Is there any way to implement an iOS app that has access to the screen (e.g. screen recording) also when it's backgrounded? Has anyone experience with this?
Apps like TeamViewer do this, but it's not clear to me if they went through a special process with Apple (e.g. a non-open API).
P.S. I am of course assuming that the user would have to explicitly accept this (e.g. like for system extensions on macOS), the goal here is not to make a malicious app but a remote-control tool.
The only way to record the screen in the background is by using the broadcast upload extension in ReplayKit 2. This WWDC talk goes into more detail around how to use this API https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2018/601/
Since it's not specifically designed for your use case you will have to do some things differently like locally storing the frames in your App Group instead of uploading them.
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I work as a software developer, but I am absolutely new to Apple in general. We have the following case in a project, and we have not been able to figure out a solution for it, I would really appreciate some advise to find a solution (or drop the case if not possible)
A (potential) customer with multiple retail stores is interested in having a very simple app to display some content (this could an image or html, nothing too complicated) and periodically update this content from a server (this requirement is important). So it is very simple case, to use the device screen as advertising space
But here is the catch, users should be able to go out of this app and check out the device's system and other apps, and then the content should come back on the foreground when the device is idle. So basically we need something like a screensaver app that fetches the content (images) from a server and keeps them updated.
We have been looking at the guided access mode, but we are not sure it fulfills the requirements, because of the following issues
- Allowing the user to check out the device system and other apps. As far as we understood guided access restricts the device to one app.
- Re-launch the app (or bring it to the foreground) when the device has been idle for a period of time.
Note that we should account for a variety of devices (iPhone and iPads) with different OS versions
I appreciate your help and ideas. Thanks.
Apple does not allow apps to run continuously in the background except for a small limited group of exceptions. (music playing apps, for example.)
It's possible to set up your app to pretend to be a music playing app, and stay running in the background, but that means you will not be allowed on the app store.
Your client may be able to use the enterprise program to create apps for use in their retail stores. Enterprise apps don't have to go through the app store approval process.
I did this for a client recently (for an enterprise app.) As I recall I would have the app request background processing as soon as it moved to the background, and when it was notified that it's background time was ending, I would play a short "silence" sound and request another block of background time. Unfortunately it was work for hire and the contract ended, so I did not retain the source code.
I want to develop application to show user video or image when someone is calling me. I know it is possible on android, but i don't know about ios platform. Is it possible to do such an application ?
Apps can only modify things within their own sandbox. The incoming call screen, is part of the phone app and therefore can't be modified. The only way to do this would be on a jailbroken iPhone, and it would be quite difficult.
Is it possible to have 2 apps on 1 iPhone/iPad talk to another via sockets? For example The main app is phonegap app that just displays data and when the user clicks the print button, the 1st app sends data to the 2nd (2nd app stays in the background, I guess it is a service), it (the 2nd app) then sends that data to a printer that it knows how to talk to whether that is via a webservice call or something else.
From my scan of the docs and other questions it seems the custom URL is one way to make the apps talk, but I want the receiver app to stay in the background. So do I have to use a server/client approach to this? Is that possible.
Sure you can. Just make sure your 2nd app - the background app is conformed to Apple's requirement to run in background modes. You can also use Bonjour to aid in discovery or just pre-selected a port and make other apps aware of it value.
No, there is no socket-based interprocess communication between apps on an iPhone, nor is there any concept of apps as background services. Using custom URLs to launch another app is the only direct method of communication between apps.
On the other hand, if the 2nd app is talking to a printer (or anything else) via a web service, I'm not sure why you wouldn't just have the 1st app use that web service to print directly. Is there a particular reason you need a background app to perform this function?
I have a question about running an app in the background.
I know about how to do it, but Apple does not like the way I'm doing it.
To get you on the same page, I have a security app, and I need to it monitor the device even when it is in the background. It is sort of like a burglar alarm.
I was using background audio mode, thinking it would be okay because I will be playing a sound when it is triggered. Needless to say, Apple didn't like that.
So I added a ping! It pings while active, therefor playing background audio while in the background.
Once again, they didn't like that either.
My app monitors the accelerometer as well (but not always, only when chosen by the user).
My question is, how are apps like Skype, and other similar apps able to turn the status bar red, and stay in the background? (Even some alarm apps will do this, without playing any audio or anything).
Also I can't use the notification system because it does not update fast enough if I'm monitoring the battery level. For my app I need immediate response.
I have also searched around tirelessly for this answer before I posted my question (the answers I have found, do not work for me..) :(
I would greatly appreciate any insight on this, Thanks in advance!
(If you need anymore information, please ask!)
From what I can tell from their documentation, it seems that the only way you can maintain a persistent background connection is by using one of their seven background mode keys, which I can see you've been trying since you registered for background audio. I know some alarm apps as well that use this feature (e.g. Sleep Cycle), and my assumption is that they are also using background audio mode, considering the other six modes are not remotely close to what they would need it for.
I think Apple's reasoning might be that these apps are allowed to do so, because their app is designed to be used when the user is not using the phone actively (i.e. when they're sleeping), and requires the audio to wake the user up, whereas if you are running a security app that wants to be active at all times, it may interfere with other features the user may use like Skype. The red bar will also persist at the top of the device at all times when the user is using it, which they may mistake for something that is still playing since usually when a red bar appears it means to the user that they are still actively using something. Again, I think wake-up alarm apps and others like them that aren't using persistent audio are able to get away with this since they are designed for use when the phone is inactive, so having the persistent red bar when the app is not visible is less of an issue.
In some other cases, like Nike+ (discussed here) and likely pedometers, they seem to be using the location background mode, since they often also track where you went and need to know distance. In that discussion I linked to, it looks like others were able to get accelerometer updates by registering for a background mode that applied to them. Have you tried registering for location movements? One downside I can see to that is it might drain battery life quicker, but if you check location infrequently it might not be too bad? Another is that I don't think you can directly play audio when in location background mode, but you could try to trigger a sound notification? :) That might be a nice workaround for it if that works for your app.
Again, the reasoning I have for why these apps are able to do it is just based on how I've seen other apps operating, and Apple may have different reasons for why it accepts them, but that was my best way of thinking why your app got rejected for using those modes while the others are able to do it. If location isn't what you're looking for, unfortunately I'm not sure from what it sounds like your app is doing that you'd be able to operate it continuously in the background in the way you're expecting.
Being responsive is a need for every app. Users want to have apps which have their content ready when they open it, so developers should use Background Modes to make their apps more user friendly.
Turning on the Background Modes capability
Go to Xcode and open your project.
In your app target, navigate to Capabilities tab.
Turn on Background Modes.
Background Fetch
Background fetch is a new mode that lets your app appear always up-to-date with the latest information while minimizing the impact on battery. You could download feeds within fixed time intervals with this capability.
To get started:
1- Check Background Fetch in capabilities screen in Xcode.
2- In application(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:) method in AppDelegate,
Reference: https://medium.com/#javedmultani16/background-modes-in-ios-3da25b9e6474
You can use background modes only if you actively use the activity that keeps the app awake: e.g. continuously playing audio is a valid use of the audio background key. They'll look pretty hard at whether you really need the access you request, and if not they'll reject you (as you've already found out), as background services drain the battery considerably more than others.
From the docs:
These keys should be used sparingly and only by apps providing the indicated services.
Short story: I think you're out of luck with your proposed implementation.
Is there any supported way of displaying the standard "TV Connected" UI with MPMoviePlayerViewController when an external display is connected? I may be missing something obvious but there doesn't seem to be any documentation about it, and there's nothing in the API that points towards enabling this functionality.
Our app already supports TV Out using some (rather nasty) custom code, but this started acting strangely with the release of iOS 6. We patched the existing release and sent it out to testers, but one of them began complaining that the UI looked different, and to my surprise he sent screenshots of the old app on iOS 5 using the normal "TV Connected" UI, which (as far as I knew) wasn't available to third party developers.
I know there are examples of using a UIWebView to achieve this functionality, but that's not suitable for us because we need to respond to notifications from the movie player in order to report playback state & progress to our server software. The standard UI also handles certain situations (e.g. AirPlay mirroring, which we can't detect with public APIs) more elegantly than we've managed to achieve with our custom code.