So imagine this scenario:
10.00: your app pushes a message "Hello"
10.01: your app pushes a badge update with no message out the same device
What happens is that the message dissappears. So if the user didn't see it, it's gone. Is there a way to send a badge notification without clearing any previous messages? I know you can send the message again, but I don't want to spam users who may have already ready the message.
I don't want to have a discussion about the why, simply if it's possible?
Unfortunately, it is not possible. We recommend including badge updates with your alerts, to set it at the same time, but there's no way to just update the badge without "overwriting" the alert.
At the same time, however, any message from any other application will also overwrite your earlier alert.
If you include a sound in your APNS payload, the phone will either play the sound or vibrate, so you could at least give the user feedback that a message has been received if you end up needing to do this.