Does the iOS Location Manager's SignificantLocationChange wake the application if the phone is asleep (e.g., in pocket of user)?
From Location awareness programming guide:
If you leave this service running and your application is subsequently suspended or terminated, the service automatically wakes up your application when new location data arrives. At wake-up time, your application is put into the background and given a small amount of time to process the location data. Because your application is in the background, it should do minimal work and avoid any tasks (such as querying the network) that might prevent it from returning before the allocated time expires. If it does not, your application may be terminated.
Related
Is it possible to update location when application is in suspended/terminate state.
i want to update location every 500 meters when app is in suspended/terminate state.
thanks in advance.
When terminated the only real way to get updates is to use Region Monitoring but you will only get major updates so I doubt it will work for 500 meters.
From the documentation:
If your app is terminated either by a user or by the system, the
system doesn't automatically restart your app when new location
updates arrive. A user must explicitly relaunch your app before the
delivery of location updates resumes. The only way to have your app
relaunched automatically is to use region monitoring or
significant-change location service. However, when a user disables the
Background App Refresh setting either globally or specifically for
your app, the system doesn't relaunch your app for any location
events, including significant change or region monitoring events.
Further, while Background App Refresh is off your app won't receive
significant change or region monitoring events even when it's in the
foreground.
There are good reasons for this. Firstly people don't want apps that 'snoop' on them all the time and even if there is a good reason imagine having 10 apps doing this constantly. It's going to start causing you performance and battery life issues.
EDIT
There appears to be some confusion by a lot of people over this issue so I will attempt to clear things up a bit.
Your app is NOT supposed to be continually tracking location while terminated (or suspended really). You are just not allowed to do this both for privacy reasons and so that you don't drain the battery excessively.
While your app is in the foreground you can use location services via startUpdatingLocation to monitor the device location. Assuming the app has been granted permission this will use all available hardware (GPS, WiFi, Cellular).
Now from the documentation itself:
If you start this service and your app is suspended, the system stops
the delivery of events until your app starts running again (either in
the foreground or background). If your app is terminated, the delivery
of new location events stops altogether. Therefore, if your app needs
to receive location events while in the background, it must include
the UIBackgroundModes key (with the location value) in its Info.plist
file.
So once suspended and terminated your options are really to monitor regions and to monitor for significant location changes. Neither of these are particularly accurate or frequent. One reason for this is that they only use low power methods to get the position (WiFi and Cellular) they don't use the GPS.
So no accurate and/or frequent location tracking while an app is suspended or terminated. This just has to be accepted and you need to design your apps accordingly.
let locationManager = CLLocationManager()
locationManager.startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges()
After returning a current location fix, the receiver generates update events only when a significant change in the user’s location is detected. It does not rely on the value in the distanceFilter property to generate events
If you start this service and your app is subsequently terminated, the system automatically relaunches the app into the background if a new event arrives. In such a case, the options dictionary passed to the application(:willFinishLaunchingWithOptions:) and application(:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:) methods of your app delegate contains the key location to indicate that your app was launched because of a location event. Upon relaunch, you must still configure a location manager object and call this method to continue receiving location events. When you restart location services, the current event is delivered to your delegate immediately. In addition, the location property of your location manager object is populated with the most recent location object even before you start location services.
Apps can expect a notification as soon as the device moves 500 meters or more from its previous notification. It should not expect notifications more frequently than once every five minutes. If the device is able to retrieve data from the network, the location manager is much more likely to deliver notifications in a timely manner.
Hope It helps
I require the user running location and route map path, When an application is Terminate or Background mode.
Currently I am using significant location for application kill mode, but we are not getting proper distance and route.
Because didUpdateLocations is called after some specific interval so that I am not getting proper distance.
Please guide.
According to Apple docs :
Apps can expect a notification as soon as the device moves 500 meters
or more from its previous notification. It should not expect
notifications more frequently than once every five minutes. If the
device is able to retrieve data from the network, the location manager
is much more likely to deliver notifications in a timely manner.
This is why startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges() would not work reliably for tracking user location change other than driving/public-transport.
Now, coming back to your problem of having to track user location when app is terminated, unfortunately you cannot track location when the app is terminated
If your app is terminated either by a user or by the system, the system doesn’t automatically restart your app when new location updates arrive. A user must explicitly relaunch your app before the delivery of location updates resumes. The only way to have your app relaunched automatically is to use region monitoring or the significant-change location service.
I apologise for the redundancy of this topic, but in spite all the given answers, I can't identify the possibility of getting accuracyBest location updates when the app is terminated.
I don't want to use monitoringSignificantChange, I want the best possible accuracy; I won't submit the app on the AppStore, so Apple restrictions are not a problem either.
I have gone through these:
-Location update even when app is killed/terminated
-iOS update location even when app is terminated
-Working with location updates when app is terminated
-http://mobileoop.com/getting-location-updates-for-ios-7-and-8-when-the-app-is-killedterminatedsuspended
and many more, but it is not clear whereas it's possible or not. I currently have my project, everything works great with significantChange but I now need better accuracy.
Could somebody tell me straight forward if getting best accuracy location update when app is killed is possible please ?
Thank you infinitely,
Looking at the below content from the Apple doc, you clearly have 2 alternatives against using significant location changes to wake a app from the background. I have marked in bold the services you can use to relaunch the app if it has been terminated.
Using Location Services in the Background Most location services are
meant to be used while your app is in the foreground but some can also
run in the background. In some cases, location events can even cause
your app to be relaunched to process an event. To run most location
services in the background, you need to enable the location updates
background mode in the Capabilities tab of your Xcode project. For
services that launch your app, you need to request (and be granted)
“Always” authorization from the user.
The standard location service delivers events normally while an app is
running in the foreground. When your app is in the background, this
service delivers events only when the location-updates background mode
is enabled for the app. This service does not relaunch iOS apps that
have been terminated.
The significant location change service delivers events normally
while an app is running in the foreground or background. For a
terminated iOS app, this service relaunches the app to deliver
events. Use of this service requires “Always” authorization from the
user.
The region monitoring service delivers events normally while an
app is running in the foreground or background. (You can use this
service for both geographic and beacon regions.) For a terminated
iOS app, this service relaunches the app to deliver events. Use of
this service requires “Always” authorization from the user.
Beacon ranging delivers events normally while an app is running in the
foreground. When your app is in the background, this service delivers
events only when the location-updates background mode is enabled for
the app and the standard location service is running. (If the beacon
region’s notifyEntryStateOnDisplay property is YES, waking the device
causes the app to range for beacons for a few seconds in the
background.) This service does not relaunch iOS apps that have been
terminated; however, you can be relaunched by monitoring beacon
regions using the region monitoring service.
The heading service delivers events normally while an iOS app is
running in the foreground. When your app is in the background, this
service delivers events only when the location-updates background mode
is enabled for the app and the standard location service is running.
This service does not relaunch iOS apps that have been terminated.
The visit service delivers events normally while an iOS app is
running in the foreground. When your app is in the background, this
service delivers events only when the location-updates background mode
is enabled for the app and the standard location service is running.
For a terminated iOS app, this service relaunches the app to deliver events. Use of this service requires “Always” authorization from the
user.
Enabling the location-updates background mode ensures that an app
continues to receive location events while in the background. When the
app moves to the background, the system adds the location-services
indicator to the status bar to let the user know that an app is using
location services. The system may still terminate the app at any time
to reclaim its memory or other resources.
Also from the doc,
Getting the Visited Locations
In iOS, the visits service provides an alternative to the significant location change service for apps that need location
information about interesting places that the user visited. For
example, if the user is in one location for an extended period of
time, the service might generate an event when the user arrives at
that location and another when the user leaves that location. The
service is intended for apps that might already be using the
significant location change service and want an even lower power way
to do so. You would not use this service to create navigation apps or
apps that rely on regular location updates.
Document Link:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/CoreLocation/Reference/CLLocationManager_Class/index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007125-CH3-SW73
Continuous location updates stop when your app is terminated.
Geo-fence notices will re-launch your app even if it's not running. I think a significant location change will also relaunch you're app but I'm not as sure about that.
Once you're relaunched you can start location updates again with the accuracy set to best like you want, but I think you're going to need to use one of those two APIs to get relaunched again after you've been terminated.
Many questions concerning iOS Location tracking have been asked on here, but recently Apple has updated much of their functionality and so many of the answers are obsolete, my question is specifically targeting iOS 8 and 9.
I am interested in creating a location tracking application which will accurately track the user even when the app is closed. To do this, apple states:
If you leave the significant-change location service running and your
iOS app is subsequently suspended or terminated, the service
automatically wakes up your app when new location data arrives. At
wake-up time, the app is put into the background and you are given a
small amount of time (around 10 seconds) to manually restart location
services and process the location data.
So my understanding is, if you have all of the necesarry permission and plist keys present, the OS will wake up your app and allow you to do something for 10 seconds, or if it needs more time it can:
If an iOS app needs more time to process the location data, it can
request more background execution time using the
beginBackgroundTaskWithName:expirationHandler: method of the
UIApplication class.
Now, this says that if my app needs more time to process the location data, it may start a background task (with an expirationHandler) to handle that. When reading about background tasks, I read that background tasks can run for a maximum of 10 minutes
So my overall question is, when my app gets woken up when a significant location change has occurred, is it possible to start the standard location service and have it run in the background indefinitely? Is it possible to start another background task before the first one expires?
EDIT:
From the Apple Documentation it says:
because it wakes the system and your app at least every 15 minutes,
even if no location changes have occurred, and it runs continuously
until you stop it
So my idea is, if the user starts their phone from nothing and never opens the app, after at most 15 minutes (even if they are standing still), the OS will fire my app, in which case I could start a background process that I can start the GPS tracking in, and thus getting accurate GPS location. Would this logic work with the OS?
The main problem is that significant location changes cannot be used for
"accurately track" the user.
Significant means 1000m, since it is cell tower based, and not GPS based.
So your app is woke up when the user moves into the next GSM cell.
This is not acurate enough for acurate tracking.
finally this means you cannot acuratley track when the app is closed, this works only in running app or background running up.
"When reading about background tasks, I read that background tasks can
run for a maximum of 10 minutes"
No, thats not true. My app runs in background and records GPS locations until the battery is drained (8h+). (It does not use the significant location mode)
I've written a geo-fencing iOS app that uses startmonitoringsignificantlocationchanges to trigger an action that requires network query. It does not work reliably because sometimes the network delay causes the app to be terminated. I do realize that the documentation says, iOS may terminate the app if I try to do network query that takes too long:
"If you leave this service running and your application is subsequently suspended or terminated, the service automatically wakes up your application when new location data arrives. At wake-up time, your application is put into the background and given a small amount of time to process the location data. Because your application is in the background, it should do minimal work and avoid any tasks (such as querying the network) that might prevent it from returning before the allocated time expires. If it does not, your application may be terminated."
Is there an alternative way to start network query in the background when iOS launches my app as a result of entering a region?
Yes, you have to call beginBackgroundTaskWithExpirationHandler. See here:
http://www.mindsizzlers.com/2011/07/ios-background-location/