Re: [w3c/push-api] Declarative Web Push (Issue #360)

jrconlin left a comment (w3c/push-api#360)

I hate to be a pain, but there was a recent PR for Android about this that raised a question for me.

Mobile devices are _*VERY*_ aggressive about conserving battery. Two of the biggest battery drains are the CPU and the radio (either for WiFI or for SMS data handling). Mobile devices often have a dedicated low power circuit for handling SMS based data. Platform providers like Google and Apple negotiate rates with the Telcos in order to use that low power system in order to send messages to devices in a timely manner. Higher level applications like browsers don't get access to that layer, but instead rely on OS level calls. Likewise, most Telcos don't make that low power messaging system available for random applications for any number of reasons.

Apps that keep a "live" connection (websocket, HTTP/2 Request, HTTP long polling) either get interrupted, or worse,  the OS to flags the application as consuming too much battery and insist that the user disable or remove that application. (I'm sure that some mobile OS may be nicer about this, but I'd bet the battery on those doesn't last quite as long.)

Based off of that, would UnifiedPush on mobile devices essentially be a polling service? It's been my experience that `cron` like functions on mobile devices tend to be more "suggestions" than actual timings, so requesting that the device wake every 5 minutes might be optimistic at best. (plus, waking the phone engages the high order CPU, which increases battery drain). If it is a polling operation, I wonder if it might be useful to consider having UnifiedPush on mobile devices introduced as a plug-in or add-on for the main browser. That might also help build traction for the service as well as show demand and market for providers that might be a bit hesitant to add this function.

Obviously, none of these are problems for devices that don't have the same power constraints, and I apologize for not thinking of it sooner.

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