Swift: how to schedule local notifications with dynamic content - ios

Question

I have a weather app for iOS, and I'd like to allow the user to receive a notification each morning at a time of their choosing which would fetch the weather forecast for the day and display a notification.
I'd like to avoid using push notifications, and I thought I might be able to use local notifications, except I can't see a way to fetch the content to be shown from a server. It looks like the content has to be set at the time of scheduling. Is that right?
That makes me think I might be able to register my application to use background execution to periodically fetch the weather and schedule a notification with the latest content, but this seems wasteful.
In short, I'd like to tell iOS to run a specific function at a specific time. Is there a good option for this that I'm missing? Are push notifications the only/best way to accomplish this sort of thing?

Answer 1

Push notification is best option for your if you want to display weather forecast .
More about this : https://stackoverflow.com/a/41901767/3901620

Answer 2

You can schedule a local notification for a specific time and when a user sees it and if he wants he can open your app by tapping on that notification. At that time, you will able to know that, a user has tapped on a notification and thus the app is open, you can make a network call to fetch the data and show it inside the application. This will not require any background calls therefor and only make a network call to an action by a user.
Another option: You can create a widget of your app (like Weather Widget). Whenever a user goes into widget area you will get a delegate call and make a network call to get the latest weather data. If a user wants more information on it, he can simply tap on it and your app will open. Then, everything will be in your hands.
Your option: You can always get dynamic content whenever the user opens your app for a particular date and set a notification for it. But this is not suggestible as the user may not get updated data.
Push Notification: This may not be required with your case, however, if you want to send the dynamic data over your server to your app. This is always the best option.

Answer 3

i have created a function. In which this will call your function at a specific time, when you want. Am creating a clock app so i need to trigger a local notification when ever user created the alarm. And in the notification Center Delegate method, you can handle your response and call the whatever method you want.
class LocalNotificationMethod : NSObject {
static let notificationInstance = LocalNotificationMethod()
let requestIdentifier = "SampleRequest" //identifier is to cancel the notification request
internal func scheduleLocalNotification(titleOfNotification:String, subtitleOfNotification:String, messageOfNotification:String, soundOfNotification:String, dateOfNotification:String) {
if #available(iOS 10.0, *) {
let formatter = DateFormatter()
formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm a"
let date3 = formatter.date(from: dateOfNotification)
let content = UNMutableNotificationContent()
content.body = NSString.localizedUserNotificationString(forKey: titleOfNotification, arguments: nil)
content.sound = soundOfNotification.characters.count > 0 ? UNNotificationSound.init(named: soundOfNotification + ".mp3") : UNNotificationSound.default()
let trigger = UNCalendarNotificationTrigger.init(dateMatching: NSCalendar.current.dateComponents([.day, .month, .year, .hour, .minute], from: date3!), repeats: false)
let request = UNNotificationRequest(identifier:requestIdentifier, content: content, trigger: trigger)
UNUserNotificationCenter.current().add(request){(error) in
if (error != nil){
print(error?.localizedDescription)
} else {
print("Successfully Done")
}
}
} else {
// Fallback on earlier versions
}
}
}
And in AppDelegate Methods : - You can handle whenever user click on your notification or whenever your notification will be present.Is up to you what you want to done.
//MARK:- Notification Delegates
#available(iOS 10.0, *)
func userNotificationCenter(_ center: UNUserNotificationCenter, didReceive response: UNNotificationResponse, withCompletionHandler completionHandler: #escaping () -> Void) {
print("Tapped in notification")
}
//This is key callback to present notification while the app is in foreground
#available(iOS 10.0, *)
func userNotificationCenter(_ center: UNUserNotificationCenter, willPresent notification: UNNotification, withCompletionHandler completionHandler: #escaping (UNNotificationPresentationOptions) -> Void) {
print("Notification being triggered")
//You can either present alert ,sound or increase badge while the app is in foreground too with ios 10
//to distinguish between notifications
if notification.request.identifier == "SampleRequest" {
completionHandler( [.alert,.sound,.badge])
}
}