GUIDELINE: If you generate multiple alerts for the same information, use the same URL for all of them.
Because the purpose of alerts is to convey timely information, the UP.Phone Inbox holds only nine alerts. For this reason, you should attempt to conserve alerts. In particular, you should try to specify the same URL for all alerts for the same subscriber and category of information (in other words, you can specify subscriber-specific arguments in the alert URL).
The UP.Phone identifies alerts by their URLs. If an old alert has the same URL as an incoming alert, the UP.Phone replaces the old alert with the new one. You can test this behavior with the UP.Mail application on the UP.Simulator. Each time you receive a new mail message, UP.Mail sends an alert to the UP.Simulator. As each alert arrives, the UP.Phone displays the appropriate signal (flashing or beeping). However, because all UP.Mail alerts specify the same URL, only one UP.Mail alert appears in the Inbox.
If the Inbox is full and the UP.Phone receives an alert with a URL not already on the card, it replaces the ninth alert on the card with the new alert.
Note that when you replace an old alert, you can change the title. For example, you could send an alert with the title, "DJIA closes down," one day and then send another alert with the same URL but the title, "DJIA closes up," the next day.
GUIDELINE: Specify the name of your service in the alert title.
When the UP.Phone displays the popup message for your alert, it uses the alert title in the following message:
Message from "alert_title". View it now?
where alert_title is the title for your alert. You should attempt to use alert titles that make sense within the context of this sentence.