what does this category in intent filter mean?
android, android-intent, categories
Solution
The point of the `<category>` is to filter incoming GCM notifications based on your app / package name.
The docs for GCM show `<category android:name="my_app_package" />` and as you have to register specific apps to allow GCM, this makes sense.
If you think about it, there may be any number of apps on an Android device which are registered for GCM. The fact they will all be receiving messages using the same core software means there has to be some way to 'route' the messages to the correct app - if there wasn't a way to do this, all GCM-registered apps would receive each others' messages.
Problem
I always don't get what does category really do in the intent filter, especially in this case. ``` <intent-filter> <!-- Receives the actual messages. --> <action android:name="com.google.android.c2dm.intent.RECEIVE" /> <!-- Receives the registration id. --> <action android:name="com.google.android.c2dm.intent.REGISTRATION" /> <category android:name="com.androidhive.pushnotifications" /> </intent-filter> ```