I am developing an iOS 6 app that pairs with a custom BLE device.
When the user wants to pair, an alert message appears (directly form core bluetooth I guess) and the user can either push "Pair" or "Cancel".
However the title and body of the alert message are empty showing "PAIRING_TITLE" and "PAIRING_BODY".
How can I write a specific content for these two variables? Any idea?
As you guessed, that alert view is shown by the system and cannot be customized. I suppose it is the simulator that is causing those messages to be shown instead of some meaningful text. This can never happen on an actual device. Recommendation from Apple is not to use the simulator for development of BLE stuff. It is very likely that it won't be possible in the near future anyway.
Related
I have a push notification with rich content.
Can I make it in such way that it is not tappable, i.e., a single tap will not open the application. It must be dragged down to rich content or 3D touched, or deleted from the notification center by swiping.
How should I indicate to the user to drag down (3D touch) in order to reveal rich content on notification?
No, a tap on a push notification will always open the notification in the app, and as far as I know there is no way in public API to override this behavior. It does appear there is a private API to get the behavior you’re looking for, as some iOS-generated (local, not push) notifications appear to do exactly what you’re asking. If you can manage to uncover that, use at your own risk should Apple find out.
Now, as for possible solutions: I would consider implementing code on your app’s delegate to respond appropriately when the notification is opened. For example, send the user to an appropriate location in the app when the app is launched from a notification…perhaps a view controller that shows the same content that would be shown as the rich notification content. I don’t know the exact use case, but the wording implies to me that if the app launches to its main interface, it could be confusing to a user.
It’s impossible for me to tell you how exactly you wish to respond to notifications, so for more on responding appropriately when the app was launched from a push notification, see the following documentation from Apple:
Determine Why Your App Was Launched
UIApplicationDelegate.application(_:willFinishLaunchingWithOptions:)
UIApplicationDelegate.application(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:)
UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey
UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey.remoteNotification
Hopefully from that you can find a suitable solution. But if that isn’t an option, consider directly telling the user at some point to press firmly (or tap and hold, as many devices do not support 3D Touch) to view the content. You could do this during some onboarding process or, as an absolute last resort, in the notification itself.
Before proceeding down that route, though, understand that not all users know 3D Touch and/or this rich-content functionality even exists — even fewer use it regularly — and if they become confused, they may decide to clear the notification or outright disable your app’s notifications. In general, it’s also a bad idea to “teach” your user unfamiliar ways of using their device. If a user is used to tapping on notifications, as many are, they will most likely tap on your notifications. It can be tough to break that muscle memory.
I am trying to navigate the user to Bluetooth settings on a button click. CBCentralManager(delegate: self, queue: nil) works fine when Bluetooth is turned off from Settings App, but it is not working when Bluetooth is turned off from Control center e.g not showing the default Bluetooth popup.
Now I need to know if Bluetooth is turned off from the Control center so that I can show some custom popup message to the user.
Any help will be appreciated.
You are correct that the initialization option CBCentralManagerOptionShowPowerAlertKey, which should display a warning if the framework is initiated when bluetooth is turned off, does in fact not work as expected if bluetooth is toggled off from the Control Center. Since iOS 11 the system will actually not turn off bluetooth if you toggle off the button in Control Center, it only disconnects currently connected devices. The only way to turn off bluetooth then is to do it from System Settings. This is documented by Apple, but to me it is extremely misleading. So I honestly don't know if the API behavior you are experiencing is a bug, or if it is expected behavior.
My suggestion is that you skip this initialization option and instead rely on the value of central.state when you get the "centralManagerDidUpdateState:" callback and then create you own popup if the value is CBManagerStatePoweredOff, which oddly enough will be the case regardless if bluetooth is turned off from System Settings or if it is toggled off from the Control Center.
If your app works in the background you may want to use a local notification instead to get your user's attention.
Not a perfect solution, but it should be more reliable.
I have filed bug report 47516284 with Apple for this problem. Here's the text of the issue I filed.
I have noticed that the system alert notifying a user that an app needs Bluetooth will show when I turn off Bluetooth using the Settings app. I can use this system alert to go directly to bluetooth settings to turn it back on. However, when I turn off Bluetooth using Control center, there is no system alert that displays. This is problematic because although I can display a custom alert to tell the user to turn on Bluetooth, there is no way to code bringing the user directly to Bluetooth settings by tapping a button for instance. I believe the functionality should be consistent no matter how the user turns off Bluetooth.
My scenario that I need to show the first Local Notification using Swift and then using the same identifier add another Local Notification, but without showing it as a popup in iOS device. So basically the flow would be like this:
Starting upload... <-- Show on the screen and adds to the Tray bar
Uploading photos... <-- Does not shows on the screen, but clears all the notifications and add another one in Tray bar silently (or changes previous one)
Uploading data... <-- Same as Uploading photos...
Finished uploading... <-- Same as Uploading photos...
Tried different ways, on Android it is not hard to do that, but iOS makes everything hard to do, is it even possible? :)
Thanks!
The reason it works on Android is because the "state showing" notifications are very Android thing. iOS is not designed for this kind of stuff because you almost never do something in the background of an app that also needs to be reflected to the user while user is outside of an app. So the real answer to your question is no. In iOS environment it is not possible to simulate Android way of showing status changes in a notification.
I want to be sure that when the Watch is not paired with an iPhone the user is warned with the right info. I saw that when I turn off bluetooth some other applications show a full screen red device icon with the name of the app in white, indicating that the device is not paired and that the app needs the pair to work. When I do the same using my App nothing happens, I'm still getting only a little icon next to the time on the to right (or left depending on wrist...) corner, not the full screen icon.
I wonder if is there a specific way to show that state to users or if it should be an automatic function handled by the system that, for some reasons, is not working for me.
Don't know about the automatic function but using WatchConnectivity framework you can get to know if the paired iPhone is reachable or not . If not you can show an interface controller with proper message to warn user. WCSession has a boolean property reachable whose description is as under.
Discussion
In your WatchKit extension, the value of this property is
YES when a matching session is active on the user’s iPhone and the
device is within range so that communication may occur. On iOS, the
value is YES when the paired Apple Watch is in range and the
associated Watch app is running in the foreground. In all other cases,
the value is NO.
For more detail check WatchConnectivity Framwork
Is there any possibilities of setting push subject as the title in push notification?
I'm getting app name as the subject and description is same as given in the push. I want to change the title of the push.
Is this possible in iOS? I hope it is possible in android.
I just tested this on an iPhone 6s running iOS 9.1, and here's what I found: If the title field is provided as part of the alert dictionary, the notification on the lock screen will still show the bundle name. However, when viewing the same notification in Notification Center (accessed by swiping down from the top edge), the title is used in place of the app/bundle name.
When no title field is provided as part of the alert dictionary, the bundle name is displayed in both the lock screen and the Notification Center.
As of 2015, Apple has started using a title attribute but only seems to use when displaying a notification on the Apple Watch.
The title string used in the short look provides a brief indication of
the intent of the notification. For local notifications, you specify
this string using the alertTitle property of the UILocalNotification
object. For remote notifications, add the title key to the alert
dictionary inside the payload
This might indicate that it will be used also on the iPhone later on.
Source: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Conceptual/WatchKitProgrammingGuide/BasicSupport.html
Here's an example JSON payload: https://gist.github.com/edwardmp/2295364f068b24084e67561c8e5c2944
Edit: As of iOS 9 this started working on iPhone and iPad as well :) I do note that this appears to only be displayed in the notification center and not on the lock screen.
You can't change the title. It's always the application name.
Suppose you are playing chess with your friend online. While you are in the chess app, your friend’s moves appear on the board right away. When you switch to another app—for example, to read email while your friend decides where to move—the app needs a way to notify you when your friend moves. This is a perfect use case for a push notification—something changed outside of the app that is of interest to the user.
The provider for the chess application learns about this move and, seeing that the chess application on your device is no longer connected, sends a push notification to Apple Push Notification service (APNs). Almost immediately, your device—or more precisely, the operating system on your device—receives the notification over the Wi-Fi or cellular connection from APNs. Because your chess application is not currently running, iOS displays an alert similar to Figure 1-1. The message consists of the application name, a short message, and (in this case) two buttons: Close and View. The button on the right is called the action button and its default title is “View”. An application can customize the title of the action button and can internationalize the button title and the message so that they are in the user’s preferred language.
You can refer your client to the official APNS docs to convince them that's the way it is.
Yes, you can add a title property since iOS 8.2.
A short string describing the purpose of the notification. Apple Watch displays this string as part of the notification interface. This string is displayed only briefly and should be crafted so that it can be understood quickly. This key was added in iOS 8.2.
Check the Apple Document - The Remote Notification Payload