A client of mine recently came up with a few apps he came across while browsing online. Specifically, he discovered that there are apps that call themselves 'screensavers', and now he wants me to make him a screensaver app.
The obvious problem is that I don't know of any way to make my app open (displacing whatever is in the background) based on a lack of user input in another app! In fact, I would have sworn that it was completely impossible to do so.
So, to wrap up the question -- is it possible to make such an app, and if so how? Or are those apps really, really, badly labeled?
I just tested 3 of the top "screen-saver" applications on my iPad. None of these can turn themselves on, without the user launching them. They are really badly labeled products. In a non-jailbroken device, launching the screensaver application without user interaction is not possible.
Cydia Screensaver Application for Jailbroken devices.
You're correct -- it isn't possible to open an app with no user interaction with a stock device, although there are jailbroken packages that will complete a task similar to this.
You should explain to your client that these "screensaver" apps usually gimmick the reader into downloading them as if they function as do screen savers on personal computers.
Related
I'm trying to log users individual app usage on iOS9.
I'd rather prefer that it wouldn't use jailbreak limited solutions, self explanatory. Doing the variation of this app on a jailbroken phone shouldn't be hard.
This will certainly not be released on the App Store as Apple wouldn't allow it.
I'm looking for any private API that can do this, any hidden iOS API's that can be used to do this. ANYTHING.
What I've already looked through:
how to determine which apps are background and which app is foreground on iOS by application id
How to know about app launched and details jailbreak iOS 7
Is there a private API to be able to detect what is current foreground app on iOS?
How to monitoring App running in the foreground in iOS8？use the PrivateFrameworks SpringBoardServices
which proved to be relatively helpful - we now can assume that there is some sort of additional access requirement, probably an entitlement, but we don't really know how it should look like
Can you find individual app usage duration using SpringBoard services framework or other private framework?
Find out active application or if on Springboard
Programmatically detect which iOS application is visible to user
However all of these proved to be unhelpful because Apple fixed this security flaw with iOS8 and the method to copy/access the currently front most app bundle identifier no longer works.
Question is: Is there someone who knows a workaround using different tools/exploits that do not require jailbreak?
Ideas:
inspecting the processes running on the device and devising an algorithm that would be able to recognize spikes that mean an app has been launched, which potentially could work, but it probably would be a major pain in the ass. Questions mentioning this solution:
Detect which app is currently running on iOS using sysctl,
Return a list of running background apps/processes in iOS
How to get Names of Background Running Apps
Find Background running apps in iphone
inspecting the phones traffic somehow?
not sure if there is some kernel stuff that I could do
Here is my Reddit version of this question if anyone wants to check it out. Also if it's of any value, here are the runtime headers for iOS9 and list of Apple's private API's.
Unfortunately, I was looking for a similar solution and have come to the conclusion that, at least at this point in time, there are no known methods that will allow you to determine app usage on iOS. Even the MDM providers such as Good, Airwatch, MobileIron, etc. don't seem to be able to do this. If anyone is able to come up with a solution, I'd love to see it.
For now, however, I think we would have seen a solution if someone had one that worked on the latest iOS.
sysctl is still open but they block certain combinations of selectors. I did this on iOS 7 and gave Apple Product Security the code. They won't patch iOS 7 but rely on App Review. iPhone 4 is wide open.
I have a project where I have to open an App like Facebook inside my App.
I know the URL Scheme but it is not what I want. I don't want to left my App and have like a webview but for a native app (Facebook for exemple).
Same behavior than.
Is it possible ?
Thx a lot :-)
No, this is not possible. At least not on a non-jailbroken device (there might be hacks that can be done on a jailbroken device to achieve this that I'm not aware of).
No this is not possible. You cant open another app inside of your current app. You can open an app from within an app but you cant frame that app inside of yours.
Other than the fact that apple has prohibited and not made this available, it also will cause a poor guest experience. The apps are designed to run on the users device, not a smaller screen.
it's impossible to open another app in a running app, but you can open a webapp
Is there any possibility to know which apps are in the background (Those apps that appear when you double tap home button)?
For 3rd party apps, no. Not in a reliable, App Store safe, future proof way. Think of your app as siloed, unaware of what else is running, and you'll be pretty much in the mindset Apple want (and try to technically enforce).
For other apps developed by you, you can use shared containers to write load/unload data each time one of your apps opens/closes, and work out what's currently running.
This is not possible on iOS with public api. There might be private api calls that do this, even though I don't think you will have access to them while running in the sandbox. This however might be possible on jailbroken devices, but you will not be able to submit to the app store with such api usage, unless you know how to hide that from apple.
Also please note that apps shown in the app switcher are not necessarily running. The app switcher shows every app that has been running in the past which the user didn't force-quit. If the user does not force quit an app, every app that has ever been launched is shown in the app switcher. If iOS decides to terminate an app because of memory needs, the app is still shown in the app switcher. This is one of the reasons why everyone should implement state restoration, as the user does not know whether an app is currently running or not!
I want to write an iOS sample application which can launch itself whenever device is rebooted. Please share your thoughts and any pointers will be really helpful.
Setting VOIP in background modes seems to be one option.
I am NOT looking for a Jail break solution.
There is a way if you have access to MDM tools or the Apple Configurator, and are able to control the device and its' profile. For example, if you are the curator at a museum or you or a teacher and hand out iPads to students, you'll most certainly have this level of control; and since you're writing a sample application, I suppose this level of control is possible as well.
There is a feature known as Single App Mode (see page 17) that locks a device into a single app. According to the documentation, if the device is powered down, the specified app will launch at boot. (I don't have the setup to confirm this.)
Note that Single App Mode is not the same as guided access mode, though people do tend to get them confused.
So should you have access to the right tools your original intent may be possible.
There is really not much you can do to achieve such functionality. The most you can do is to provide background fetching to prepare your app for when user launches it explicitly.
I have never seen a single app that could launch itself for no reason.
Hope this can be useful.
Can't be done unless the device is jailbroken, and I can't help you with that.
To my knowledge, this is not possible. Your app does not have access to this level of system information.
What you could do is periodically send push-notifications with a payload that temporary allows you to access app functionality.
This is a strange one, I have a need to create an iOS app that runs in the background on an iOS device, but can not be visible on the Home screen of the device. The app may need to show up in Settings to configure a few options, but it mostly needs to run behind the scenes.
I do not need to publish this app on the app store, it is strictly an enterprise app for my company.
Does anyone know how this kind of behavior might be achieved? Configuration profiles? API's? etc?
Edit: Jailbreaking the device is not really an option for us. We have to keep the devices as they are.
Backgrounding
There are several methods to get permanent background execution:
a) Silent audio which is mentioned by JRG-Developer
b) Usage of beginBackgroundTaskWithExpirationHandler + turning location manager on/off (it will reset remaining time to 600 seconds)
Making app invisible
You can use SBAppTags in Info.plist (take a look at this: How to remove app icon programatically from jail broken iPhone app?)
It will make your icon not visible on Home screen.
I've no idea how you can tackle the not be visible on the home screen criteria, but there are certain services that are allowed to be run in the background continuously, notably:
Background Audio (even silent audio)
While this is indeed very hacky, short of jailbreaking the devices, this may be your best bet.
While it's unlikely / very difficult to get past the review process, in the event for some reason you do need to (attempt) to publish this app to the App Store, some apps are even available on the App Store which take advantage of this hack, such as PasteBot.
You should definitely read their write-up here about getting their app's Cut-and-Paste functionality to work while in the background:
http://tapbots.com/blog/pastebot/pastebot-music-in-background
Another out-of-the-box idea, why not use Android devices instead, which do support multitasking?
Two methods:
Jailbreak. A jailbroken iPhone is essentially a Mac and you can use all Mac UNIX programming tricks - spawn a daemon (you can even ask launchd to do that), or something. You can set up enteprise-wise Cydia source. Refer to saurik's website for a walkthrough and set up an experimental server using Ubuntu (which used apt too)
A non-jailbreak way may be possible, but it will depend on what your app is doing. You can try use enterprise-wise push notifications.
Given that this is impossible to do on non jailbroken phones, I'd suggest the following:
develop a directory app, or a phone list app, something that is specific to your company.
have it connect to a web service once a day to register the device ID (so you know the user has not deleted the app)
tell users they need to keep the app open at all times (and if a user's device does not register one day, send them an email asking them to launch the app).
Now you can send back whatever you want with the app. If they kill it, you'll know the next day when you have a script look at the logs.
If you think this is a terrible idea, it is, but its the best you are going to get on iOS right now.
EDIT: you could send a notification every day - say in the AM - to make sure the user opened the app if it wasn't running.
From my experince, this kind of behaviour cannot be achieved on iOS. When an app enters into background, it is active only for a small particular amount of time. After that, it goes into hybernate state. It stops working. So the behaviour you said can not be achieved without abusing iOS workflow. Thats why some call iOS's multitasking as not true multitasking. Only jailbreaking might help your case. That was for one case. The second one where the app cannot be seen on home screen is again, impossible. It has to be on springboard to run.