Reputation: 36289
I am conceptualizing an Android app that sends data from one device to another (like a picture message), but because I do not have a server, I am looking into other ways of messaging. Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) seems like a good choice, since its made for Android, and is free to use, but it still requires a server to use. Is there a way around this requirement- such as running the GCM server on the app itself? Or is there a better approach to serverless messaging on Android?
Upvotes: 7
Views: 4882
Reputation: 1407
Yes you can - it's possible to send the same messages from a device that would be sent from a server. However, this has the following problems:
Really, building your app and hosting it on AppEngine would take about an hour to write, and cost less than $10 a month, even for a ton of users.
For a dead-simple messaging server example written in Java, check out the server backing one of my apps:
https://github.com/charlesmunger/touch-to-text-server.git
Upvotes: 3