So after talking with matzew for a bit, I've put together this list of things that need to be done on Android to have a good push experience (for the user). My goal is that we discuss these things to inform a (eventual) push client spec. 1) Gobs of XML Boilerplate. the Android manifest needs permissions and uses permissions stanzas as well as defining the Google Cloud Message receiver. *We should probably have tooling which does this for the user* see: https://github.com/secondsun/devnexus2013demo/blob/master/coffeeExample/A... 2) A Intent handling Service. This Service class extends *GCMBaseIntentService*has three responsibilities, *Registering* clients, *Unregistering* clients, and *Handling* messages. see: https://github.com/secondsun/devnexus2013demo/blob/master/coffeeExample/s... I would prefer developers not have to extend this class, but that is a talk for a different day. 3) Some utlities for handling/parsing/routing notifications to other bits of code. Again, this is a talk for a different day. Appendix: Here is a link to a class based HEAVILY on Google's Service Utilities class from their demo apps https://github.com/secondsun/devnexus2013demo/blob/master/coffeeExample/s...