iOS Push Notifications: How to start using APNS Token-Based Authentication.

by Irena Russeva

As many of you know, Apple is moving from a certificate-based authentication with their push notifications service to a token-based one. Token-based authentication is stateless communication and therefore faster than certificate-based one. Additional advantages of token-based authentication is that tokens do not expire and you use only one token to send notifications for all of your environments.

The deadline to upgrade to the APNs provider API has been set to March 31, 2021 and after this date, APNs will no longer support the legacy binary protocol.

We know that every change comes with its inconveniences and over the last couple of weeks we’ve had many clients asking: "Should I modify something for my app, so I can have push notifications working?" - No worries! We took the care to provide you with all the actions you need to perform in this simple guide.

Basically you’ll need to take two easy steps - Receive Authentication Key from Apple and Set the credentials to your SashiDo App

Receive Authentication Key from Apple

To generate an APNs auth key, visit the Apple Developer Member Center and follow the steps below:

  1. Go to Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles.
  2. Click on Keys from the Menu on the left.
  3. Add a new key - from the + button in the upper right corner.
  4. Next, you’ll need to enter a Key Description Name and select the service you want enabled. In our case that’ll be APNS.
  5. Next, press the Continue button.
  6. You are automatically landed to a page with the option to Download the .p8 auth key file.

Set the Credentials to your SashiDo App

For sending push notifications, Apple requires the following information about your app - BundleId, KeyId and TeamId. So that’s the credentials you’ll need to add to your SashiDo app.

  1. Go to your Dashboard -> App -> App Settings -> Push -> Apple Push Tokens and click Upload a File.

  1. Upload the .p8 file and enter your credentials

BundleId - The BundleId of your project.

KeyId - That’s the KeyId for the Authentication token.

TeamId - That’s the ID for your Apple Account. You can find it from “View Account”.

  1. Et Voila! Your APNS token is uploaded and you can start sending millions of push notifications per minute with SashiDo’s Push Notification Service.

We would recommend you to remove the old .p12 file from your SashiDo app, once you switch to the APNS token-based authentication.

Well, that’s all folks! If any questions arise, our team is always happy to help! Reach us at support@sashido.io.

Happy Coding!