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I wonder how this works. Currently there's only a landing page that asks you to request access so I have no idea. Do developers integrate Twilio SDK into their

I wonder how this works. Currently there's only a landing page that asks you to request access so I have no idea. Do developers integrate Twilio SDK into their apps (similar to Fabric, etc.)? If so, sounds like a way different model than what they used to do (Basically you could integrate just by calling their REST endpoint since it was SMS based and required no installation of any app, but with APNS the only way I can see this work is if you tightly integrate with Twilio API by using their SDK) How do they figure out a number is associated with an account? Does this assume that users will enter their phone numbers when signing up to a service?

ben_jones 10y ago
Twilio's problem is that they keep growing in features while being forced to maintain stalwart backwards-compatibility WHILE maintaining documentation AND a ~dozen client libraries for all their developers. While they've made a concentrated effort to improve their documentation / interface over the past year, it's not uncommon for documentation to be out-of-date or incorrect or libraries to be confusing (client.messages.new might call the 2009 endpoint and client.newMessage might call the 2014 endpoint, with only the later endpoint accepting SMS bodies <= 1600 characters for example). With new offerings like Copilot and presumably this, they get a chance at a fresher start BUT unless you want to handle interacting with Twilio's endpoints directly you're going to have to wait for your client libraries to catch up, which might not be a problem with NodeJS, but for instance my company uses a third-party Golang library that's two years old and has only received minor tweaks in the past 6 months. It will probably not be updated with new features soon or ever, and should I want to utilize these new features I would have to extend or re-write the library myself. Finally Twilio provides no ways of including metadata in an SMS submission (which is a huge freaking oversight) and makes it very difficult to associate a number with an account. The most accepted answer for that problem currently is to use the Twilio number as a foreign key for an account, which a) does not work with Copilot as you have no control over which number will send the message and b) requires each account to have its own ($1) number, which does not scale.
- billychia 10y ago
  Hi Ben, I work at Twilio with Notify. Thank you for the feedback. We recently started auto-generating our helper libraries (before it was a manual process.) This let's us ship new products and new features into all of our supported languages very quickly. It also opens up the opportunity to add additional languages. I'd love to hear more about languages you'd like to see (sounds like Go is important, others?) and hear more about how you are using Twilio to see if we have a better solution for you. Drop me an email: bchia [at] twilio [dot] com
billychia 10y ago
Hi, I work at Twilio and can answer questions about Notify. Notify is predominantly a REST API you could access through server-side helper libraries in your favorite language. We have SDKs for Notify as well that provide additional functionality (like the ability to notify the user on the device they were last active one.) To associate a number (or push registration) with a user you create a "binding" More info here: https://www.twilio.com/notify/api https://www.twilio.com/notify/api
- galistoca 10y ago
  Maybe i'm missing something but isn't this just like Urban Airship? Basically you need to have an app already in production, and you push through Twilio instead of directly hitting APNS. I do understand the benefits of having a 3rd party manage expired device tokens and sending broadcast push, etc. but having a hard time understanding what's novel about this.
  - billychia 10y ago
    Notify has two unique components compared to other tools in the market. First it is multi-channel- you can send push yes, but also global SMS and notifications into messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Viber, and WeChat. Second, Notify provides orchestrations- fan out, fall back (push first then SMS if not received), notify on last active or current active device, etc. The fact that Twilio acts as a registrar is something that was highly requested from our customer base.

ben_jones 10y ago

Twilio's problem is that they keep growing in features while being forced to maintain stalwart backwards-compatibility WHILE maintaining documentation AND a ~dozen client libraries for all their developers. While they've made a concentrated effort to improve their documentation / interface over the past year, it's not uncommon for documentation to be out-of-date or incorrect or libraries to be confusing (client.messages.new might call the 2009 endpoint and client.newMessage might call the 2014 endpoint, with only the later endpoint accepting SMS bodies <= 1600 characters for example). With new offerings like Copilot and presumably this, they get a chance at a fresher start BUT unless you want to handle interacting with Twilio's endpoints directly you're going to have to wait for your client libraries to catch up, which might not be a problem with NodeJS, but for instance my company uses a third-party Golang library that's two years old and has only received minor tweaks in the past 6 months. It will probably not be updated with new features soon or ever, and should I want to utilize these new features I would have to extend or re-write the library myself. Finally Twilio provides no ways of including metadata in an SMS submission (which is a huge freaking oversight) and makes it very difficult to associate a number with an account. The most accepted answer for that problem currently is to use the Twilio number as a foreign key for an account, which a) does not work with Copilot as you have no control over which number will send the message and b) requires each account to have its own ($1) number, which does not scale.

billychia 10y ago
Hi Ben, I work at Twilio with Notify. Thank you for the feedback. We recently started auto-generating our helper libraries (before it was a manual process.) This let's us ship new products and new features into all of our supported languages very quickly. It also opens up the opportunity to add additional languages. I'd love to hear more about languages you'd like to see (sounds like Go is important, others?) and hear more about how you are using Twilio to see if we have a better solution for you. Drop me an email: bchia [at] twilio [dot] com

billychia 10y ago

Hi, I work at Twilio and can answer questions about Notify. Notify is predominantly a REST API you could access through server-side helper libraries in your favorite language. We have SDKs for Notify as well that provide additional functionality (like the ability to notify the user on the device they were last active one.) To associate a number (or push registration) with a user you create a "binding" More info here: https://www.twilio.com/notify/api https://www.twilio.com/notify/api

galistoca 10y ago
Maybe i'm missing something but isn't this just like Urban Airship? Basically you need to have an app already in production, and you push through Twilio instead of directly hitting APNS. I do understand the benefits of having a 3rd party manage expired device tokens and sending broadcast push, etc. but having a hard time understanding what's novel about this.
- billychia 10y ago
  Notify has two unique components compared to other tools in the market. First it is multi-channel- you can send push yes, but also global SMS and notifications into messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Viber, and WeChat. Second, Notify provides orchestrations- fan out, fall back (push first then SMS if not received), notify on last active or current active device, etc. The fact that Twilio acts as a registrar is something that was highly requested from our customer base.