Autoanswer iOS Funtionality - ios

I need clarification on the development part.
I was been told to develop an app with an auto answer (call) facility – it’s a critical care app where an ailing father, mother or any other family member can be monitored through auto answer facility (phone call). On the worst case would it be possible through app to app, I mean the auto answering facility. We want this facility to be enabled for our app (for specific numbers) and not for other phone or whatsapp calls.
I’ve tried my research through other forums and connecting with the developers but unable find a solution.
Thanks in advance.

There is no way to have an app answer an GSM call.
However you can answer a VoIP call yourself when using the VoIP Push from PushKit.
In conjunction with CallKit, your app could auto answer this call after a timer fires.

Related

iOS SDK can you mute or cancel incoming calls

I found various threads here about how muting or canceling incoming calls (or messages) with the iOS SDK is not possible, due to the fact that Apple doesn't want an app to access system level settings. Well in fact not possible with the official tools, which means that if you somehow manage to do it, your app will not be accepted in the iTunes store.
Well I have been asked to assess the possibility of such an app that could do just that. Namely my client has seen these two apps
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lifesaver-distracted-driving/id874231222?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/at-t-drivemode/id907208943?mt=8
And they are sure that an app, basically exactly like these (based on the functionality) can be made.
So here I am, asking, how did these two apps succeed at the impossible and also how did they manage to get those apps uploaded to the iTunes store, if muting your phone is not an Apple approved option? I am not really asking for source code, although I am certainly not rejecting examples, but moreso I am asking for pointers of what class or book or documentation do I have to look up to figure out if this is possible? Apples CTCall and CT* classes did not seem to help me much.
K
Apple added the CallKit framework in iOS 10 to allow app developers to do this sort of thing, among others. For docs, see:
https://developer.apple.com/reference/callkit
It is now possible to detect and block unwanted phone calls from iOS 10 and above.
See the CallKit framework
The CallKit framework (CallKit.framework) lets VoIP apps integrate
with the iPhone UI and give users a great experience. Use this
framework to let users view and answer incoming VoIP calls on the lock
screen and manage contacts from VoIP calls in the Phone app’s
Favorites and Recents views.
CallKit also introduces app extensions that enable call blocking and
caller identification. You can create an app extension that can
associate a phone number with a name or tell the system when a number
should be blocked.

iPhone app with call features

I'm trying to get into a new project, by creating an iOS application. But before I start I would like to understand some points:
is it possible to let an application make a phone call? So what I mean is, assumed we have a phone number and would like to call it. Would it be possible to use an (my) application to call this number?
is it possible to let an application speak during a phone call? So after the application started the call, would it be possible that some predefined statements are said in the call?
is it possible that this application hears, registers and analyses what the other person on the phone line is saying? (Leaving apart the privacy issue, assuming that the other person is willing to do that).
Could you please help me? If my question aren't clear, please tell me, I will try to explain it in another way.
Many Thanks
F.P.
iOS is very restricted in terms of the system behaviors third party applications can influence.
To answer your question bluntly, a third party application could prompt the user to initiate a phone / FaceTime call. Once the call is initiated however, your app would enter a background state and relinquish control to the system. The app would not be able to contribute or read any data related to the system phone / FaceTime call.
iOS 10 introduces a VoIP extension, CallKit, which allows third party apps to use the built in calling UI with a custom protocol. You could implement your own protocol (and host servers for handling the exchange of information) and build an extension to make it feel like a system call. You'd be responsible for all aspects of the custom call protocol and thus reading voices, contributing audio, etc. would all be possible (and up to your implementation).
Outside of iOS 10, you would have to built your own VoIP system and interface entirely from scratch.
For more info on CallKit:
WWDC Enhancing VoIP Apps with CallKit
CallKit Enabled Sample App

Block and/or Silence incoming notifications

My company is currently contracted to write a meditation app. While we have the app 90+% done the client has come up with a new requirement they would like implemented. Thankfully we have not agreed to the new requirement as we were not sure if it is possible or not.
They have seen in other apps (games were the only examples they were able to provide) where notifications (i.e. incoming email) did not appear and did not play a sound.
I have searched the old google god and have not been able to come up with an answer for my higher ups. Is there a way to accomplish this or is this something that is only available for games?
Thanks.
I don't think it is possible. The only thing that I would guess is that you would turn on do not disturb pragmatically. But there is no code for that, that i know of.

real time messaging for multi player game on ios

Building a multi player iOS game where players compete one against the other. Nature of the game is synchronous. Basically, players either invite each other through facebook, email, etc and then start playing.
We debate what is the best strategy for facilitating the real time communication between players (sending events, etc). Coming from web development, we used comet and long polling which worked great. However, it's not clear what's the best way to achieve that on iOS.
Seems like APN (Apple Push Notifications) is not suitable in our case for two reasons: the delay can be pretty significant, up to few seconds, as far as we understand. Also, using APN requires the user to authorize notifications. If the user doesn't authorize this then it won't be possible to play the game.
Also, we understand Apple's Game Kit (Game Center) can be of value in our case however it's not clear how it interacts with invites through facebook etc. Also, not clear if we need to get into bed with Apple's Game Center and how it'll affect the user experience.
Any guidance on this matter as well as other options that you might think of would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your help.
Before you read the rest, a disclaimer: I work for Realtime.co but I do believe I can help here so I'm not trying to "pitch a sale".
If you need to have real time updates, you can check out Realtime (www.realtime.co). It's basically a set of tools for developers to use real time technologies on their projects. It uses websockets but does fallback to whatever the user's browser supports (such as long polling, for example) if you are using a browser (which is not your case, but it's always good to know).
Behind Realtime you have a one-to-one/one-to-many/many-to-many messaging system that will transport your messages to and from your users.
There's a iOS API too which you can use in your project. You can download it here: http://www.xrtml.org/downloads_62.html#ios and check the documentation here: http://docs.xrtml.org/getting_started/hello_message.html#ios.
There's also a plus which is the fact that the Realtime framework is actually cross-platform. This means that you can even have your iOS players to communicate with players using Android, Windows Phone, HTML5, Flash, etc. if you decide on expanding your game to other platforms.
I hope that helps!
I'll just provide some insights on the question.
APN should never be used for synchro communication as for iOS at least, you'll never have both way communication (basically the Apple APN servers are pushing an information to the device).
You should probably play with C sockets in order to open a tunnel (depends if your game is real time or not).
Using the Apple Framework GameKit is great! But might take some time to understand all the functionnalities.
Check out Gree
https://developer.gree.net/en/
Parse:
https://www.parse.com/
Sparrow:
http://gamua.com/sparrow/
There are a few things that your talking about, there is the joining/starting of a game, and then the communication between the players. They are not necessarily related.
You can use game-center and at the same time another framework for facebook, they are not mutually exclusive (but it would be more work.)

iOS: read sms while app is active, like Drivesafe.ly does

Can you point me to a method which allow an app read sms messages while the app is active.
I know many people say it's not possible, but Drivesafe.ly does it and I know some bank apps do that. The only condition for that to work is that the app is currently active (shown on the screen).
Many thanks!
Iam afraid its still not possible on iPhone. If you check the iTunes page for Drivesafe.ly app, there is a notice about that.
It says:
...the application does not read native text messages out loud that come directly from your wireless carrier. Unfortunately, this is not technically possible on iOS devices today...

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