I'm developing an iPhone app using Actionscript 3.0. It uses GPS to send an email once you're within certain co-ordinates. At the moment the app automatically pauses itself when it's exited, and so isn't listening out for any geolocation changes and won't do it's job unless open.
Is there any way I can run the app in the background, or without actually being open?
Hope someone can help,
Cheers
Check out http://blogs.adobe.com/airodynamics/2012/05/04/air-ios-background-behavior/
So long as you set up your application descriptor properly, you can listen for location updates in the background.
You will also have to enable background task completion in the application descriptor if you want to send an email.
Related
I want to build a application that interacts with my BT device and wakes him.
I want to know is it possible for my application to get notified every time the device asks for connection. Take into consideration that the application is not active.
For example, when i get into the car it connects automatically to my car BT and when i get call, the call application is activated? (but maybe that's something that iOS internally does...)
Any ideas?
It's not possible for applications to catch such events in the background mode. While in the background the app is completely paused (except for some special cases) and can't catch anything at all.
I've seen application on iphone called "moves"
the gps is running on background while the application is totaly closed and not working in the background.
how can i get the location of the user and send it to the application while it is closed and not working on background? how could this possible?
what is the function to do that?
thanks
It is possible to get the location while the phone is running in the background (The Google Maps app does this), however running a background thread is a privilege that you must justify to Apple in their review process.
Here is some documentation by Apple for guidelines for running in the background
You register for the significant-change location service.
According to the Apple docs:
If the app starts this service and is then terminated, the system relaunches the app automatically when a new location becomes available.
This is not possible for an App on a non jailbraked iphone. Check again what you really have seen.
Apps can run in the background and get locations. But an app which is closed, can not do anything, since it is not running.
Maybe you have sawn the GPS Arrow in the status bar, staying active. But this disappears after some seconds, as long as no other application uses GPS.
I want to update some data to my application. Consider the application is in the background state, it is neither Voip or Music or GPS. Is it possible to update/send data to the application which is in background?
NOTE: I dont want to notify the user so that the application becomes active.
Can anyone help me ??
The answer is yes and no.
Apple does allow you app to complete a lengthy process in the background. But if you does not fall in the Voip, music or GPS category then you can't run in background.
If for example you want to send some data to a server, which could take some time, then you can mark that process to back executed until it is finished (or 10min. have passed).
You will find some about Executing a Finite-Length Task in the Background
There is not way to run timers or any thing like that in the backgroud, you can only finish a task you started before the app is backgrounded.
The alert which is displayed is an inbuilt functionality. You can't do anything for that. If a notification is fired from the server and application is in background then the alert will be displayed.
I have done a lot of search in past for this stuff.
I have done this in one of my work. this is what i did.
when application enter : - (void)applicationDidEnterBackground:(UIApplication *)application
I send data to server using ASIHTTPRequest with property :
[request setShouldContinueWhenAppEntersBackground:YES];
But after finished, i didn't do anymore connection or data manipulation. So, only the connection is running at background and not your app. you can't do much after the connection finish.
As #rckoenes was mentioned, you may not execute task too long.
If you would like to update server data while your app is running in the background mode, the application should be active at that time. It can only be active if it uses "music, or voip, or location tracking", otherwise the app will be paused in background mode.
One way to avoid this is to develop your application, and to set it to use, for example, «location tracking». This will allow it to meet the requirements for active background process and you will be able to update server data.
Unfortunately, I do not know whether the app can pass app store approval with this set-up.
However, if you are interested in this solution, you can find an example here.
I am doing a tracking kind of application for internal use of an organization and do not wish to submit it to app store.
What I am doing in the application is I am tracking the phone calls, messages etc.
My app runs in background once I start the app manually and keeps on running in the background until I close the app or the phone is switched off.
The thing that I want to add to my app is, I want to load the app automatically when the phone is switched on again.
Any idea or guidance will help. Suggestion for use of private apis is also welcome.
In private api, in file SBApplication.h there are all methods that you need.
In particular:
[...]
-(BOOL) _shouldAutoLaunchOnBoot:(BOOL)boot;
-(void) autoLaunchIfNecessaryOnBoot:(BOOL)boot;
-(void) _cancelAutoRelaunch;
-(void) _relaunchAfterExit;
[...]
etc, etc...
hope this helps.
As far as I can understand you can do it by registering your app for significant location changes. If an app registers for significant location changes, as soon as your cellular phone moves to a new tower, app receives an update. If the application is suspended when an update occurs, the system wakes it up in the background to handle the update.
So if you close the app and turn of your phone, as soon as your phone will restart it should get an update and it will force your app to run in background mode.
For more info read iOS programming guide: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/iphone/conceptual/iphoneosprogrammingguide/BackgroundExecution/BackgroundExecution.html
Hope it helps
I need to write an application, that every 10 minutes it should be awaken from suspended mode, get user location via gps and send this information to the server by network.
Depending on the response it should return to the suspended mode or show local notification to the user.
Is there a way to do this on iOS 4?
I've tried different approaches, but the only working for me was to start monitoring user location in backgroind and declare the application as location background application. In that case it worked in background and has a network connection. But this approach takes a lot of power and not accepted cause application should work 24/7.
May be there is a way to write some daemon that should work in background and wake my application every 10 minutes?
Apparently, Pastebot tried to do something similar with the 'audio' multitasking declaration (by playing a silent audiofile) and got rejected.. UNTIL they actually presented a option to the user to pick which audiofile they wanted to play. It's in the appstore now. :)
In this case: What is your reason for not wanting to use the location updates? If battery-usage is a concern, you can use the 'significant location changes only' option, after which you can temporarily change to a more accurate option.
This isn't possible outside of the method you have already tried.
The iPhone background task API will allow you to run a location service in the background.
There is no way to write daemons for the iPhone without jailbreaking, and that is not something I'm able/prepared to help you with.
App store friendly: use new APIs in iOS4, which allows u to make use of GPS location
Anti App store: create a daemon by adding a specific plist file to System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ and put ur app under Applications/. this approach requires a jailbroken iPhone however...
detailed information plz google the following keywords: daemon, multitask, background, etc...
cheers, Lloyd