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JON MENSING: You're too green.
JEN PERSON: It's unnatural.
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Hey, all you Firebase developers.
I'm Jen Person.
Welcome to another episode of "AskFirebase,"
the show where we answer your burning Firebase questions.
Today, I am joined by Jon Mensing.
And, Jon, what you do here?
JON MENSING: I'm a product manager
on Firebase Cloud Messaging.
JEN PERSON: What is Firebase Cloud Messaging?
JON MENSING: Firebase Cloud Messaging
is the best way for a developer to send messages to their users
on Android and iOS and the web.
JEN PERSON: Yeah.
It allows you to send you notifications.
You can send data messages.
You can do a combination.
Also it has some features in the Firebase console
that it will allow you to send notifications from the console.
And it's just growing all the time.
It's massive.
We send a lot of messages-- well,
our developers send a lot of messages with FCM.
JON MENSING: That's right.
Over 400 billion a day and growing all the time.
JEN PERSON: Wow.
That's wild.
I'd like to be like every second,
this many messages get sent, but--
JON MENSING: Yes, I cannot do the mental math fast enough--
JEN PERSON: No, not right now.
JON MENSING: --but someone out there is going to.
They're going to say it's that many.
JEN PERSON: That's a lot.
JON MENSING: Yeah.
JEN PERSON: So I'd say that specifically,
the reason I wanted to have you on today
is because recently, we made a big announcement, right,
about Google Cloud Messaging.
JON MENSING: Firebase Cloud Messaging
is the new version of Google Cloud Messaging
and does everything that Google Cloud Messaging does and more.
JEN PERSON: Right.
JON MENSING: And so in order to focus more attention
and resources on Firebase Cloud Messaging,
we have deprecated Google Cloud Messaging.
And everyone needs to move over to FCM--
that's Firebase Cloud Messaging--
over the next year.
JEN PERSON: Right.
Basically, anyone using GCM, welcome to the FCM party.
A lot of the features are going to be very familiar.
Again, it has everything that you had for GCM plus some more.
JON MENSING: New and improved.
JEN PERSON: Certainly, once we made the announcement,
there were some pretty common questions that we saw.
And we're going to look at a few of those today.
JON MENSING: All right.
Let's talk about Firebase Cloud Messaging.
JEN PERSON: Just zero in.
Yeah, I'm coming in.
So Don has a great question for us.
Don says, "I was wondering if anyone knew if the Instance ID
Server API will be affected at all by the deprecation of GCM.
We're using this API in our back end
to inspect the Instance ID tokens sent to our back end
by our iOS and Android apps.
We're already using the FCM library
in our apps to generate the Instance ID Tokens."
Does Don have anything to worry about?
JON MENSING: Well, no.
Don does not have anything to worry about.
And the Instance ID Server APIs are not
going to be in any way affected by the GCM deprecation,
so you can continue to use those exactly the way
you are using them today.
JEN PERSON: Good news for Don and everyone
else who's using FCM.
The Instance ID endpoint is really
great for checking what topics you're subscribed to and just
checking out Instance ID tokens as well.
So there you go.
Keep using it.
You ready for another?
JON MENSING: I am, let's do it.
JEN PERSON: This next question comes to us from Garrett,
who wants to know, "If I have a Notification scheduled
for today from the dashboard and is set to go off in a few
hours, but the notification status shows 'in progress,' is
there any way to still cancel or edit it?"
JON MENSING: Well, Garrett, once the notification goes
to the "in progress" status, unfortunately that notification
is out into the world and into the wild and cannot be canceled
at that point.
So for some of our notifications,
especially for those that are sent to a local time zone--
a local device time zone--
we actually send those out in advance of that local time
zone.
And then once that local time zone occurs, or once the time
in that local time zone occurs, then we actually
display the notification.
So those notifications end up going out into the world,
in some cases, up to 24 hours before the actual notification
is displayed to the user.
So after that point, once it shows "in progress,"
there's really no way to edit or cancel it.
However, if you manage to catch your notification
in the status which is "scheduled," at that point,
you can still edit or you can still cancel.
So as long as the status says "scheduled,"
you can edit or cancel.
JEN PERSON: That's a great question.
And great for people who are new to the Notifications dashboard.
I appreciate you asking about it.
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Nico has a question about the FCM HTTP v1 protocol.
So that protocol-- our latest version of FCM Send--
doesn't support device groups or sending messages
to multiple tokens using one request.
Is that functionality simply lagging,
or is that something that is being deprecated?
JON MENSING: Well, I've got some good news for Nico.
So we are planning to add a multicast feature to the HTTP
v1 protocol that will allow you to send
to multiple tokens in a single API request.
So that's something that we'll be
excited to bring to that new HTTP v1 protocol
over the coming months.
In terms of your other multicast type of options,
we also have topics which are supported today
in the HTTP v1 protocol.
And topics are a way that you can
send to a group of users with just one single API request.
That's something that I'd encourage
you to explore as well.
JEN PERSON: Yeah.
So right now, there are options, like you're saying-- topics
for sending to multiple devices.
But keep your eyes peeled for newer options.
Also keep in mind, you can still use what
is called the legacy FCM API.
So if there are some features of that that you don't see in v1,
you can use either.
You can use a combination of both.
Yeah, so you still have the option to do that.
Thank you so much for watching another episode
of "AskFirebase."
And remember if you have questions
to tag them on social media with the hashtag #AskFirebase.
And who knows?
Maybe you'll see it on a future episode.
And be sure to subscribe to the Firebase channel, so you
can check out "AskFirebase" and other great content,
such as Firecasts, and "MeetFirebase,"
and all sorts of cool special things going on.
And thank you so much to Jon for coming on the show
and helping me answer people's questions.
JON MENSING: It was my pleasure.
JEN PERSON: All right.
See you next time.
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