Push Notifications for Android

Feature Requests
1

I really hope you can develop this feature for Android mobile devices. I’m waiting this for a long time :slight_smile:

2

Push notifications have existed for Android long before they were available for iOS. They have been available for a while. You just need to enable it in the preview section.

1 Like
3

Sorry, but it’s currently not working on Android devices. I have tried myself.

I have been talking to the “Regulars chat” and according to them:

"Push notifications work reliably on iOS devices. Android devices are an issue.

Since Glide apps run in the browser, we’re bound by the end user’s system-level constraints and settings.

There are some ways you could route around this, like specifying the user’s device type and running conditional actions.

Even then, if a user, say, has push notifications disabled, we don’t have visibility into that."

4

Also your own page says:

  • Android devices: While push notifications are available on android, their reliability is volatile and varies by manufacturer and operating system version.

So I think you should maintain this Feature Request as a reminder to try to overcome those issues and bring a more complete solution :slight_smile:

5

First of all, I’m not a Glide. I’m just a user like you. I’m only sharing what’s been documented and the fact that Push Notifications were fully released when iOS finally decided to allow it back in March of this year. There has always been limited push notification capabilities for Android for several years (mainly for comments and chat) but the capabilities were expanded (for both Android and iOS) to other types of notifications when iOS began to allow them.

I don’t know the full reason why Notifications were moved back to preview, but I suspect it’s just fragile all around. Browser based notifications are very very different from native app notifications. That’s just the nature of PWA’s like Glide Apps. Referring to Andy’s comment from the chat, Chrome/Android does have options for a user to block notifications from certain websites. If that is the case for you, the first thing I would do is check if your browser is allowing notifications for your glide app. Either it was blocked at some point, or you never called the action to request permission from the user. At the end of the day, those permissions are controlled on the client side and the end user must allow or deny permissions to receive notifications. Glide cannot override that.

I can’t speak for iOS. It’s obviously more controlled and locked down compared to Android, which can be good and bad. So the fact that they say Notifications always work on iOS probably means that the consistent nature of iOS and Apple devices make it more predictable in how it well it will work. I guess I have always been under the impression that iOS users could potentially block notifications if they choose, so they could be in the same boat as Android users. I don’t know why it would be any different. Since iOS is so new to the notification game, I’m surprised they aren’t the reason for problems…who knows…

Like I said, check your settings to make sure you haven’t blocked notifications for your app. I would say Android is only volatile in the fact that there are several different manufacturers and several different variations of android floating around, while iOS has only one manufacturer and one OS. At the end of the day, Chrome has allowed for notifications much much longer that Safari has. I really don’t know what Glide could do any differently.

2 Likes
6

Thank you for the detailed response.

I’m working with Glide since 2019, so I’m not new with the tool. I have a Samsung S22 (which is a relative new and common Android device), I configured the device to allow Push notifications, downloaded the app and configured a button to send the notification but it didn’t work. I allowed the device to receive notifications from the app and it didn’t work.

I understand your response, but the current solution that is being advertised is not working.

Also, I don’t like the type of response like: “I really don’t know what Glide could do any differently”.

For me, Glide should work on a solution for that issue or should stop pretend that it solves the problem (but as you said, you don’t represent Glide)

7

This feature is marked Beta, and moved into Preview, because it does not work reliably on Android. We are not pretending that we’ve solved this problem–we are clearly hedging because the feature does not meet our standards.

1 Like
8

A few ideas to try to help you:

  1. Have you read the Glide documentation on push notifications to make sure your setup is optimal?

  2. You say you downloaded the app. Just to make sure, did you correctly install the app via the Chrome browser?

  3. Did you set up the action called ‘Request to allow push notifications’?

  4. Has the user, presumably you if you are the one testing, triggered the action ‘Request to allow push notifications’ (step 1) and granted permission to receive push notifications when prompted by the browser (step 2)?

I believe the points above are requirements to sending push notifications both on iOS and Android.

2 Likes
9

Thanks for the response guys!

First, I tried with “Samsung Internet” and it does not work indeed. However, I downloaded Google Chrome and did the same steps with it, and in fact it did work. So thank you @nathanaelb for the tip. :slight_smile:

Nevertheless, is not the solution for my problem, since I can’t assume that the users from my app will have Chrome installed as a primary browser. :confused:

So, I still believe you guys should keep working towards improving the feature. I agree with @david 's strategy on keeping it as Beta but still working on it, since it is a valueable feature.

I also recommend keeping this post as a Feature Request, since it is not a completed feature yet.