I have written an Android app that allows a user to display the location of selected friends on Google maps. I would like to add the ability to request that a friends device performs an immediate update and thought an easy way would be to send a specifically formatted text message which the remote device could look out for and on detection refresh its position.
This works fine to a point, but I cannot find a way of stopping the propagation of the request-to-update SMS from being displayed in the users regular inbox. It is no big deal, but everyone would much prefer it if it could be stopped, as it this message is obviously is of little interest to the recipient and just causes unwanted notifications and time wasting looking at what has been received.
I think it MAY be possible to make my app the default for received SMS, strip out these texts and rebroadcast the others, but that sounds like overkill and I really would rather not bother if that is the only option?
Is there a preferred, simple, reliable and efficient (battery, bandwidth) method for requesting such actions on a remote device? Knowing the request was received/is being actioned would be a bonus.
Thank you