Using XMPP over GTalk to simulate push notifications

I'm currently writing an Android application that should be able to receive push notifications from another application hosted in Google's App Engine. Since I can't use sockets in GAE, I though maybe using XMPP over GTalk server would solve my problem. But that way the Android Application would be connected to the users Gtalk account and thus showing the user as being online, when in reality the user is not.

Any way of achieving this kind of communication without showing the user as being online, and without asking the user to create a separate account?

Or any free push notification alternatives?

EDIT: I'm targeting 1.5+ Android devices so C2DM isn't an option.

Thanks!

Upvotes: 2

Answers (4)

sahid

Reputation: 2610

May be you can use the channel API: Building real-time web apps with App Engine and the Feed API

Upvotes: 2

Telmo Marques

Reputation: 5106

I've found the PubNub service (http://www.pubnub.com/).
It enables push notifications through API's on several platforms (PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, Java, ...).
It's a paid service, but provides a free daily quota.

Although it's not the ideal solution to my problem, it'll have to suffice until some Channel API documentation comes out.

Thanks to all of you!

Upvotes: 1