The examples app does not work for the notification demo because it does not ask the user for permission to send notifications. In iOS 8, this is how you do it:
UIUserNotificationSettings *settings = [UIUserNotificationSettings settingsForTypes:UIUserNotificationTypeAlert categories:UIUserNotificationActionContextDefault];
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerUserNotificationSettings:settings];
I put those two lines in the AppDelegate and it worked fine. They can really go anywhere as long as it's before you try to send the notification.