How to create a simple messaging app for Android

[Kashif Butt]

I'm new to Android development so please (if you can) explain in details.

I have a requirement of sending a message from an ASP.NET website to one or more Android devices. These device should somehow be authenticated, maybe I can save their IMEI's in my website DB or some other way. The device receives the message and has an option to send a reply message.

So the steps:

1- Website sends a message (or saves it in the DB as a new message against one or more IMEI numbers)
2- The device (or devices whose IMEI is saved against that message) receive a notification
3- The person clicks through on their device to go to full message
4- Then has option to reply to the message or forget about it

That is all I need.

Is there a way of doing this with or without using the DB?

Thanks

[Ulf Dittmer]

Not sure why you think this has anything to do with a DB. Obviously, you need to have stored some sort of ID (IMEI or otherwise) of which devices to send the message to. It sounds like a typical use case for GCM.

[Steve Luke]

Just to add an alternative to the discussion... Google Cloud Messaging is Android -only. If you want a cross-device solution then you will need a different service, since GCM doesn't work on iOS, and Apple's push notifications don't work on Android. One such alternative I use is MQTT (and its mosquitto implementation). It requires maintaining your own broker, but your web server may have its own plugin which already handles MQTT. Anyway, something to think about if you want to support multiple phone OSes now or later on.

[Kashif Butt]

Thank you both - I will look in to your suggestions.