Connection notification to resume NSOperationQueue - iphone

I need to download some images from the Internet and right now I'm using NSOperationQueue.
I want to know if it is possible to receive an Internet connection notification to be able to pause/resume the download.
I don't need to freeze the download, but just being able to put it (the NSOperation) back on the queue and wait for connection to start it again would be awesome.
Any ideas?
:)

After checking for reachability, you can set the NSOperationQueue length to 0 if it's not reachable. That way you can effectively pause it.

See this link for further help. You could use the code with apple documentation listed.
WAN detection and airport detection is shown in the code.
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#samplecode/Reachability/Introduction/Intro.html

Related

Voip app using background task

Now I am developing a voip app.
Is it okay to use background task to keep my app alive? so app can received incoming state to pop up a notification from the background.
I try CFStreamCreatePairWithSocket, but still can't get info from nsstream event callback.
If I use background task, App can get incoming state as it does in the front.
Thanks a lot.
Please always make sure to provide all required information to get quick help. e.g. Provide some code snippet if possible, provide information regarding which version of OS you are using etc.
Check following answer: It may help you. How to Maintain VOIP socket connection in background?

iPhone reachability test needed everytime a connection is to be made?

I have a app from where i hit different REST urls. one of the service is login service.
Now, do i have to use the apple rechability test everytime i want to make a connection?
I use ASIHttpRequest
No, ASIHTTPRequest will return a timeout error / a connection failure error if it can't reach the host. You can use those errors to show something to the user to tell them their login has failed.
The connectivity status of your mobile device can change very often and unforeseeably, so checking it often is advisable.
Say, for example, that you check at app startup, and find that not network is available. You go to offline mode, but then in a few minutes you could get in a WI-FI area or your 3G signal might be stronger. If you don't check it again, you lose the possibility of going to online mode.
Indeed, checking for network availability is pretty fast compared to how long a network request lasts (say: sending a login request and waiting for the response), so you can safely do the check whenever you need it according to your policy, be it at each request, every 5 minutes, or whatever.
EDIT:
about your concern as to the approval process: you should ensure that your app has a reasonable behavior when no connection it available. Simply showing an alert to the user (and not crashing) is enough for Apple, but you could also resort to disabling all your network related buttons, or whatever fits your app. The idea is that your app should not behave crazily when no connection is available.
If you want more advanced behavior, you can check reachability with each request.
You can also use the Reachability notification service (ASIHTTP-bundled Reachability includes that feature). You can find an how-to here. But in my opinion is a bit easier to just do the check when you need it. YMMV
From what I remember the reachability demo code is effectively a listener so can update a variable as the device's reachability state changes. You then need to check this variable before making a request.
Would be surprised ASIHTTP doesn't do this kind of thing already.

iphone - Connecting to server in background

I'm creating an app which connects to server and sends some text.
If network (both wifi or 3g) is there, it will immediately send the text to server.
But if there is no network, it keeps on polling for server connection every 5 minutes.
All this part is working fine.
But when using iPhone 4 device, i want the app to check for server connection even when app goes into background. So, when app goes to background and when network comes back, it must be able to send the text to server.
How can I achieve it? I've seen some apps where they say that the app will upload photos to server even in background. How will they do it?
I suggest you read this article from Apple carefully, especially the Completing a Finite Length Task in the Background section.
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/iphone/conceptual/iphoneosprogrammingguide/BackgroundExecution/BackgroundExecution.html
Something to clarify:
Once your app is in the background and is frozen by the OS, there would be no way for your app by it self to wake up and re-connect to the internet.
However, according to the article above from Apple, you can call this beginBackgroundTaskWithExpirationHandler method from your app's delegate to apply for additional time when put in the background, which is to say, though your app cannot wake up by it self when in background, it can, when in the background and not frozen, try to apply for additional time to finish its lengthy task.
Hope it helps.
There is a trick that I think flayvr is using.
If you download and use the app, you will see that they require you to enable your location.
And why is that?
because they want like you to do something in the background even when the app is terminated (they creating an album out of your newly captured photos), and how do they do that?
They use the significant location change, where when someone is traveling some significant distance (something like 500m) each app that registered for significant location change will get awaken for a limited amount of time to perform some quick task and will be terminated in a few seconds.
So your app can register to that event also and when the event of significant location change fired you will be able to send the text to server (quickly).
Hope that helps.
Until now you can do that on iOS7 with Background Fetch.
Take a look at this article.
However you only have up to 30s to get the task done.
According to the article above, there's also another solution called Background transfer service.
If more time is required though, then the Background Transfer Service
API can be used
Create a new project in Xcode and you will see there are bunch of new methods auto generated in app delegate file. like applicationDidEnterBackground, applicationWillEnterForeground etc.
read the description you have to call your thread to upload data on server here.

iphone sdk: pausing NSURLConnection?

In my app I give the user the ability to download files from a server. For that I use NSURLConnection. I would like to give the user the ability to pause and resume the download by tapping a button. I couldn't find any way to do this besides calling the cancel method and then creating a new NSURLConnection. So is there an elegant way to pause NSURLConnection?
Thanks
That's the only method I'm aware of. If your server supports the "Range:" header, you can then create a new connection and have it pick up where the other one left off.

iPhone 3G Connection Enabling

My application needs Internet Connection. It seems like if I keep my iPhone idle for a while it shuts down its 3G connection. Once I wake it up (slide to unlock) and run my application, it cannot connect to the Internet. I have to run Youtube or Safari first, then it gets the Internet connection, then I have to shut down Youtube/ Safari and then I can use my application to login to my service.
Could you please let me know how can I activate 3G connection from my application (so that I can use my application directly after it wakes up from the idle state and I do not have to run other applications like Youtube/ Safari?
Thanks.
To disable the idle timer, take a look at the idleTimerDisabled property of the UIApplication class.
From Apple:
The default value of this property is
NO. When most applications have no
touches as user input for a short
period, the system puts the device
into a “sleep” state where the screen
dims. This is done for the purposes of
conserving power. However,
applications that don't have user
input except for the
accelerometer—games, for instance—can,
by setting this property to YES,
disable the “idle timer” to avert
system sleep.
Important: You should set this
property only if necessary and should
be sure to reset it to NO when the
need no longer exists. Most
applications should let the system
turn off the screen when the idle
timer elapses. This includes audio
applications. With appropriate use of
Audio Session Services, playback and
recording proceed uninterrupted when
the screen turns off. The only
applications that should disable the
idle timer are mapping applications,
games, or similar programs with
sporadic user interaction.
There is obviously another better solution, but you could load a blank page with:
[NSString stringWithContentsOfUrl ... ]
The connection will be established if it is necessary.
Only NSURLConnection (and any APIs that are layered on top of it) reinitializes the data connection after waking from sleep. To reinitialize the data connection create a dummy NSURLConnection to a non-local address and cancel it right away; then the socket API will work as expected.
There is a post on the developer forums where an Apple dev explains this in detail (but I can't find it at the moment)
Are you sure you're establising the connection correctly? My application does the same using sockets and it has no problems to re-establish the connection after device sleep. Use Reachability API in SystemConfiguration framework to get notified when coverage is available and after that make your connection attempt. Note that a time period - from several seconds to couple of minutes - has to elapse after the device awakes to gain Internet connectivity, so be patient.
There is Reachability sample from Apple, search also stackoverflow for reachability and you'll find more hints how to implement it.
Actually, you get the same problem when you change the network settings on your phone between launches of the application. For instance let's say that you use the WIFI connection when you launch the app. Then you close the app and switch off the WIFI so that the device uses the carrier's network. When you relaunch the app the socket won't be able to connect unless you do the trick with the dummy NSURLConnection (or you launch the browser before lanuching the app).
Also, canceling the NSURLConnection right after initializing it (with connectionWithRequest or initWithRequest) did not work for me. Either do not cancel the request or wait some time before canceling it (e.g. with performSelector:withObject:afterDelay:).