Web push on mobile

Short answer: yes, your notifications reach phones, through the browser, with no native app on your side or your subscribers' side. The same snippet that subscribes desktop visitors covers mobile; what differs per platform is described below.

Support at a glance

Android

Web push on Android behaves exactly like it does on desktop: your visitor taps Allow once, and notifications arrive in the system tray from then on: screen locked, browser closed, it doesn't matter. All major Android browsers support it, and no setup beyond the standard snippet is required.

One quirk to know on Android: if a visitor dismisses or ignores the permission prompt a couple of times, Chrome stops showing it and instead flashes a small crossed-out bell in the address bar (its “quieter messaging” mode). Tapping that bell re-enables the prompt. The SDK's subscribe() simply resolves without a subscription in that state, so your page can show a hint of its own.

iPhone & iPad

Apple supports web push since iOS 16.4 (March 2023), with one platform rule: the visitor must add your site to their Home Screen first (Share → Add to Home Screen). Push permission can only be requested inside that installed web app, from a tap.

This applies to every browser on iOS: Chrome, Firefox, and Edge there all run on Apple's WebKit engine, so the Home Screen rule comes from the operating system, not the browser. Since iOS 16.4, Add to Home Screen works from those browsers too, not just Safari.

You don't need to handle any of this in code. The SDK feature-detects push support: in plain mobile Safari it stays silently inert (no errors, no broken prompts), and once the same site is opened from the Home Screen icon, the same snippet subscribes the visitor normally.

If iPhone subscribers matter to your audience, two things raise the install rate:

• Add a web app manifest so the Home Screen icon and name look intentional rather than a screenshot of your page.
• Tell iPhone readers about the Home Screen step where you'd otherwise invite them to subscribe. Apple offers no prompt for it, so sites that want iOS subscribers ask for the install themselves.

What about native app push?

This service delivers web push: it reaches the browser on every platform without you building or shipping an app. Sending to your own native iOS or Android app (via APNs or Firebase Cloud Messaging) is a different channel and not part of the service. If you have a native app, its push belongs in your app stack. For everything that lives on the web (publications, stores, communities, SaaS dashboards), the snippet is all you need.