I'm trying to create a little reminder-app for my special needs ;-)
Is there a way to tell iOS to wake my app up from the background at a specific time/in regular intervals?
The app would then decide to turn on the screen or play a sound, if required.
So far I can't figure out how to do this. All I can find on iOS 7 multitasking is about playing music, downloading data etc. Nothing time based...
As far as I know, it is not possible.
The closest you can get to that is by sending either a local or a push notification.
Take a look at local notifications: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/Introduction.html
The main class is UILocalNotification, documented at https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/iphone/Reference/UILocalNotification_Class/Reference/Reference.html
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I'd like to play a sound periodically while the app is in the background but after doing some research it's not certain if this is possible. Before I give up or waste too much time trying I want to double check with the community if this is really possible or not.
I figured out how to enable playing sounds while the app is in the background but the app is still eventually killed and the timer stops firing (there's a 10 minute period it runs in suspended mode if I use beginBackgroundTask: but that's not enough). Other ideas I had:
1) There appears to be a "background fetch" mode which could maybe be used like a timer but this is a hack and may be rejected by Apple.
2) Loop blank audio in the background or some other looping part of audio API's to keep the app alive? Again Apple may reject that even it's possible.
3) Enable the location API to keep the app alive and play audio. Hack again, bad for battery and Apple 99% will reject this.
4) I read somewhere that push notifications could work for this but that requires a complicated server backend and if it's possible that last resort.
Are any of those methods viable or are there others?
You can use scheduled Local Notifications with sounds.
A lot of todo-list apps such as Wunderlist offer some kind of reminder feature which usually just fires off a notification.
But I have never encountered an app that offer a similar notification view as the built in preinstalled alarm clock. You know, that locks the phone and offers a snooze option.
This makes me wonder if the alarm clock functionality that is built into the preinstalled iOs app from Apple including setting time or add a snooze button etc is only available for that particular app?
Since I'm a designer without any coding skills I only want to know if it possible or not.
Unfortunately this is unavailable for developers. You can check all of alarm clock apps in AppStore, all of them are using the standard local notifications. Which will fire once and that's all. You can of course set your custom sound and change couple of options, but it will never work like one build in Clock app inside iPhone.
You can read more about local notifications in Apple documentation: https://developer.apple.com/reference/usernotifications/unnotificationrequest
I figured Alarmy is constantly playing (when there is an alarm set up) a silent sound in the background. Like Spotify, but silent. This keeps the app active all the time. I came to this conclusion by logging the result AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().isOtherAudioPlaying (Swift 4) in my own application. Whenever Alarmy is terminated it returns false, whenever Alarmy is running in the background it returns true. Same thing happens for the app linked by Ernesto Elsäßer.
I used the same technique and I also used this pod to trigger a function when the time comes and start the real music.
I did this for testing and am not going to make an app out of it because playing silent sounds in the background is against Apple's rules. I don't know how Alarmy (or other apps that use this same method) got away with it.
Some related questions:
How do you constantly run in background?
App “Alarmy” is able to play iTunes song from background state… How?
Wake up application in background using AudioSession like Alarmy iOS app
Also you can check this article out.
This app seems to do exactly this, but I have no clue how ...
I tested it, and it managed to start playing music on a locked device at an arbitrarily chosen time, and for way longer than the 30s timeframe allowed for notification sounds. Further, the music is streamed from an online radio station, meaning they found a way to ...
wake up the app from a scheduled notification without user interaction
create a socket connection to a radio station in the background
start playing sound in the background for an indefinite amount of time
I also tried out the alarm in Airplane Mode, and it still played a locally stored backup song, so it probably doesn't abuse the VoiP background mode or push notifications, but really is triggered by a local notification ...
So although I can't tell how, it looks like there is an App Store Review-proof way to create a real alarm app.
(I am not affiliated with the developers of this app, just did some research on what's possible.)
In iOS 8, Event Kit was released along with the ability to use EKAlarm.
More info here: http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Using_iOS_8_Event_Kit_and_Swift_to_Create_Date_and_Location_Based_Reminders
Has anyone tried using this to setup Alarms in iOS using this?
Because alarms are notoriously difficult to work with in iOS in terms of launching an app from background mode, I was hoping to use EKAlarm. Would EKAlarm be a better option than setting up Local Notifications?
As of iOS 9 or 10, is there a better way to setup alarms other than having the app stay in foreground the whole time?
Most posts on SO suggest to use UILocalNotification, however, in my situation, I need additional things to happen in my app aside from a system alert (notification) the user receives. Additionally, it seems that UILocalNotification has a maximum of 30 seconds to play a sound. Obviously, an alarm needs more, and provide the ability to snooze, and other options provided within App.
Having said that, is UILocalNotification really the best option here?
I created an app that will send text messages through an API similar to Twilio, and I have an NSTimer that fires a function every set amount of time. The problem is that if you press the home button, it will totally stop the timing, which defeats the purpose.
I have read that it is possible to have your phone play a mute sound until closed to make sure it still runs in the background, but I can't find a resource on how to do this. Here is an example: To run NSTimer in background
If anyone has any information on how to do this, I'm sure it is very simple, and I very much appreciate the help.
Thank you.
If you set up your app as a background sound playing app then yes, it is technically possible to play a "silent sound" in order to keep it active in the background, but your app will be rejected by Apple if you do this.
Apple expressly forbids what you are trying to do.
You should look at using scheduled local notifications. Those will alert the user, who can bring your app to the foreground and let it perform the desired task.
I was wondering if it was possible to play a continues sound in my Skype like application when a user is called an the other user has the app installed but the app is in the background in the moment.
It would be really awesome if it could could show an "accept / decline" on the lock screen. But that might not be possible is it?
I have looked around on the internet, but I could not find it. (I think I saw something related to this on a keynote once, but that might just be my memory hoping it exists.)
That is possible to show an "accept / decline" on lock screen or notification itself. The only thing that is not possible to do is to make input field for quick response (as it's done in Messages app)
There is nice guide to interactive notifications for iOS8.
To play sound i suggest you to use possibilities provided by UILocalNotification instead of implementing custom sound/vibration.
Also, if your app is in background, it must use push notifications, so for VoIP apps i suggest you to take a look into PuskKit framework and special type of pushes - VoIP pushes