I need to be able to do these few things:
Run my app on phone startup
Keep it running in the background all the time
No UI is needed - this is a statistics app so it will gather all the data it needs and the user should not be bothered with anything.
Are these things possible?
Not really. Setting aside jailbreaking and the universe of things that aren't Apple-approved, running in the background full-time is explicitly banned on iOS. Similarly, you can't sell an app on the App Store that doesn't have a user interface, and you can't set apps to run on start up.
Related
I want to make an application which will send information to a server about user's location every 30min. It is needed to provide location specific push notifications.
I need such functionality for Android/iOS, which would work in background (also if device is restarted). I found some articles covering background services and I created background service doing that, but after phone is restarted it won't work.
Is it possible with Android and iOS? How can I achieve that?
With iOS, no. With Android, yes.
Apple has gone to great lengths to limit what apps can do. You can do some things in the background for an extended period of time (GPS, play audio, Voip, etc), but after a reboot your app will not be restarted until the user opens it again. There are exceptions to this. Voip apps are allowed to restart after a reboot, but apple will not approve your app for the App Store unless you actually have a place for a user in your app to use the Voip feature. Geofences are a possibility, but I haven't had experience with that feature yet. In my experience, Apple does whatever they can to make sure your app doesn't run forever.
With android, there is more flexibility and what you propose is totally possible. I've listed some important links below, since most of those solutions are far better documented than what I can do here.
Essentially you need to register as a boot receiver and then send an intent to start a titanium android service when the boot event is received. I don't have experience with starting a titanium service, but I'm sure its a simple intent you need to fire. Either way you'll need a module for this native code. I attached a link to a bencoding titanium module that may help you, although there may be some others out there. You may even need to code one yourself.
Samsung is notorious for stopping your app with their SPCM feature. You may want to familiarize yourself with it. I've added a stackoverflow discussion link below.
I don't know all of your system requirements but honestly, for any app I would try my best to not run forever. It will hurt the battery life for your users and will add a lot of complexity. Maybe you could simply have the app check the GPS coordinates when it receives a push notification and decide right there and then whether to present a notification to the user? Just something to consider.
Either way good luck!
How to start an Application on startup?
http://docs.appcelerator.com/platform/latest/#!/guide/Android_Services
https://github.com/benbahrenburg/benCoding.Android.Tools
Dealing with Samsung SPCM killer
I'm making an iBeacon based app for a shopping mall with notifications based specifically on which store is nearby.
My question is, with background tasks in iOS 7.1 and above, can I run database calls(to reference location on the basis of the closest beacon). What about network calls(like a PFQuery?).
Yes, you can do anything you want on iBeacon detection in the background including database access and web service calls. I have developed apps doing both of these things. The only trick is that iOS only gives your app 5-10 seconds of running time after the detection takes place, so you must make these operations relatively fast.
I'm building an app for Windows Phone 8, and the nature of the app requires that it keeps running in the foreground with no user interaction (similar to turn-by-turn navigation apps). While I can find plenty of information on how to keep an app running in the background (for location tracking, etc), I can't find anything specifying how to keep the app running in the foreground without locking.
Does anyone know how this is done? Thanks in advance.
Are you looking for IdleDetection on Windows Phone?
Short answer is, you'll need to change the PhoneApplicationService.UserIdleDetectionMode property to Disabled. (Note that you're after UserIdleDetection not ApplicationIdleDetection).
Changing IdleDetection is one way, but your application will likely be deactivated and in some cases tombstoned... but there is a better way to increase the chances for your application to keep running, specially if you are doing location tracking take a look to Running location-tracking apps in the background for Windows Phone 8
I need my application to perform a background task every day, but it does not comply with Apple's specification for running in background.
It's none of these: audio, location, VOIP, news stand, external-accessory—, Bluetooth-central.
I'm planning to use local notifications, but the point is, that if the user doesn't open the app (and just leaves it in the background), I cannot plan new local notifications.
What should I do in this situation?
Make something else.
Seriously, if your app doesn’t at least technically fit one of those categories, you’re not going to be able to get it to do background work in a way that’ll get you approved for the App Store.
I’ve seen apps that added specific functionality in one of those categories, orthogonal to their actual purpose, to be allowed to run in the background; for instance, there’s a couple of weather apps out there that play a continuous audio file—one of the available sounds being a silent one—in order to be able to update the lock screen’s “now playing” image with live data. If you don’t mind your users being unable to listen to any other music, and have your app continuously active (which might cause additional battery drain), that could work. But if you’re trying to have your app invisibly do things in the background, without interfering with anything else, in a way that’ll get you into the App Store, you’re probably out of luck.
Four options:
Go for jailbreak
Try to get in the app store as one of those types of apps, making up a feature that uses one of those types.
(my favorite) Really rethink your system, is it really necessary to schedule background tasks? Can't the user wait a bit when he opens the app? That loading can be performed in background. And can't you offload some of the work to a webserver? Are you collecting data? You shoudln't without the user consent.
Let your user know that it's important for him (he's the one using it right?) that he opens the app once a day.
I think I covered all yohr options except the one already covered by Noah.
I'm brand new to OS X and mac programming. I'm looking to write an app that runs continuously or is woken up every 30 seconds to do some minor task. It would do something like check the weather via a web service and shoot off an email if the temperature drops below freezing. In Windows I would just use a service or put a repeating task in the task scheduler. Is there a standard way to accomplish this in OS X which the mac app store allows? I would like to write something that I can put in the store but Apple seems to have vague restrictions against running background processes.
I've learned a little about launchd but I can't tell if I am allowed to use it. Ideally the process would get run even when no one is logged in, but it probably won't need root access. If someone does happen to be logged in, it would trigger some popup if it sent an email temperature alert out. I would also have some GUI which the user would be able to modify the configuration files that determine the behavior of the background process. I don't anticipate any app store restriction for that piece of the project though.
I'm pretty sure an app that runs invisibly like that would not be allowed into the App Store. What you're going to want is to create a menubar-only application, which can be enabled by setting a key in your app's info, namely LSUIElement. Although it won't be able to be run unless a user is signed in, it's your only way to get it into the store successfully.
The MAS guidelines have several prohibitions that would impact you. Go to the guidelines and read section 2. In particularly consider 2.15, 2.23, and 2.27. I don't know any way to get your application running prior to login without at some point requesting admin privileges (even if you don't use the privilege when you run).
I would probably make it a Login Item (System Preferences>Users>Login Items), probably as an LSUIElement app as sudo rm -rf suggests. Definitely if it's your first app, I wouldn't go diving into launchd in any case. It is one of the most infuriating system processes I've ever dealt with.