What happens when a user pushes the home button on the iOS device and the app is currently running a method: Will the method finish running or will the method be interrupted in the middle?
Like Maudicus wrote, applicationWillResignActive: is called on the application delegate, as well as applicationDidEnterBackground:. You should assume that any method that is currently running will be interrupted. If you want to ensure that a particular operation is performed, you should put it in one of the aforementioned methods.
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Not sure if it is possible but is there any way to detect a single touch on the home button. To start with, I would simply like to add an NSLog if the user touches down once on the home button (without actually pressing), but I don't know where I would add this functionality. Does Apple allow you to interact with the home button?
I looked at the app delegate methods, but I can't see how any would work in a single tap (touch) context. Would really appreciate your help.
Does Apple allow you to interact with the home button?
No, not yet. There are no APIs available to explicitly detect home button interactions.
You can rely on the traditional app delegate lifecycle function invocations to perform any logic you wanted to.
- (void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication *)application
{
// Sent when the application is about to move from active to inactive state. This can occur for certain types of temporary interruptions (such as an incoming phone call or SMS message) or when the user quits the application and it begins the transition to the background state.
// Use this method to pause ongoing tasks, disable timers, and throttle down OpenGL ES frame rates. Games should use this method to pause the game.
}
- (void)applicationDidEnterBackground:(UIApplication *)application
{
// Use this method to release shared resources, save user data, invalidate timers, and store enough application state information to restore your application to its current state in case it is terminated later.
// If your application supports background execution, this method is called instead of applicationWillTerminate: when the user quits.
}
- (void)applicationWillTerminate:(UIApplication *)application
{
// Called when the application is about to terminate. Save data if appropriate. See also applicationDidEnterBackground:.
}
Does anyone have any insights into when/under what conditions applicationWillTerminate is called in iOS 5/6?
I've got some logic i'd like to execute whenever the application terminates (not moves to the background), for example if the user navigates to the application bar at the bottom of the screen by double tapping the home button and force quits the app.
when i try to do this on a test device, applicationWillTerminate does not seem to get called. Is there a reason for this?
My plan B is to tie that logic to some persistent object like a singleton or a static that is automatically destroyed when the app quits.
Any suggestions?
thanks
Have you read the documentation for applicationWillTerminate:,
It says,
For applications that do not support background execution or are linked against iOS 3.x or earlier, this method is always called when the user quits the application. For applications that support background execution, this method is generally not called when the user quits the application because the application simply moves to the background in that case. However, this method may be called in situations where the application is running in the background (not suspended) and the system needs to terminate it for some reason.
There is a "maybe" mentioned there. Probably that answers your question. So it is not necessary that this will get called when you quit the app. Probably you might have to use UIApplicationExitsOnSuspend to disable multitasking and then it might get called while putting in background. But that again depends on your app requirement. If you cannot disable multitasking, you might have consider doing that in applicationDidEnterBackground method or so. I am not sure if there are any other delegate methods which will help in identifying the force quit.
In iOS one can purportedly use the CLLocationManager's startMonitoringForRegion: method to register a delegate to respond to the device moving into a specific geographic region, even when the app isn't launched. From the CLLocationManager Class Reference:
In iOS, the regions you register with the location manager persist between launches of your application. If a region crossing occurs while your iOS app is not running, the system automatically wakes it up (or relaunches it) in the background so that it can process the event. When relaunched, all of the regions you configured previously are made available in the monitoredRegions property of any location manager objects you create.
I assume if the app is relaunched, iOS doesn't actually bring it to the foreground. I couldn't find any good samples illustrating where startMonitoringForRegion fits into an overall application, so my questions are:
Does one have to register the delegate for startMonitoringForRegion from somewhere specific? I'm guessing it can't be plonked in a view controller if we're launching the app without bringing it into the foreground. Can someone give an example with some context around it?
If we decide we do want to bring the app into the foreground as a result of entering the region, how would we do so?
When is startMonitoringForRegion registered with the OS and when is it unregistered? Does the user have to have launched the app at least once (even if it's since been killed) for the initial registration to take place? What about if the user powers off the device? Will our handler be registered the next time the device is powered on, or will the user have to launch the app at least once again?
Does one have to register the delegate for startMonitoringForRegion from somewhere specific? I'm guessing it can't be plonked in a view controller if we're launching the app without bringing it into the foreground.
False. A view controller object still does exists if it's allocated-initialized, even if its contents are not presented.
If we decide we do want to bring the app into the foreground as a result of entering the region, how would we do so?
Not possible using public APIs (I'm not sure whether an app in the background can use - [UIApplication openURL:] with its own URL scheme to bring itself into the background, but I doubt it); however you may be able to use the SpringBoardServices framework to launch your app:
SBSLaunchApplicationWithIdentifier(CFSTR("com.mycompany.theBestiPhoneAppEver"), false);
When is startMonitoringForRegion registered with the OS and when is it unregistered? Does the user have to have launched the app at least once (even if it's since been killed) for the initial registration to take place?
If the user never runs your application, code inside will never be run, so it won't get registered.
What about if the user powers off the device? Will our handler be registered the next time the device is powered on, or will the user have to launch the app at least once again?
Now that's a good question. I don't know it off the top of my head, nor did I find an answer in the documentation (probably you haven't found that either), so I'd say you just better try it yourself to be sure.
I've got an app that changes the screen brightness with [UIScreen mainScreen].brightness = newBrightness, and I want to restore the brightness to it's previous state when the user finishes using it.
I've tried these two delegate methods:
- (void)applicationDidEnterBackground:(UIApplication *)application
- (void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication *)application
But without much success. I suspect my app must be in the foreground to change the brightness? When I change the brightness in didEnterBackgroundMethod, it has no effect at all. When I use willResignActive it does restore the brightness if I switch to another app, but it has no effect when I press the home button.
Are there any notifications or delegate methods that are executed before the app leaves the foreground?
It seems this happens to others as well: see this S.O. post.
Only way around it seems to be forgetting about setBrightness and simulating it by overlaying a black-semi-transparent on your view...
OLD ANSWER:
willResignActive should also be called when you press the home button before the application enters the background state.
This method is called to let your application know that it is about to move from the active to inactive state. This can occur for certain types of temporary interruptions (such as an incoming phone call or SMS message) or when the user quits the application and it begins the transition to the background state. An application in the inactive state continues to run but does not dispatch incoming events to responders.
This is also the behavior I witness. So, my guess (but it's just a guess) is that your app is not set to support background, so that when pressing the home button it is terminated. In this case applicationDidEnterBackground is not called.
I would suggest to check the info.plist file in your project for the UIApplicationExitsOnSuspend or "Select Application does not run in background" key.
Furthermore, you could try and put some breakpoints (or NSLog traces) in those functions and check whether they are effectively called as expected.
According to Apple´s DevForum it seems to be a bug that Apple don´t want to fix soon.
I found this method in a delegate file and inserted some code. The code never gets executed, even when the home button is pressed. When or how does this function get called?
You should use applicationDidEnterBackground method if your app and OS support multitasking.
From applicationWillTerminate docs:
For applications that support background
execution, this method is generally
not called when the user quits the
application because the application
simply moves to the background in that
case. However, this method may be
called in situations where the
application is running in the
background (not suspended) and the
system needs to terminate it for some
reason.