How do I Send IOS (or Android) a Critical or Standard Notification to their phone screen?

To send iOS (or Android) notifications, including critical alerts, you'll need to use a service like Apple Push Notification service (APNs) for iOS devices or Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) for Android devices. Since you're using Laravel, you can leverage packages like Laravel Notification Channels or Laravel-FCM to simplify the process.

Here's a step-by-step guide to get you started with sending notifications to iOS devices:

1. Set up APNs:

   • Obtain an APNs authentication key from the Apple Developer Member Center.
   • Register your app and enable Push Notifications in the Capabilities section.

2. Install Laravel Notification Channels:

   • Use Composer to install the package for APNs:

     composer require laravel-notification-channels/apn
     

3. Create a Notification:

   • Use the php artisan make:notification command to create a new notification class.

     php artisan make:notification IncidentAlertNotification
     

   • In the created notification class, add the toApn method to format the notification payload.

4. Send the Notification:

   • Use the Notification facade to send the notification when a new incident is inserted into the database.

Here's an example of what your notification class might look like:

use Illuminate\Notifications\Notification;
use NotificationChannels\Apn\ApnChannel;
use NotificationChannels\Apn\ApnMessage;

class IncidentAlertNotification extends Notification
{
    private $incident;

    public function __construct($incident)
    {
        $this->incident = $incident;
    }

    public function via($notifiable)
    {
        return [ApnChannel::class];
    }

    public function toApn($notifiable)
    {
        return ApnMessage::create()
            ->title('New 911 Incident')
            ->body("Incident #{$this->incident->id} has been reported.")
            ->critical(1) // Set to 1 for critical alerts
            ->custom('incident_id', $this->incident->id);
    }
}

To send the notification, you can use something like this in your code where the incident is created:

use Notification;

$user = User::find(1); // Your subscriber, in this case, user with ID 1
$incident = Incident::create($data); // The incident data

$user->notify(new IncidentAlertNotification($incident));

For critical alerts, you'll need to request special entitlements from Apple as they are meant for situations that require immediate attention.

For Android notifications, you can follow a similar process using the laravel-notification-channels/fcm package or directly with Firebase Cloud Messaging.

Remember to handle the receiving of notifications in your iOS and Android applications accordingly, and set up the logic to navigate the user to the appropriate blade page when they click on the notification.

Please note that this is a simplified example and you'll need to adjust the code to fit your application's architecture and requirements. Additionally, you'll need to handle user subscriptions and device token management to send notifications to the correct devices.