Interactive push notifications are going to increase in use this year, with Apple announcing that users will be able to interact with and respond to notifications while their phone is locked, and Google launching the same capability on Android 4.3 last year.
Portland-based mobile analytics and push messaging powerhouse Urban Airship is taking advantage of the new capabilities by giving companies a new set of tools that make it easy to create notifications for iOS, stock Android and Amazon’s new Fire smartphone. Developers are now able to call Urban Airship’s API or use the company’s management tools to deploy a notification that will work across the variety of devices, rather than having to tailor their notifications to fit each different platform.
The system also comes with support for widgets, so companies can place interactive information on both the Today tab on iOS 8’s Notification Center, as well as on the home screen of Android devices.
In addition to the new cross-platform capabilities, Urban Airship also updated its platform with new event analytics, including user taps on interactive notifications and in-app conversions. The new tools are supposed to give businesses more insight into how people use their apps, so that it’s then easier to tailor future push campaigns.
