A very simple pub / sub web app or script that interacts well with OSX / iOS?
I am developing some OSX / iOS apps that I would like to provide a resource to be hosted on a web server. I would like to have some kind of web application or script that can store a list of subscribers and notify them when a resource is updated. (The obvious goal here is to avoid having every web server polling application get updated.)
The only trick is that I would like a significant number of customers (like a dozen for example) to sign up for updates 24/7. I'm not sure if it's a good idea for all clients to keep a live connection ... I suppose many web service providers will be happy to have their web server maintain a dozen persistent connections (especially if they are almost always idle).
(Edit) I looked at the Apple Push Network Service (APN) but this is not the correct solution for my problem. APN requires SSL Entrust certificate and some heavy interaction with Apple Push Network service. My project is much simpler and easier: I just need a script that says, "After getting data from device A, pull it to devices B / C / D" (assuming these devices are somehow accessible ... or via a persistent connection or some other method).
What's the easiest way to provide this mechanism?
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"The easiest way" probably means different things to different people. If you are not a fan of blocking yourself in third-party services, then there are tons of app opportunities and open source tools that you could use to build something yourself. But this is hardly "easy" if web application development is not your forte.
There are several off-the-shelf services available for real-time messaging in iOS: remember that I'm just listing the ones I know from memory, there are other alternatives. Pusher and PubNub both offer real-time messaging services for mobile apps as well as SDKs out of the box. You can interact with them to send messages bidirectionally over sockets (which is similar to how APNS works, but with more control).
You can use these services in your own device / user management system, or you can use a "backend as service provider" like Parse or Stackmob - you may not need this step, it depends on how complex your intended application is /integration.
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