I was told multiple times that other apps do this but I can't seem to find any documentation on how to do that.
The behavior I would like to achieve is:
User starts iOS app and navigates to particular screen.
User presses start action/workout button and starts action/workout on iOS app.
At the same time user's Watch wakes up and shows corresponding screen in Watch app which acts as info screen for the current action/workout in iOS app.
User can press pause button on Watch and pause the action/workout in iOS app (this part is working already via WCSession).
So the question is basically how can I launch Watch app when either iOS app starts or when user does something in iOS app?
P.S. It is not a question of launching iOS app from Watch app, AFAIK for that I can use handoff.
I'm working on developing a kiosk app to run in single app mode on two 12.9" iPad Pros. We want the option to turn these kiosks off so I'm using the ionic-native Insomnia and Battery-Status plugins to keepAwake when it is plugged in and allowSleepAgain when it is unplugged.
The problem is, the enclosures that were selected to house the iPads completely block all of the buttons, including the home button. When the iPads are plugged back in, the screen turns on and shows the "Press Home to Open" screen. To actually hit the home button, we need to get a key and remove the iPad from the enclosure.
Is there any way, either through the standard iPad preferences, or through the Configurator/Single App Mode preferences, to bypass the lock screen and go directly into the app when it wakes up?
I know I could probably find a way to setBrightness to 0 when unplugged and to 100 when plugged back in. But, that seems less preferable to me than letting it actually go to sleep.
Thanks
Is the iPhone "device Home button" (circle button that is part of the hardware at bottom center) the standard way that users exit an iPhone app?
I don't have an actual iPhone device yet (looking for the iPhone6 to come down in price a bit), am just working with Xcode simulators. When I run my iPhone Swift apps, they are always in full screen mode.
On Android, there are a few navigation buttons built into the OS that appear at the bottom of the screen - Back, Home, Open Apps. And in that OS you can give a directive to exit full screen to reveal those OS buttons.. which then allows the user to easily exit the app if they'd like to.
In looking at the iPhone apps on the simulator, I notice they don't have this kind of UX.
What are the best practices around iPhone users
A. Sending an app to the background ?
B. Quitting/Closing an app ?
To send an app to the background, hitting the home button is sufficient.
To quit an app, tapping the home button twice shows you all the open apps; you can then swipe an app to "kill" (terminate) it.
However, here is a recent post by the excellent John Gruber explaining why killing an app should only be a last resort: https://daringfireball.net/2017/07/you_should_not_force_quit_apps
Note: on the iPhone Simulator, the command-shift-H key combo is equivalent to hitting the home button.
To send an app to the background:
Press the Home button.
To "quit" or "close" an app:
Press the Home button.
That's all the UX expected of an iOS app... and none if it is actually provided by your app. iOS manages it for you; you just have to deal with your app's lifecycle methods to respond to the user leaving and re-entering your app.
iOS doesn't expect users to know or care about the difference between "background" and "closed/quit" in most cases. You enter an app, you leave an app, that's it.
And the way iOS works under the hood, there is no difference in most cases — when you leave an app, it's not "running in the background", it's "frozen" or "suspended": that is, in memory but not running. That way the OS can get it usable again near-instantly if the user comes back, or instantly reclaim that memory if another process needs it.
The user can also invoke the multitasking UI (double click home button, or in iOS 11 on iPad swipe up from bottom edge) and swipe an app away, but this is equivalent to the "kill" or "force quit" actions seen in other operating systems — it's primarily for situations where an app is misbehaving. This isn't part of your app's UX either; it's also provided by iOS.
As noted in the Daring Fireball post linked from #TimKokesh's answer, there are some circumstances where an app "in the background" isn't "frozen" but has some limited ability to run, the Settings app has UI to help the user keep tabs on what are using (and abusing) that ability, and those are some of the only cases where it's reasonable for a user to "force quit" apps.
If you want to have a real iPhone look-alike simulator on your development environment, yes it's available with New Xcode-9/Beta version. It shows real hardware buttons(volume, lock, home buttons) which you can press and feel like a real device. If you are interested you can download it from here
On other Xcode environments, you can go to home screen by pressing the keys: Cmd + Shift + H
Want to put the icon for our iOS app on the iOS Notifications Screen that can be accessed when a user has not entered their passcode, so that the user can launch the app when the phone is locked without needing to input their passcode. The goal is for a very fast launch with minimum time from a locked iphone. We don't need to actually send the user a notification. Would also be great for this to work on Android, but iOS is currently more important for this feature.
What is the best way to do this using Cordova? Is there an existing plugin for this purpose?
Thanks
It is not possible to launch an iOS app without unlocking the phone/device. The notifications screen is only available once the iOS device is unlocked.
(thanks to dan)
After iOS 8 release, we are getting feedback from some users about our app that whenever users try to start app, operating system navigate it to background. I was able to examine this issue myself and I see that OS does not terminate app or app does not crash. In fact, app appears in background apps menu. Whenever user tries to open the app it closes itself something as if “simulating user's home button touch”. Of course, I’m not doing something like this by code. And this issue only show 100 in 1 and only in iOS 8 devices. It shows any kind of devices from iPhone 4S to 5S.
Have you ever encounter an issue like this?