In ios, it supports long running background task for certain types of apps with background modes such as App registers for location updates,App provides Voice over IP services,App plays audio,App processes Newsstand Kit downloads,App communicates using CoreBluetooth,App shares data using CoreBluetooth.
My application in ios will updload file to remote server periodically if network connection exists.It will do this process if the file is available in the particular directory.
I want to know that in which mode above my app does come under?
the background modes are very restrictive and your app doesnt fit in any category. if you want to use background downloading, try the following tutorial:
iOS 7 SDK: Background Transfer Service
Related
I'm developing an IoT device that will connect to iOS via Bluetooth.
I've seen some smartwatches that uses the iPhone as a gateway to perform Internet connection tasks like getting weather data, without the need to open a particular app.
How can this be achieved?
Is there any supported Bluetooth Profile that iOS support for that functionality?
There is a way to allow you to listen to Bluetooth activities in the background as well. Check out this documentation.
And, for the part about running tasks without the app running in the foreground, you might want to check out the background execution API (Only in iOS 13)
in my app, I am connecting my app to BLE device. and I am fetching BLE data from BLE device at every 1 second. it working fine when I do this in the foreground.but I want to do same in the background even when the app will be in the background I need to fetch data continuously from BLE device. right now its stoped automatically after 2 minutes.
Please let me know if it's feasible or not?
Thanks in advance
You need to enable Background Mode in your project settings under capabilities tab. Under background modes you will find a few modes that satisfy various purposes of running an app in background. From these you have to enable the ones that you think are suitable according to the task that your app will perform in background. I think, you should enable external accessory communication and background fetch.
Also you need to implement a background task when your app enters background. This is done in app delegate's didEnterBackground method.
Apple documentation
Apps that work with Bluetooth peripherals can ask to be woken up if the peripheral delivers an update when the app is suspended. This support is important for Bluetooth-LE accessories that deliver data at regular intervals, such as a Bluetooth heart rate belt. You enable support for using bluetooth accessories from the Background modes section of the Capabilities tab in your Xcode project. (You can also enable this support by including the UIBackgroundModes key with the bluetooth-central value in your app’s Info.plist file.) When you enable this mode, the Core Bluetooth framework keeps open any active sessions for the corresponding peripheral. In addition, new data arriving from the peripheral causes the system to wake up the app so that it can process the data. The system also wakes up the app to process accessory connection and disconnection notifications.
In iOS 6, an app can also operate in peripheral mode with Bluetooth accessories. To act as a Bluetooth accessory, you must enable support for that mode from the Background modes section of the Capabilities tab in your Xcode project. (You can also enable this support by including the UIBackgroundModes key with the bluetooth-peripheral value in your app’s Info.plist file.) Enabling this mode lets the Core Bluetooth framework wake the app up briefly in the background so that it can handle accessory-related requests. Apps woken up for these events should process them and return as quickly as possible so that the app can be suspended again.
Any app that supports the background processing of Bluetooth data must be session-based and follow a few basic guidelines:
Apps must provide an interface that allows the user to start and stop the delivery of Bluetooth events. That interface should then open or close the session as appropriate.
Upon being woken up, the app has around 10 seconds to process the data. Ideally, it should process the data as fast as possible and allow itself to be suspended again. However, if more time is needed, the app can use the beginBackgroundTaskWithExpirationHandler: method to request additional time; it should do so only when absolutely necessary, though.
I'm afraid I already know the answer of my own question, but I decided to ask anyway before losing my hopes.
I have the following use case: an app writes some bytes in a "shared" resource (let's say on a file) and another app reads the data and sends them to an external device via BLE while in background. Unfortunately, I know that concepts like shared resource and background are bounded in iOS. What I tried so far is:
Using App Group to share data between two apps
This is working fine even in background, but both the apps need to be produced by the same developer team (i.e. Team ID must be the same). This is a problem because one app is not produced by my developer team.
Copying data in the pasteboard
This is not working when app is in background. Data will always be nil and will update only when the app becomes active again.
...and of course there are...
Background limitations
Even though I go for the App Group solution, the only way I can manage to read data and send to the BLE device in background is by starting a background task. This obviously is a caveat: the task has an expiration time (from tests I performed it keeps going for about 3 minutes before being suspended by the OS). I don't need to run a long-time task, but I cannot assure it can be performed completely by 3 minutes or so.
Here's the question: Is there some other solution for this use case or should I finally give up?
If you are using CoreBluetooth to send files to your Bluetooth device, you can try adding bluetooth-central as UIBackgroundMode key in Info.plist of your app.
Apple has mentioned this in its programming guide:
Communicating with a Bluetooth Accessory Apps that work with Bluetooth
peripherals can ask to be woken up if the peripheral delivers an
update when the app is suspended. This support is important for
Bluetooth-LE accessories that deliver data at regular intervals, such
as a Bluetooth heart rate belt. You enable support for using bluetooth
accessories from the Background modes section of the Capabilities tab
in your Xcode project. (You can also enable this support by including
the UIBackgroundModes key with the bluetooth-central value in your
app’s Info.plist file.) When you enable this mode, the Core Bluetooth
framework keeps open any active sessions for the corresponding
peripheral. In addition, new data arriving from the peripheral causes
the system to wake up the app so that it can process the data. The
system also wakes up the app to process accessory connection and
disconnection notifications.
In iOS 6, an app can also operate in peripheral mode with Bluetooth
accessories. To act as a Bluetooth accessory, you must enable support
for that mode from the Background modes section of the Capabilities
tab in your Xcode project. (You can also enable this support by
including the UIBackgroundModes key with the bluetooth-peripheral
value in your app’s Info.plist file.) Enabling this mode lets the Core
Bluetooth framework wake the app up briefly in the background so that
it can handle accessory-related requests. Apps woken up for these
events should process them and return as quickly as possible so that
the app can be suspended again.
Being relatively new to iOS App development, I wish to develop an app which runs like a service in background (comparable with android service). The goal of my app is to use the native voice recognition, also while the app is inactive. My question is, would it principally be possible to code an app to be able to run also in background? I've read in a few pretty old threads that iOS closes any app after three minutes. However, should it be possible, I would be thankful for any coding example.
I don't think so, because if the app is on background, the local audio recogisation is for Siri.
In my app, I open a connection to use the iPad as a tiny FTP Server, then when the app runs, I can access to the app Documents with FileZilla, web browser, etc...
But can I keep this connection opened whe the app enter in background? I tried "Background Modes" but it doesn't work.
Thanks you all :)
EDIT : I use files from this project : https://github.com/sosoyososo/XZCodeBrowser
The background modes in iOS are limited. iOS devices are not designed to operate in the same way as a traditional computer, with multiple long-running tasks. There are various background modes available, as you have investigated, that can help applications perform tasks in the background, but these are more focussed on the user experience (e.g. allowing an app to periodically fetch data or receive location updates) than running "servers".
Apps in the background are managed to reduce demand for memory and maximise battery life, so they can be unloaded at any time.
The VoIP background mode allows iOS to keep listening for network traffic on your app's behalf and re-launch your app in the background if necessary, but if you use this for a non-VoIP app I believe you will have problems with app approval.