iPhone Push Notification Server tied to Snow Leopard Server
Despite licensing the proprietary ActiveSync Exchange Server protocol from Microsoft for use with the iPhone, Apple is building its own Push Notification Server for messaging services in both the iPhone and Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server using open, interoperable standards.
However, the company's pioneering, yet protracted leap into push messaging indicates that notification technology can be more complex that it seems, having delayed Apple's intended deadline for shipping PNS by many months.
The push for push messaging
Push messaging relates to information that is sent immediately rather than queuing up on a server, waiting to be picked up. In conventional email, delivery is always push; sending an email immediately pushes it to the server using the outgoing email SMTP service. The client can always push out email because it knows where the SMTP email server is supposed to be.
......
Apple's long-lost Push Notification Service would funnel notification data from third party servers through its own, and then on to users' iPhones.
: