Absolutely! Please do keep in mind no system is perfect, 100% reliability is a dream we all strive to attain, and even with Parse, I&#x27;ve read several reports on this very thread of instances of less than perfect reliability, iffy technical support, and so on. Anecdotal sure, but still.<p>That said: the app sends basic notifications when in-app, user-initiated events of interest occur.<p>The server code is PHP, based off of this fantastic little tutorial: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.raywenderlich.com&#x2F;32963&#x2F;apple-push-notification-services-in-ios-6-tutorial-part-2" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.raywenderlich.com&#x2F;32963&#x2F;apple-push-notification-s...</a><p>I modified and use the code in the simplest possible way:<p>I created the API layer using my wonderful form builder software (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rackforms.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rackforms.com</a>). Yup, it&#x27;s form software flexible enough to write endpoints. Check it out : )<p>The app sends simple GET requests to my server, which are in turn handled by the API job. If a notification is required, the API INSERT&#x27;s a record into a MySQL table called push_queue.<p>The magic, I suppose, happens with a constantly running PHP script called push.php. This guy&#x27;s monitored by a simple cron job that checks for its running status every minute. if it&#x27;s down, cron automatically restarts the script. The notifications are not time-sensitive that 1 minute delays are a deal breaker, and of course any sent during that time are handled automatically when the script restarts.<p>APN Feedback is handled by a second one-the-hour cron job, which calls a simple script called feedback.php. A touch of code was added to deal with the core user&#x27;s device token being removed for &quot;followers&quot; of that user.<p>Three Key Takeaways:<p>1. The entire server setup part took me about 5 hours, API code (which we&#x27;d need to write regardless) not withstanding. The biggest hurdle was the cron stuff, I shall never forget cron -v cron! Using a third-party service would have been almost the same time, I&#x27;d imagine. The best part is <i>future</i> projects will literally be counted in the minutes for start to finish notification server duties.<p>2. I got to use a language I adore (PHP), and learned a bunch with others I was quite new too (shell scripting, cron, etc).<p>3. Finally: No app is guaranteed success. I know many of these services have&#x2F;had! generous free tiers, but after my first app (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.skipcast.net" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.skipcast.net</a>) and its frankly lousy performance, fool me once indeed.<p>If, by some <i>miracle</i>, this new app gains traction, sure, I&#x27;ll consider a third party. Until then, I&#x27;ll do it my self thank you very much.<p>In all -- a wonderful experience that I&#x27;m keen to tweak and learn more from at deployment time.