How to disable iPhone 'app not active' flashing banner - ios

My app checks the GPS while my app is not the active app and I use AVAudioplayer too in background.
It works fine and stays in the background doing its thing, but ios7 displays this red top banner with my app name flashing on it when it is not the active app.
How can I disable this banner, it is annoying to use other apps that are squished down 1 line?
I know this can be done as I have other GPS based background apps that don't display this flashing banner.
EDIT - So we found the answer quickly but the solution evades me:
If I stop OpenEars pocketsphinxController from listening with a button that calls this method while the program is active, the banner disappears when the app loses focus:
-(void) mystopListening{
NSLog(#"Tried to stop listening");
[pocketsphinxController stopListening];
}
BUT if I call the same method from my app delegate with (I had to import my view controller.h file in my app delegate.h and add -(void) nystopListening; in my view controller.h to make the below execute properly):
- (void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication *)application{
myViewController * vc = [[myViewController alloc]init];
[vc mystopListening];
}
The banner persists! It is a little like ios7 has decided I am a recording culprit before I even have a chance to turn it off. OR, am I even turning it off?
How do I do this effectively and in what event?
EDIT - So it turns out I am not really turning pocketsphinxController off when 'mystopListening' is called from the app delegate. I know this because it DOES log the 'Tried to stop listening' when called from app delegate but the pocketsphinxController does not respond with its 'pocketsphinxDidStopListening' method. PocketsphinxController does call its 'pocketsphinxDidStopListening' method when I call 'mystopListening' from a button while the app is active.
Why won't the pocketsphinxController respond when called from from the app delegate, I must be doing it wrong?
Thanks,Carmen

Turns out I was not really calling the original pockectsphinxcontroller instance from my app delegate.
As a workaround to the problem I did this:
My app always has a timer running, so in my app delegate where I get notice of when app goes to inactive and comes back active, I just set global flags so my timer can know app active status. Then my timer just uses pockecsphinxcontroller methods to stop and start listening and voila, the banner is no more while app not active.

Related

Termination of an app running in the background

I am currently developing an app that will need to terminate after running in the background for more than five minutes. In order to do this, I will have to have a timer running in the background after the the Home button has been pressed or in case of an interruptions such as an SMS or a telephone call, then, after five minutes the applicationWillTerminate method will be called. My first question is should I put the applicationWillTerminate in the applicationWillResignActive method or in the applicationDidEnterBackground method? My second question is since this is an app with more that one view, Should I write these things in the AppDelegate class or elsewhere? Thank you for your response.
1) You can't force your app to finish programatically.
2) You should never call these AppDelegate methods by yourself. They're meant to be called only by the system.
Reference: UIApplicationDelegate Protocol Reference.
This is pretty ghetto, but what you can do is make your app crash when you want it to exit, and it will close automatically, granted that's not closing the app, but there's no real harm in it as long as you are in control of how it crashes try to go for a bad access error, aka trying to access something that has been deallocated
as for running a timer in the background, i don't know per say if you can do that, but as an alternative you can save the time when they leave the app aka the app goes into the background and then you can have all the events return to your app of the view controller that is first responder, and each UIEvent has a time stamp, and regardless of which event it is you can compare the time stamps and see if it's greater than 5 minutes
Regardless i don't suggest any of the above, but that is the best answer i can come up with for your question
the code for receiving events out side of your app
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] beginReceivingRemoteControlEvents];
will start the event tracking and the call back is:
- (void)remoteControlReceivedWithEvent:(UIEvent *)event { }
but you have to remember to
[self becomeFirstResponder];
this tells the device which view controller to go to for the event tracking, oh and don't forget to resign first responder, and endReceivingRemotecontrolEvents

IOS: forcing update before app becomes visible

I have a timer in my app, and I want it to appear to be running while my app is on the background. I'd like that if the user presses the home button when the timer shows, for instant "01:11:11" and then goes back to the app and it becomes visible to him 10 minutes later, to see the timer as "01:01:11", however I get a split second where it shows the last state when the app went to the background ("01:11:11") before it starts updating from the correct time.
I assumed that I could correct this by updating the state of my timer in "applicationDidBecomeActive" and it did work on my simulator in Xcode but not on my Ipad.
I'm using cocos2d for my drawing and this is what I'm doing in my applicationDidBecomeActive:
CCScene *s=[director_ runningScene];
GameLayer *l=[(GameLayer*)[s getChildByTag:GAME_LAYER_TAG];
if (l!=nil) [l myUpdate];
I don't think it's relevant to the problem though because myUpdate does get called but I still have that split second glitch on my Ipad, as if it starts back from its last state no matter what.
In apples clock app, in applicationDidEnterBackground it hides the timer text, so that when the app comes into the foreground you see a blank UI for the split second where your app is loading the new timer data in the UI. Also, you may want to call some of your applicationDidBecomeActive code in applicationWillEnterForeground, which is called first. But keep in mind, applicationWillEnterForeground is not called when the app first launches.
There will always be a delay between when your app comes into the foreground, and when the UI updates. Theres no way to fix that, so you might as well use what apple uses to get around the issue.
Well I tried to hide my UI in both applicationWillResignActive and applicationDidEnterBackground. Since applicationWillResignActive is called first and before going into preview (double click on HOME) it causes a "not so pretty" preview but I thought at least it would solve my original problem. It didn't (not, on my IPad). It looks like the system takes the screen shot even before applicationWillResignActive.
I checked the timer in the official clock app and I see the clock is updating even when the app is in the background (in preview), so they "cheat" anyway...

Changing rootViewController in applicaitonWillEnterForeground

Long story short, I'm trying to change my iOS app's rootViewController on applicationWillEnterForeground:, like so:
- (void)applicationWillEnterForeground:(UIApplication *)application
{
MyViewController *controller = [[MyViewController alloc] init];
self.window.rootViewController = controller;
}
However, when iOS performs the "zoom in" animation that is performed when an app is moved from the background to the foreground, it still shows the previous rootViewController's view. Then, as soon as the animation is complete, the app blasts the new rootViewController's view onto the screen.
One way to solve this is to simply move that code to - (void)applicationDidEnterBackground:, but the problem with this solution is that, in my app, there is no way to tell if a new rootViewController will be assigned until - (void)applicationWillEnterForeground:(UIApplication *)application (it is based on time passed since leaving the app).
How can I force the app to redraw before iOS performs the animation taking the app from the background to the foreground?
I believe this is not possible. The screen that iOS shows of your app when it comes into the foreground is actually a screenshot the system took when the app went into the background. There is no way to manipulate or replace that image at the time the app comes back into the foreground.
This behavior is partly documented in the Moving to the Background section of the iOS Application Programming Guide:
Apps can use their applicationDidEnterBackground: method to prepare for moving to the background state. When moving to the background, all apps should do the following:
Prepare to have their picture taken. When the applicationDidEnterBackground: method returns, the system takes a picture of your app’s user interface and uses the resulting image for transition animations. If any views in your interface contain sensitive information, you should hide or modify those views before the applicationDidEnterBackground: method returns.
Apple does not explicitly document that you cannot modify or replace this screenshot at a later time but neither do they say the opposite anywhere I know of.

go to another page in applicationDidEnterBackground in iOS in device

In my application, When the application goes to background I am calling a Passcode page (Passcode Page which does authentication).
My requirement is when the user launch the app from the foreground he will see the passcode page. If he enters the correct passcode then only he can see the rest pages.
In delegate.m file
- (void)applicationDidEnterBackground:(UIApplication *)application
{
PasscodeViewController *passcodeController = [[PasscodeViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"PasscodeViewController" bundle:nil];
[navController pushViewController:passcodeController animated:YES];
}
When I am launching the application from the background then It is showing me the previous page( from which page I came to background ) for a fraction of second and after that Passcode page comes.
But I want to hide my confidential information from others (who doesn't know the passcode) that are shown in the previous page.
It is correctly working in Simulator but in Device it is not working properly.
Can you please guide me in that ?
OR
Is it the normal behavior of the iOS device ? What ever the page transition it will do, it will perform while the application is running in foreground.
I am not sure about that. Please tell me where I went wrong.
Thank you.
Every app I've used with a similar feature has operated as you describe, with the fractional-second flash before the lock view appears.
I think it's a matter of when UIKit thinks it needs to re-render... We had a similar case with a splash screen, but using applicationDidEnterBackground for adding the splash helped.
My idea is to avoid the animating, using
[navController pushViewController:passcodeController animated:NO];
Whenever your app goes background add a UIView with white background.
Whenever your app comes up push your PasscodeViewController view on top
Please add observers for UIApplicationDidEnterBackgroundNotification and UIApplicationWillEnterForegroundNotification to do the above functionality
Also be sure to remove the Observers when your view disappears
When user enters correct passcode remove the UIView.
Try applicationWillResignActive:
- (void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication *)application
{
PasscodeViewController* passcodeController = [[PasscodeViewController alloc] initWithNibName:#"PasscodeViewController" bundle:nil];
[navController pushViewController:passcodeController animated:YES];
}
When Application goes to background push the passcode viewcontroller to navigationcontroller in the delegate applicationDidEnterBackground because there will be that fractional flash almost all time u can have the passcodecontroller pushed before entering background.

what is the function that is called when the app is appearing?

Imagine the app is running and you press the iphone button (the phone button) and you exit the app. then you tap on the app again to enter the app. My problem is that when ever the user does this I want the viewWillAppear or viewDidAppear functions to be called, but unfortunately none of these functions gets called.
I want to know if these function won't get called, then what is the function that is called when the app is appearing again?
How about - (void)applicationDidBecomeActive:(UIApplication *)application in your UIApplicationDelegate?
Look at UIApplicationDelegate. -applicationDidBecomeActive: is what you are looking for.
You can also register for notifications in your classes (UIApplicationDidBecomeActiveNotification). This may be simpler to implement than having your app delegate handle everything since you can have, for example, each view controller manage itself.
(Use NSNotificationCenter's -addObserver:selector:name:object: to register, don't forget to unregister during object cleanup, typically in -dealloc.)

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