Developing a push-enabled application

You can use the sample application to learn how to develop your own push-enabled application. The sample application shows you how to use the Push Service APIs to connect with the Push Initiator, and receive push messages on a BlackBerry device.

The sample application accepts push messages with the following types of content. If you're using the Push Service SDK as the server-side library, the SDK automatically specifies the type of content in the header of the push message. In your application, you can send up to 8 KB of any type of content (images, text, or audio).

Type of content	Content-type HTTP header
Text	text/plain
HTML	text/html
XML	application/xml
Image	image/jpeg, image/gif, image/png

If you implemented a Push Initiator that doesn't use the Push Service SDK, or your Push Initiator only uses the low-level APIs without subscription support from the SDK, you can still use the sample application for testing purposes. You just need to indicate that you're not going to subscribe with the Push Service SDK when you configure the sample application. For details, see Configure the sample application.

Requirements

Item	Requirement
Server-side library	We recommend using the Push Service SDK with our sample push-enabled application, and with push-enabled applications that you develop. To use the Push Service with the BlackBerry Internet Service, you must register with Research In Motion. When you sign up, you receive a confirmation email message that contains information that your application uses to create a session and create a channel. For more information about signing up, visit Push Service. If you plan to develop a push solution that delivers content using the BlackBerry Device Service only, you don't need to sign up to use the Push Service.
Client-side library	BlackBerry 10 SDK 3.0 or later for Adobe AIR
BlackBerry device	BlackBerry 10 BlackBerry Internet Service Data plan with your wireless service provider that provides a connection to the Wi-Fi network or mobile network
Sample push-enabled application	The sample application depends on the following libraries: Adobe Flex SDK 4.6 or later (required) Adobe Flash Builder 4.6 or later (highly recommended)