So I have a small content producing company and have three podcasts that I host and track user interactions. Create a lightweight curl (possibly oath) API that lets my server send your server real-time play information and stream refresh info. You will get better data that way, it’s like a Facebook pixel or whatever.

Let's just build a Wine-like linux variant that can run ios apps

I develop in Qt4, and when you want to use cross-platform notifications without packaging the Growl API within your bundle, it is easiest to use the QStatusBar class. I haven't found a more reliable way to display notifications on all three major desktop platforms.

Unfortunately it clutters up your status bar.