All I want to do is be able to tell whether or not a user of my app is using the 24-hour clock or not. I realize that I can't set these settings, I just want to read them.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, I want to be able to read the values a user has set in the built-in "Settings" app of the iPhone. The one with the gray gears as the icon.
I tried googling a variety of searches that might provide an answer, but that didn't work. I tried looking through the documentation that Apple provides for xcode programmers, but that didn't turn anything up, either.
If you want this information in order to display a time, you don't need to query the Settings app. NSDateFormatter will format the time according to the user's settings automatically.
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I'm creating RSS reader application, and just wanted to know do I really need to include UIRequiresPersistentWiFi in my Info.plist file?
The only case I would find is the user read really long (loaded) article (or he read slowly) for more than 30 minutes, and boom the wi-fi get off, and he need to turn it back on.
This is super rare I know but I'm just concerned...
Thank you!
While it wouldn't be required for this type of app, for the user experience sake, I would present a dialog to the user upon the application first running to let them know that WiFi is not required, but is highly recommended. Maybe include a setting, letting the user choose if they want to put the app in "WiFi-only mode." This can be especially helpful as more and more carriers are switching to limited iPhone data plan models.
I developed an application that uses "Location Significant Change" feature. I notice that after users download my app, they quickly tend to uninstall it because they see the white GPS icon on their iPhone, and they think it will drain their phone battery.
I wonder if there is any workaround or suggestion, I wonder also if Apple is going to do anything about the GPS icon when using "Location Significant Change" feature, either on iOS 6 or next versions.
on comparison Android have a feature where you could setup Alarm manager to wake up application on certain time intervals. This will solve the problem, is there something similar on iOS (or iOS 6 maybe).
Thanks.
This is going to be a non-negotiable aspect to using location services on an iOS device. Apple wants to inform users when their location is being used so they can make informed decisions. So overriding or hiding this location icon, is not going to happen. (jailbreak excluded)
In my opinion, you have a couple options to help yourself out.
Inform the users in your app description in the app store so they know up front that the battery life isn't going to be slammed that bad.
Have a good detailed message set when you ask for permission to use the user's location. This will let them know why and make sure they accept and allow it.
If you have an FAQ on your website or inside the app, make sure you detail what the icon means and reassure the user that Apple takes battery life very seriously, and so do you.
Outside that, there isn't a lot you can do. Just inform your users best you can and go from there. Good luck.
UPDATE
I found a setting in iOS 6 under Privacy-->Location Services-->System Services all the way at the bottom, there is a user setting to hide the stats bar icon. This frees up some status bar real estate for users that don't want to see it. It doesn't mean the app isn't using location, just the icon is hidden. This is something your users would have to do as overriding this is not an option. At least it is something to share with your users.
Note that the location arrow when using significant location changes is different from the one when you are actively using location services in the background. The best thing you can do is to make sure the user understand how is their location being used, and to teach them to identify the difference between location monitoring (like geofence and significant location changes) and location tracking.
I want to add local languages for the description of my app, and so I made a new version just so I could Localize the description. However, I did not change any of my app to be location-dependent (It's just english, and it's a rather simple resistance-color code calculator app without much text, and operates on the basis of color-codedness.) Will my app be rejected for failing to truly "localize", per se? Is this a stringent guideline or is it okay to just change the app store description language?
I don't know if Apple will reject you on that basis or not. But doing something like that could anger your customers, and I wouldn't blame them. I would suggest that you either localize everything, including the content, or localize nothing. Misleading your customers is not the path to long-term success.
Your app should not be rejected. I've done this. My app is mostly numbers which is universal. I've translated descriptions to 6 languages and the app is in the app store just fine.
Don't mislead your users. Your users are your greatest allies or enemies, depending on your attitude. If you don't respect them, they won't like you.
If you want to make a localization, create a support for multilinguality and you can add languages later on. Also, in my opinion your users should be able to choose the language they want to use your app in. As a default you can choose the language of the region. However, it's rude to localize by location and not letting the users to change their language. If you show respect towards your users you will have greater chance of success.
As you may have seen in some apps an alert pops up asking the user to rate the app in itunes and usually the alternatives you get to choose from is something like: Sure which opens the rate page for the app. The second option is No Thanks which closes the alert and the third option usually is maybe later which displays the alert later.
I was wondering how to do this.
I want the alert to be displayed after say the app has launched 20 times if that would be possible.
And how can I create an maybe later alternative which displays the alert maybe 15 launches of the app later?
And a final question is there a special link for the apps rate page? So when you click the sure button or whatever it will take your directly to the rate page.
I've used this: https://github.com/arashpayan/appirater. You can look at my fork as well for a specific mod I needed.
[EDIT: comment re NSUserDefaults]
I suggested this link because it is a full, working implementation of what you describe that is easily integrated into existing apps. I've used (and modified) it myself. NSUserDefaults is a general purpose mechanism for persisting app state. I agree with the others that it's a very useful thing to learn and use, it's just not a full answer to your question. If you choose to roll your own implementation of a rating system (nothing wrong with that) you will most likely use NSUserDefaults to store the relevant info.
Check out my answer for this similar question. I provide two different links you can use for taking the user to the "rate this app" screen in the App Store.
Direct "rate in iTunes" link in my app?
You can use NSUserDefaults to save the launch count (increment it in application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:), then save the user's choice another preference key. If the user says later, you could reset the counter back to zero.
I don't think there is a special rating link, but you can link to your app's specific App Store page. This was incorrect, as TomSwift points out; see Direct "rate in iTunes" link in my app?
I wrote a library for doing this with minimal effort on your part:
https://github.com/nicklockwood/iRate
I'd recommend using a library rather than rolling your own solution. It may seem like a simple problem but the library takes care of a whole bunch of extra stuff, like ensuring that the user is prompted for each new installed version, that they are reminded after a certain time if they decline, that they aren't prompted to go to the app store unless they have a network connection, etc.
First I need to mention that I'm not a developper, but I can probably work my way around enough in xcode to fix this little issue.
I submitted an application to the app store (that was developped by someone else who's not available right now), but it was rejected because it's "geolocked", meaning the application can only be accessed if you set your international "Region format" setting to Canada.
I need to know what modification I need to make in order for this app to work on all region formats. Is it a string I need to change or is it hidden in a plist file ? I have the feeling the fix is quite easy to apply.
I’ve never heard of an iPhone app using region formats to prohibit launches. I suspect your developer put this code in either out of naïveté or malice; either way, you’ll need to look for a section of code that inspects the region settings.
I'm not aware of something like "geolocking" of iOS application. The only thing you can do, which is quite close to your question, is to set in which countries is this application available. This can be set in iTunes Connect.