost: free.
So far, I've used the "im.kayac.com" service to send out Push notifications for Zabbix events, and that works for 80% of the messages. Some don't get through, sometimes the app would get stuck. Which is why I'm looking into expanding it to other APIs, to see how they perform.
I've thought about creating a generic APNS service myself, but lacking a Mac for development, that would be kind of hard. :-)
So, time to test the newly found APNS services (thank you, StackOverflow!) and see how they go! If you have any experience in those (or other) APNS service, please share your pro's/con's!