IOS run app based on location - ios

Ive been using GPS logger apps to track my position. i would like to automate the start recording by having the phone sense im on the move.
Here is what i invision:
GPS locating app off (for battery)
Reception signal changes reception towers indicating movement or a manual trigger button combiation etc
GPS location app triggered to open
In app record tracking button pressed
Reception signal doesnt change for a specified timeout say 10min
triggers stop recording and closes app

GPS locating app off (for battery)
You can do that, but if you want. To do that automatically you have to read the acceleration sensor, which needs battery, too.
Reception signal changes reception towers indicating movement or a
manual trigger button combiation etc
You cannot detect cell tower changes in ios. But you cann detect position changes if GPS is enabled, then you can start recording.
GPS location app triggered to open
This works only when using location region monitoring: when you enter a specific region, ios can start your app. You cannot have your app started for general moving. But you can app can remain in background.
In app record tracking button pressed
This works and has no difficulties.
Reception signal doesnt change for a specified timeout say 10min
This works, too, if your position does not change for some time you could stop recording.
triggers stop recording and closes app
This does not work, you cannot programatically close your app (legally).

Related

invoke a alarm sound when ios app is in background and someone pick it, using core motion

invoke a alarm when someone touched the iPhone or iPad and a app is running in background.
this is happening into a ios app i.e. iAntiTheft
iAntiTheft is not using the location i checked the permission of the app, in a scenario i put the app in background activating motion alert and device get's locked after some time, now i pick the device, it immediately show a Notification and start alarm on high volume.
one More thing here to notice it always playing a low volume beep beep after enabling the motion sensor alert. any help appreciated.
how can i achieve this.
The answer to get Core Motion Update when the app is in background and the device locked. in both case just put an audio with background mode playing after the core motion updates function, now the device will go to background or get locked you always getting the core motion coordinates updates
Repo Link Providing soon

Stop Updating Locations on ios when user clicks stop button

I am using location services in my ios app for tracking purposes. The app tracks location in foreground as well as background, until the app terminates.
Here all the code is written in react-native java script except the beacon tracking API values which are being sent from native ios code through app delegate and location manager.
The app updates locations in all cases throughout the life cycle of app but sends beacon values to API only after a specific track interval. There is a stop button, on clicking of which the app stops sending location values to API but the location manager still continues to change lat long values.
What i want is, the clicking of stop button should stop the location manager updates and should start only when i click on 'start' button. This can be handled through app delegate methods but they are called only when any app transition happens like switching from foreground to background or vice versa.
They are not called if i switch between screens remaining on foreground only. And all the screens are handled through react code only, not in native ios.
Suggest something to control the location manager activities in the manner mentioned above, please.

iOS: Determine if another app becomes active

My app needs the device location with an accuracy of about 10 meters. If the app is launched, it usually takes e.g. 10 sec to get the required accuracy. This delay is OK. However when the app is „in use“ (see below), the delay should be less, e.g. 1 sec.
The problem is the following:
When the user switches off the display, the app transits from the active state to the background state (and the delegate methods applicationWillResignActive and applicationDidEnterBackground are called).
Normally, location updates are not done in background. So, next time the app transits from background to active state (delegate methods applicationWillEnterForeground and applicationDidBecomeActive are called), the location manager needs again e.g. 10 sec to reach the required accuracy. This delay in unfortunately not OK.
To avoid it, the app could do location updates in the background. This works fine.
The disadvantage is that these background location updates continue, even if the app is no longer used, because the user pressed the home button and switched to another app. This is disturbing at least for 2 reasons: The GPS hardware is unnecessarily active and uses power, and the user is notified that my app is using the device location although this is no longer required.
My question thus is:
Is it possible to determine if another app becomes active?
If so, background location updates could be switched off.
Is it possible to determine if another app becomes active?
No, your app only knows if it's in background or in foreground handling delegate events. Know if user opened another app or is in the home screen is not possible.
These background location updates continue, even if the app is no longer used, because the user pressed the home button and switched to another app.
I think you're right. You could start a timer when application goes in background and update localization only for an estabilished period (one minute?). Then, at the end of timer count save last localization coordinates. Timer is used to avoid unnecessary updates, then if user doesn't open again your app after a reasonable time, maybe it's because he's using other apps or he locked the device.
When the app comes to the foreground again, if timer is still active you're good. Otherwise show last localization saved and show a small "banner" to advise user that localization could not be accurated for the first 10 seconds (until when required accuracy has been reached)

How to start GPS tracking triggered by a iBeacon in Xamarin iOS?

I am working on an app that records journeys by tracking the GPS. Everything is working fine in background if we start the process from the foreground (by tapping the button "Start Journey").
Now the idea is start record these journeys automatically triggered by a iBeacon. When the iPhone gets inside of a beacon region, the app is detecting this and calls the function LocationManager.StartUpdatingLocation();
PROBLEM:
Using iBeacons from background, we only get 10 seconds ranging and that is the same figure I have got to get location updates from GPS.
All I need is detect I am inside of beacon region, start GPS and keep it running, and only disable the GPS when I am outside of the region.
Unfortunately, you can use CoreLocation geofences in the background, but you can't get fine GPS updates continually. This isn't a Xamarin thing -- it is an iOS restriction.
I wrote the blog post that #RobertN referenced about extending background beacon ranging to 3 minutes. But I don't think this is much help to you because you want to do get GPS updates continually, which Apple simply does not allow.
We actually recently wanted to implement this behavior in one of our apps too, and found that if we start significant location updates (startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges) in the foreground, then we're able to start regular location updates (startUpdatingLocation) in the background, in our didEnterRegion implementation.
(Naturally, your app needs the "always" authorization to access Location Services, and the "Location updates" Background Mode enabled.)
Our app is still pending review, so whether that's a bug or a feature of Core Location, and whether Apple is okay with that, remains to be seen.
The best explanation to this I seen can extend that 10 seconds to 3 minutes, but that is it... App rejection is an issue with continuous background operation unless your app truly is reviewed as a Navigation app:
A second approach involves tracking the beacon in the background,
noting its estimated distance, and only triggering an action when the
beacon is estimated to be within a specific range. This approach is
problematic on iOS, because CoreLocation generally allows only 10
seconds of ranging time when an app is in the background. If a beacon
is first detected at 50 meters, and a person is approaching the beacon
at one meter per second, the mobile device will still be 40 meters
away when iOS suspends the app and stops it from ranging.
The good news is that it is possible to extend background ranging time
on iOS. If your app is a navigation app, you can specify location
updates in the “Required background modes” in your Info.plist. But
this approach makes it harder to get AppStore approval -- you have to
convince reviewers that your app is providing navigation services to
the user. This probably isn’t true for many apps that simply want to
use beacons to trigger at a specific distance.
Fortunately, you can still extend background ranging time without
requesting special background modes. The time you can get is limited
-- only three minutes. But this clock restarts each time your app is woken up in the background, meaning you can get an extra three minutes
of ranging time each time your app detects a beacon (enters a beacon
region) or stops seeing beacons (exits a beacon region.)
Via: http://developer.radiusnetworks.com/2014/11/13/extending-background-ranging-on-ios.html

CoreMotion updates in background state

With the M7 chip in the latest iOS devices one can get programmatically notified as the user goes from stationary to running, walking, etc using CMMotionActivityManager. Stava and Runkeeper have both used this to auto-pause GPS polling (shut off the GPS antenna) when it detects the user isn't moving via the M7, and then re-enable GPS updates once they are moving again. It is able to do this while the app is in the background state, which is the key here.
The issue I run into while duplicating this functionality is that if I turn off GPS updates while my app is in the background I stop receiving activity updates, and can no longer detect when the user moves again via the M7 to turn the GPS back on.
If I leave the GPS running the whole time I'll continue to get movement updates from Core Motion the entire time the app is in the background.
I'm assuming they aren't playing white-noise or some other cheap trick to stay active. How did they go about this?
RunKeeper actually does use the audio trick to stay awake. If you open up the app package and check their Info.plist you will see that it registers for the background audio mode. This is how they pull off periodic audio notifications of your distance, speed, and pace. It is also how they stay awake during your run while minimizing battery drain.
If you noticed that the Location Services icon (the triangle in the status bar) disappears completely while using RunKeeper then they definitely are not using any type of location tracking to accomplish background execution. Even activating geo-fences and significant location change monitoring would cause the Location Services icon to appear.
They also aren't using the M7 to stay awake because it doesn't work that way. An update from the M7-related CoreMotion APIs will not wake up your app from sleep. When they app does wake up they would be able to query the Motion Activity and Step history and maybe try to compute something, but I doubt it would be all that accurate.
Finally you should note that the Auto-pause APIs were introduced in iOS 6 before the release of the iPhone 5s and M7 chip. They are orthogonal concepts.
have you considered experimenting with
application:performFetchWithCompletionHandler:
in the app delegate? You can't control how often it is called, but depending on the app, it can be every ~15 minutes. You can then launch the CMMotionActivityManager from there to query M7 results.
It's not entirely clear what functionality you are trying to replicate, but the M7 chip records all of the activity, regardless of whether your app is running. So you can simply query in the background and update step totals or activity type totals.
What I noticed when you turn off GPS, app will not execute any code in background for iOS 7, app looks like in inactive state. So better while moving to background use startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges and also get updates from your location manager. Means simultenoulsy use both service startUpdatingLocation on user state change and startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges in Background.
So when user Turn on GPS, while you used startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges your app will receive
- (void)locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didUpdateLocations:(NSArray *)locations
Better check here in background itself what wrong with CoreMotion Framework. And try to restart it.
Because wihtout M7 chip device I am able to read Accelerometer reading in such case.
If your location manager is working in Active mode, to enable background mode you need to do this three steps:
Check that [Target / Capabilities / Background Modes / Location updates] is enabled.
[locationManager requestAlwaysAuthorization];
locationManager.allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates = YES;
First, check if you have set up the background behave of your app.
Go to target - capabilities section and check Background mode for location updates.

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