Apple push notifications - delivery receipt - ios

Question

I wrote a simple messaging system, which allows sending brief messages from web interface to devices, in form of push notification.
On android, everything went well, once device receives notification is sends delivery confirmation receipt back to server, then read acknowledgement. Obviously, delivery confirmation often happens while app is running in background or phone is asleep.
I wrote similar app for iOS. How surprised I was that application: didReceiveRemoteNotification is not called when app is not active!
Is it really impossible to track message delivery without user interaction when app is not active? Others have suggested keeping log of messages on server and sending them when app opens, but this still requires user interaction.
Is there a way around apple restriction on background services? Can I somehow make my app use sound or location service, to allow simple POST request while in background?

Answer 1

In iOS7 you can use push notifications with background fetch, which is a remote notification with the content-available flag set. Example payload: {aps: {content-available: 1}}.
In this case iOS will wake up your app (there are some limitations see: Will iOS launch my app into the background if it was force-quit by the user?).
After your app is woken up you have 30 seconds to send to your server the push notification receipt confirmation.
You'll also have to enable the "Background fetch" capability in the Target background modes and update the AppDelegate to include this method:
- (void)application: (UIApplication *)application didReceiveRemoteNotification:
(NSDictionary *)userInfo fetchCompletionHandler:
(void (^)(UIBackgroundFetchResult))completionHandler
So this requires a bit of work from your side.
I hope this helps.

Answer 2

For iOS there isn't any direct way that provides any info regarding the actual delivery, but I found one workaround which I tried and it is working fine.
Use "Notification service extension", the main use of this is to provide rich notification, so it basically wakes our app whenever new push comes and gives around 30 seconds of time perform our task like download an image to show in the notification. We can use this app wake up feature to call our backend.
So send some unique id with payload and from this method call your backend server with the push id, by this way you can be sure that push notification is delivered into the device.
This will work all state of the application, even in the killed state, so this is full proof and we can rely on this workaround for delivery info.
Reference link: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/unnotificationserviceextension

Answer 3

Mis-using background services is a good way to get your app rejected. Apple are pretty strict on what an app can do in the background.
As a user, if I found out that an app I'd installed was making web requests in the background with no good reason, it would be swiftly deleted!
Push notifications are a one-way message - there is no guarantee that a notification has even been delivered, never mind read. I suggest you read up on the APNS here.

Answer 4

When application is not in Active state application: didReceiveRemoteNotification method won't be called .
If you want track the notification information when application is not in active state follow the below procedure.
application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method will be called every time when we open the application
from this method we are getting NSDictionary object called launchOptions. From this launchOptions dictionary we will get the notification data in the form of dictionary for the key UIApplicationLaunchOptionsRemoteNotificationKey
find the code from below:
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions{
NSDictionary *remoteNotify = [launchOptions objectForKey: UIApplicationLaunchOptionsRemoteNotificationKey];
//Accept push notification when app is not open
if (remoteNotify) // it is only true when you get the notification{
// use the remoteNotify dictionary for notification data}}

Answer 5

http://cydia.saurik.com/package/backgrounder
Check that out, for th source, click on Developers Page.
If its not apples way, there is no way.
That's where jailbreaking comes in. You might have to make your app jailbreak compatible and take advantage of a lot more power.
I'd say for what your looking for, make a new version of Backgrounder that works they way you need it.