An API Is Born

By Ryan Oldenburg on

The docs need some work but Pushbullet officially has an API that makes it easy to write software that can push to devices through Pushbullet.

Even though Pushbullet has only been out for a month, people have already written software libraries using it to enable them to push to devices. This is awesome and I’ve been impressed that the authors have overcome the lack of a proper API. Here’s some of the projects I’ve seen:

The downside of Pushbullet not having an API when these projects were written, however, is that they have all had to require a user’s Google account and password in order to work. The new API addresses this problem directly. Every Pushbullet user now has an API key that can be used to enable libraries like these to push to their devices without having to turn over their Google accoung information. You can find your API key on your Account Settings page.

Already written or going to write a project using Pushbullet’s API?

The API is brand new and is in preview right now, meaning it could change if something comes up that I haven’t thought of and it might have some bugs. You can help this process by using the API and letting me know about any issues or feedback you have. I’m always an email away at [email protected].

What can the API be used for?

The possibilities are endless! Pushbullet’s API makes it easy to push things to a user’s Android devices. Here’s some examples of why this is cool (these don’t exist using Pushbullet yet but should!):

  • Get a notification on your phone when a torrent finishes downloading.

  • Sign up for notifications from your favorite sites, instead of emails.

  • Have a list of movies opening in theatres and their Rotten Tomatoes scores pushed to your phone every week.

  • Get a daily update on the USD-Bitcoin exhange rate.

  • And on and on, things I haven’t even thought of yet!

Discuss this post on reddit