I'm trying to code an app that reminds me to hit a certain diet goal (drink 8 glasses of water, eat two fruits, take vitamins etc)
The problem is if I code these as reminders using local notifications, I don't get to execute code. So I can't adjust the reminders every hour relative to my goal. For example don't show the reminder if I already hit the goal. Or say stop the reminder past dinner time and start again in the morning.
If I code these as NSTimer the problem is they don't run in the background.
I suppose I can move all the logic to a server and use push notification instead. But this is huge amount of work for what I would consider a very simple self reminder app.
What is the right approach?
if I code these as reminders using local notifications, I don't get to execute code
I use a pill-taking app, and it does use local notifications. The local notification does let the app execute code, if the user taps / swipes (whatever) the notification. The app then puts up a dialog where I enter what actually happened (I took the pill, I skipped it, etc.).
The app simply assumes that if the user doesn't respond and tell it what happened, then nothing happened (i.e. the user missed the pill). How does it know that? Well, as with any local notification-based timer app, the app must maintain an internal list of pending events. It strikes a pending event from the list when it knows the outcome. That way, if the app is not running and then it is running, it can look back over its list and note that there are past pending events, thus proving that the user failed to respond to a reminder.
Related
I Did lots of BG tasks in the past, But Trying to get data when app is killed (Even when user is giving Always permission) seems not to work.
I wonder if there is a solution for that.
To make things clear, I am not talking at the moment when app change from Active or Background even to suspended mode. I'm talking about if the user is using the app and set permissions but then kills the app and after that i need every hour to get data from the user and send data to them.
Is there a way to do that?
Can a Today widget help me with that? Does a Today widget "lives" all the time and i can get that from it 24/7?
Whet is working is CLLocation manager. This is working even when the app is killed. But only when the user is changing a location.
I need that to work when the user is in the same place also.
Non of the other methods work. Not BGTask (I need every hour on the hour and not when apple decide to do things), Nor Silent Push Notification for some reason (Regular ones work, but i Don't want to bother the user with a push every hour just for getting and sending data).
Sorry there is no code to show as this is a very general question. But i think that is very important one to many people and can't find an answer for that.
I am looking for solution to get data in background mode even app is terminated.
There are lots of tutorials and answers available for this questions, but my questions is different than other. I haven't find any proper solution on stackoverflow, so posted this question.
I have scenario which I can explain. I'm using realm database which store event date, name, time, address etc. Now the thing is that, I want to write a code which are execute in background, In this code I want to get all event data and compare their date with today's date. And based on days remaining between these days fire local notification to remind user about how many days are remaining for specific event.
I want to call this background fetch method exactly 8 AM in local time everyday.
I haven't write any code due to confused with Background fetch and implementation. Can anyone know how to implement this ?
Help will be appreciated.
I have got solution to fix issue. As per I have talked,
I want to write a code which are execute in background, In this code I
want to get all event data and compare their date with today's date.
And based on days remaining between these days fire local notification
to remind user about how many days are remaining for specific event.
So, when I getting response from API, I'm creating local notification for all events with unique id, which are fire and repeat daily at specific time, where I have display event time and remaining days of event.
Apple documentation states that there is no guarantee when background fetch is performed. It's up to the system to decide.
The system waits until network and power conditions are good, so you should be able to retrieve adequate amounts of data quickly.
The guaranteed way to wake your app is to send at 8 am VoIP push notification from the server. It is guaranteed that the app will be wakened upon receiving a push, and you'll be able to execute the jobs you need. For more details, https://medium.com/ios-expert-series-or-interview-series/voip-push-notifications-using-ios-pushkit-5bc4a8f4d587
It is not possible to wake up the app from suspended mode in iOS except with push notification (for this server has to send push notification).
This is something which is not documented anywhere. IMHO and experience with iOS, Apple must be recording user activities since the start of the iOS era. ScreenTime is a product of those recordings only that apple was able to create and visualize the data to present a user facing app that very beautifully restricts, manages and displays your activities. In WWDC 2018, it was even quoted that apple will even detect, if the user opens your app at let's say 9 PM daily before going to bed, iOS will allow every possible resource (battery, internet, processing time etc) to that app at 9 PM. But you need to understand your user activities before you do this. Let's take an example of:
News App:
A majority of users would check the news in the morning (If they are not instagram addicts). At this time even apple should be biased to open your app with background fetch. Unless of-course there is too much of a resource crunch
A Game: Many games allow provide a restriction time by calling it "recharge" or "re-fill" the energy of a character before user can play another round. This is done so that the addicted person would buy gems to remove that restriction and hence monetize the idea. But if you know that the refill process is completed before 8:00 AM in the morning or user plays your game daily at 8:00 AM configure background fetch accordingly.
Background fetch works with interval rather than specific time.
// Fetch data once an hour.
UIApplication.shared.setMinimumBackgroundFetchInterval(3600)
Lastly why don't you try silent push notifications? Based on your question, I think silent notification is enough to wake your app after a push notification from the server, download some data and do your calculation and provide a local notification.
I'm making a simple app with a Today Widget extension that logs events.
The user can tap a button in the app or the related Today Widget to log an event. These events are saved with Core Data any time the button is pressed either place.
Whenever a new event is logged in the app, I run a function called updateLocalNotificationsFromCoreData(). It handles the setup of UILocalNotifications based on the most recent event in Core Data after clearing the appropriate existing notifications.
However, when a new event is logged from the Today Widget, I can't use this function because I need to register the Local Notification with UIApplication.sharedApplication().scheduleLocalNotification(), and UIApplication is not available in the Today Widget extension.
I realize I'll probably need do something unconventional or hacky to get this working, so I'm trying to evaluate possible approaches and come up with a relatively robust solution.
Basically, I want to find a way I can call my
updateLocalNotificationsFromCoreData() function right away any time a new event is logged.
If I can't do it every time an event is logged, an alternative would be to trigger the updateLocalNotificationsFromCoreData() function periodically (somewhat frequently) another way. Here are some solutions I was thinking about using, but I don't like any of them:
Do it in AppDelegate when the app is launched (or another state change)
One approach I'm thinking about is running my updateLocalNotificationsFromCoreData()function in AppDelegate somewhere, like didFinishLaunchingWithOptions.
The downside is that it would require the user to open the app periodically. If the user didn't open it much the notification behavior would be inconsistent. I'd prefer a solution where a user could interact with only the Today Widget and reliably get Local Notifications without ever opening the app.
Sync the events to a server and use Push Notifications
I've thought about syncing the data in Core Data to a server, then setting up Push Notifications to the user's phone based on that.
I don't like this, because I want the user to still be able to get notifications without an Internet connection. It also introduces a lot of extra overhead of syncing the data with a server.
Ping a server, and send a content-available Push Notification
When someone logs an event with the widget, I could ping a server. That server could send back a silent content-available push notification to trigger the app to run updateLocalNotificationsFromCoreData() in the background.
I found a similar question (Scheduling local notification from within a Today extension) where one answer proposes a similar solution. Unlike the previous solution, an Internet connection is not needed to receive the notifications, but an Internet connection would be required to make sure the notifications are up to date when a new event is logged.
Background fetch
I thought about using Background Fetch to fetch something arbitrary from a server, then run the updateLocalNotificationsFromCoreData(). This would be a way to trigger the update in the background, although it seems silly to fetch data if that data isn't being used, and seems like something for which an app could be rejected. There also seems to be a risk of the system not calling the background update regularly if the user doesn't open the app much and mostly uses the Today Widget.
Use background location updates
This seems like the dumbest approach, but I thought I would mention it anyway since I thought about it. I could use one of the low accuracy background location update modes to trigger updateLocalNotificationsFromCoreData().
It would require the user to allow location in the background, which would be hard to explain. And, it would require the user to at least move around a few blocks to trigger the function, which could provide an inconsistent user experience. Also, it would increase power consumption of the app for a silly reason.
I'd really appreciate fresh ideas about how I might be able to reliably schedule local notifications when Core Data changes on a device that doesn't have an Internet connection!
Or, if that doesn't seem possible, I'd appreciated feedback on which approach seems to make the most sense.
EDIT: I came up with a new solution. It's not ideal, but I think it's better than these other approaches I was considering. When someone taps the button to log the event, I launch the full app. It's annoying because I have all the data I need at that point to give the user feedback and log the event within the Today Widget without launching the app, but by launching the app I have the opportunity to check and schedule local notifications.
Also, in iOS 9 the annoyance on the user is slightly minimized because the system-wide "back" button will appear and let the user go back to the previous app easily once my app has launched from the Today Widget.
In the future I may try a solution where one of the server-based approaches above is used when an Internet connection is available, and I would then fall back to this system of opening the app only when the network connection is not available and I need to schedule the local notifications within the app.
I am looking for a good way how to make my app "upToDate". These are my requirements:
I have an RESTful Webservice, with tasks for different users. Every user has an iOS App, which should get automatically updated when the Server/Service assigned a task to that User.
So first ill created a manuall "Sync" Button, which checks for new Tasks. Fetches the data with Alamofire, and updated the UI.
But, my goal is automatically sync if there are new tasks.
So, ill guess there are 2 different ways to solve that:
1. Make a Background Fetch (with a NStimer?) every xx Minutes and check if there are new tasks.
After checking that tutorial here:
http://www.raywenderlich.com/92428/background-modes-ios-swift-tutorial i am not sure if a background fetch is a good way to solve that. In that case the App uses an scheduler, to check once for new updates, and not every xx minutes.
So in my case i would create an NStimer in the AppDelegate (maybe in applicationDidEnterBackground) and check every xx minutes for new data (but when there are 3 days not any new task, that would be unnecessary battery consumption, or?)
2. Using Push Notifications.
My other idea is to use Push Notifications, so when there is a new task, ill send a Push Notification an manually start the sync. In my opinion that would use less battery, because he will only start the sync when there is a new task available.
Generaly Questions about using Background Services
So ok, if the user finished the task, some data should be automatically uploaded to the server. Normally not a problem, with the manual sync ill check if there is something to upload. But, what if, when there is no internet connection (ill check if before uploading) - and the user do not press on "manual sync".
So i would prefer to check in my "Background Service" if ill got an Internet connection, and if yes - start uploading some data.
Ill know this is not a specific question, but ill think there are lots of users who have the same requirements and it would be great if someone can help me out whats the best way to solve that in the best and practical way.
Thanks in advance!
Background updates sound wonderful until you realise that Apple throttles them heavily: you can ask to be updated as frequently as possible, but iOS decides what that value actually means based on how often users open your app and when they do so. Apple considers background updates the kind of thing that should happen just before a user opens your app so the latest content is right there, rather than something that runs proactively in the background.
Your push notification solution is a better one, particularly if you use CloudKit to subscribe to record change events using CKSubscription and CKNotificationInfo. If you do this you'll automatically get push messages in your app, so you can get what you want with very little work. You can read my tutorial for more information on subscribing to CloudKit to get push messages.
I'm developing wp7 Mango application. I run PeriodicTask and want to notify user according to some conditions. I'm using ShellToast for notification. But to my mind its isn't enough for my purpose. First of all ShellToast disappears after some time and user can easy miss this notification. Secondary that doesn't work when application runs. And minor issue - notification's sound is very quiet.
Reminder is more suitable for me. It is loud and doesn't disappear till user close it. But it isn't possible to create Reminder from background thread, so I've created Reminder on foreground side and set BeginTime = DateTime.MaxValue. On the background I just use ScheduledActionService.Find("ReminderName") for extracting Reminder and change BeginTime property to DateTime.Now. Unfortunately without success.
Does anybody has idea how to rise Reminder through PeriodicTask?
As you've discovered, it's not permitted to set a reminder from a BackgroundTask.
I think you would benefit by considering things from the users persective. As a user:
- would you an app that kept raising notifications that you had to respond to?
- would you want an app ignored the conventions of the platform
- would you want an app that always made loud noises? even if you turned the volume down?
If it's really vital to your app that you notify the user in a more prominent way you coudl send an SMS via an external service.
Or you could have the user subscribe to a web based calendar and then add your events to that calendar from the background thread. But when you get to this point it probably makes sense to move more functionality out of the background task and put that on the server too.