Push notifications were originally introduced for Android and iOS devices in 2009, and have rapidly spread to other platforms.
2009 — Apple iOS and Google Android add support
2010 — Blackberry and Microsoft Windows Phone 7 add support
2013 — Apple announces that 7 billion notifications are being sent to iOS devices each day.
2016 — Apple rolls out major additions to push notification capabilities to iOS with their iOS 10 release.
While all notification platforms support receiving short messages from applications, some platforms support additional features including custom sounds, images, or contextual buttons within the notification itself.