Run Sounds in background and with music playing - ios

Question

I'm building a running app that notifies the user by audio that they need to start running or start walking every couple of minutes. I was able to get the sound to run in the background, even with the lock screen on using AVAudioPlayer.
Here's snippets of what I have:
ViewController.h
#property (nonatomic, strong) AVAudioPlayer *audioWalk;
ViewController.m
- (void)viewDidLoad{
[super viewDidLoad];
// Walk Audio File
NSString *soundFile2 = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"Walk" ofType:#"wav"];
audioWalk = [[AVAudioPlayer alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:soundFile2] error:nil];
// Load the audio into memory
[audioWalk prepareToPlay];
// Permit the timer to run in the background
bgTask = 0;
UIApplication *app = [UIApplication sharedApplication];
bgTask = [app beginBackgroundTaskWithExpirationHandler:^{
[app endBackgroundTask:bgTask];
}];
// Prevent the application from going to sleep while it is running
[UIApplication sharedApplication].idleTimerDisabled = YES;
// Starts recieving remote control events and is the first responder
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] beginReceivingRemoteControlEvents];
[self becomeFirstResponder];
// Plays audio
[audioWarmup play];
}
I'm trying to figure out how to play my audio without interrupting the music that is playing in the background. Also, the sounds need to play in the background and when the screen is locked. Any help would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

I was able to fix it. Here's what I did below. This solutions allows an audio file to run in the background, even with the lock screen, while not interrupting or pausing audio from other applications (particularly music).
- (void)viewDidLoad{
[super viewDidLoad];
// Play audio even if lock screen is on, the with options allows audio from other applications to play without interruption
[[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setCategory: AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback withOptions:AVAudioSessionCategoryOptionMixWithOthers error: nil];
[[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setActive: YES error:nil];
// Walk Audio File
NSString *soundFile2 = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:#"Walk" ofType:#"wav"];
audioWalk = [[AVAudioPlayer alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL fileURLWithPath:soundFile2] error:nil];
// Load the audio into memory
[audioWalk prepareToPlay];
// Permit the timer to run in the background
bgTask = 0;
UIApplication *app = [UIApplication sharedApplication];
bgTask = [app beginBackgroundTaskWithExpirationHandler:^{
[app endBackgroundTask:bgTask];
}];
// Prevent the application from going to sleep while it is running
[UIApplication sharedApplication].idleTimerDisabled = YES;
// Starts receiving remote control events and is the first responder
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] beginReceivingRemoteControlEvents];
[self becomeFirstResponder];
// Plays audio
[audioWarmup play];
}