Push Notifications

Every plugin covered so far — camera, geolocation, device info, the file system, the in-app browser — works entirely on the device, with a plugin install and some JavaScript. Push notifications are different: they are the first feature in this track that cannot work with just a plugin. They fundamentally require a backend server and a platform push service working together with your app. This page focuses on that architecture and the concepts you need before writing any backend code, since building an actual push backend is beyond a Cordova-focused tutorial.

Why This Always Needs a Server

A push notification, by definition, needs to reach a device even when your app isn't open or running. That's impossible for your app's own JavaScript to arrange by itself — there's no code running to "check for new messages" if the app is closed. Instead, the operating system itself keeps a persistent, low-power connection to a push delivery service (Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging, or FCM, for Android; Apple Push Notification service, or APNs, for iOS), and it's that OS-level service which wakes up and displays the notification — your app code only runs once the user taps it (or, for some notification types, briefly in the background to process it).

The Architecture, Step by Step

Installing a Push Plugin

A commonly used community option for handling Firebase Cloud Messaging in a Cordova app is cordova-plugin-firebasex, which wraps FCM for Android and APNs (via Firebase) for iOS behind one JavaScript API:

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-firebasex

Registering for Push and Getting a Token

Conceptually, the registration flow happens once per install (or whenever the token changes) — your app asks the plugin to register, and the plugin's callback hands back the device token your backend will need. The exact method names vary by plugin, but the general shape looks like this:

document.addEventListener('deviceready', onDeviceReady, false);

function onDeviceReady() {
    // Conceptual example -- exact plugin API varies. This registers the device
    // and receives back a token identifying this install to FCM/APNs.
    FirebasePlugin.getToken(function(token) {
        console.log('Got push token: ' + token);
        // Send this token to your own backend server so it can target this device later
        sendTokenToBackend(token);
    }, function(error) {
        console.error('Failed to get push token: ' + error);
    });

    // Listening for a notification the app receives while running
    FirebasePlugin.onMessageReceived(function(notification) {
        console.log('Notification received: ' + notification.title);
    }, function(error) {
        console.error('Listener setup failed: ' + error);
    });
}

Foreground vs. Background Notifications

How a received notification is handled depends heavily on whether your app was open at the time:

iOS Permission Prompts

Unlike Android — which historically allowed apps to receive push notifications without any explicit runtime prompt — iOS requires the user to explicitly opt in via a system permission dialog before your app can display any notification at all. Your registration code needs to request this permission (usually via the same plugin call, or a dedicated permission-request method) and gracefully handle the case where the user declines; your app must keep working normally, just without notifications.

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