GCM Architectural Overview

Quickview

• Get an introduction to key GCM terms and concepts.
• Learn the basic features of a GCM application.
• Understand the role of the 3rd-party application server, and how to send messages and process results.

In this document

1. Introduction
2. Architectural Overview
   1. Lifecycle Flow
   2. What Does the User See?
3. Writing Android Applications that use GCM
   1. Creating the Manifest
   2. Registering for GCM
   3. Unregistering from GCM
   4. Handling Intents sent by GCM
      1. Handling Registration Results
      2. Handling Received Data
   5. Developing and Testing Your Android Applications
4. Role of the 3rd-party Application Server
   1. Sending Messages
      1. Request format
      2. Response format
5. Viewing statistics
6. Examples

Google Cloud Messaging for Android (GCM) is a free service that helps developers send data from servers to their Android applications on Android devices. This could be a lightweight message telling the Android application that there is new data to be fetched from the server (for instance, a movie uploaded by a friend), or it could be a message containing up to 4kb of payload data (so apps like instant messaging can consume the message directly). The GCM service handles all aspects of queueing of messages and delivery to the target Android application running on the target device.

To jump right into using GCM with your Android applications, see the instructions in Getting Started.

Introduction

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Here are the primary characteristics of Google Cloud Messaging (GCM):

• It allows 3rd-party application servers to send messages to their Android applications.
• GCM makes no guarantees about delivery or the order of messages.
• An Android application on an Android device doesn't need to be running to receive messages. The system will wake up the Android application via Intent broadcast when the message arrives, as long as the application is set up with the proper broadcast receiver and permissions.
• It does not provide any built-in user interface or other handling for message data. GCM simply passes raw message data received straight to the Android application, which has full control of how to handle it. For example, the application might post a notification, display a custom user interface, or silently sync data.
• It requires devices running Android 2.2 or higher that also have the Google Play Store application installed, or or an emulator running Android 2.2 with Google APIs. However, you are not limited to deploying your Android applications through Google Play Store.
• It uses an existing connection for Google services. For pre-3.0 devices, this requires users to set up their Google account on their mobile devices. A Google account is not a requirement on devices running Android 4.0.4 or higher.