iOS: Can't get BluetoothManager to work - ios

Caveat: I know that private frameworks won't fly in the App Store.
I'm trying to use the BluetoothManager framework to let me 1) check if Bluetooth is enabled on a device, and 2) if not on, turn it on.
I can successfully load BluetoothManager per the instructions found here, but once I've done so, BluetoothManager just doesn't seem to do anything.
Calling enabled always returns NO, even when Bluetooth is enabled. Calling setEnabled never changes its state. Absolutely every other BluetoothManager call I've tried always returns NO, nil, zero-element arrays, etc. In short, the BluetoothManager that gets returned seems totally neutered. (I'm running off my 4.2.1 iPhone, not the simulator.)
I've seen posts from people who claim to have gotten this working, yet I haven't been able to get a response from them. Can anyone shed light on why this might not be working?
Thanks very much.

It takes a second for the BluetoothManager to startup and attach to the BTServer. I just did a quick call to the shared instance - [BluetoothManager sharedInstance]; - to force it to init. Once it's finished init it will post a BluetoothAvailabilityChangedNotification. I'd just listen for that and try [[BluetoothManager sharedInstance] setEnabled:YES]; in the notification callback.
FYI, the object included in the NSNotification for BluetoothAvailabilityChangedNotification is a boolean, so you should be able to check that to make sure that Bluetooth is really available.

That's because of IPC. BluetoothManager communicates via sendMsg et el. Use for example NSTimer to query BluetoothManager sharedInstance so your program has time to receive and process messages.

There is a demo project on Github called BeeTee for demonstrating the private framework BluetoothManager.

Related

Put app on foreground programmatically on Swift

I tested:
UIControl().sendAction(#selector(URLSessionTask.suspend), to: UIApplication.shared, for: nil)
which is for putting app on background and it works.
How do I put app back on foreground?
I tried:
UIControl().sendAction(#selector(URLSessionTask.resume), to: UIApplication.shared, for: nil)
But eventually it crashes...
Thank you
Update:
Since you've indicated that you're looking for any technical solution, even those not compatible with the App Store or Apple's terms, this should be possible using the Private API LSApplicationWorkspace: openApplicationWithBundleID. Try something like this:
Create a .h file and set up an interface to the LSApplicationWorkspace class and list the required method. You will need to #import "PrivateHeaders.h" in your bridging header.
//
// PrivateHeaders.h
//
#ifndef PrivateHeaders_h
#define PrivateHeaders_h
#interface LSApplicationWorkspace : NSObject
- (bool)openApplicationWithBundleID:(id)arg1;
#end
#endif /* PrivateHeaders_h */
You should then be able to call this function and pass in the Bundle Identifier of your app as an string.
//
// SomeClass.swift
//
import MobileCoreServices
let workspace = LSApplicationWorkspace()
/**
Launch an App given its bundle identifier
- parameter bundleIdentifier: The bundle identifier of the app to launch
- returns: True if app is launched, otherwise false
*/
func openApp(withBundleIdentifier bundleIdentifier: String) -> Bool {
// Call the Private API LSApplicationWorkspace method
return workspace.openApplication(withBundleID: bundleIdentifier)
}
Original:
What you are doing is likely a violation of the iOS Human Interface Guidelines (although the "Don’t Quit Programmatically" is no longer specifically defined), so as the comments have said, it is not suited to the App Store. Regardless, once your app is suspended in this way, I don't expect that there is a way to resume it programmatically, unless you can hook into a Background Operation to run URLSessionTask.resume, but I have not tested it and am unsure whether it can work.
Apps can be launched (and hence brought into the foreground) programmatically from another app or today extension by using a Custom URL Scheme, or via a Push Notification. It isn't possible to launch the app from the Background Operation via a URL Scheme, since it is part of the UIKit framework, which must be run in the main thread.
In summary, I think your best option is to try to use a Notification. This just means that the user will need to click on the notification to bring your app back into the foreground.
Closing/opening the app should be done explicitly by the user. Any other way of closing or opening the app is not supported by Apple and will be rejected when uploaded to app store. iOS Human Interface Guideline states:
Don’t Quit Programmatically
Never quit an iOS application
programmatically because people tend to interpret this as a crash.
However, if external circumstances prevent your application from
functioning as intended, you need to tell your users about the
situation and explain what they can do about it. Depending on how
severe the application malfunction is, you have two choices.
*Display
an attractive screen that describes the problem and suggests a
correction. A screen provides feedback that reassures usersthat
there’s nothing wrong with your application. It puts usersin control,
letting them decide whether they want to take corrective action and
continue using your application or press the Home button and open a
different application
*If only some of your application's features are
not working, display either a screen or an alert when people activate
the feature. Display the alert only when people try to accessthe
feature that isn’t functioning
Just as a follow up to Jordan's excellent answer I want to give an explanation for why your code works in the first place and why that alone will get your app rejected, even without any functionality to make it active again and bring it to the foreground.
As maddy pointed out in a comment, you're basically calling a method from UIApplication's private API. This works due to the Objective-C runtime's dynamic linking. You might wonder "But I am using Swift, what does that have to do with Objective-C?" The answer lies in #selector mechanism. A Selector is basically just a symbol that the Objective-C runtime looks up in a table to get a method it invokes (for you). This is why it's technically not correct to say you "call a method" when you do something like myObjectInstance.someMethod(). The correct way to phrase that would be to "send a message" to the object, because that's what is happening in the runtime. The target-action mechanism is build around that. The sendAction(_: Selector?, to: Any?) method does the same thing. So in effect your code does the following:
Get the symbol that corresponds to URLSessionTask's suspend() method.
Tell the shared instance of UIApplication to invoke the method that it has for that symbol.
Now usually that would result in a crash with the typical "unknown selector sent to instance..." error message. But here, by sure coincidence UIApplication also has a method for that instance (or rather, the runtime also has one of its methods listed in its table for that symbol). You kind of "found" a method that is not declared in its public header. You successfully circumvented a compile-time check for this and invoke a method that is part of a private API. This is explicitly forbidden in the Apple Developer Program License Agreement
Besides all that, I would strongly advise against trying to design an app that way in the first place. As maddy pointed out it's also likely considered to violate the HIGs. Even if you're not trying to do anything malicious and properly explain the feature in your app's description, that won't make Apple let it slide (I assume). Personally, as a user, I'd also find it annoying if the app did something the system already has a specific mechanic for in a different manner, at least in terms of app's coming to background and foreground.
I don't think it can be done without user interaction
The option is you can generate a push notification to tell the user to bring the application to foreground
When the operating system delivers push notification and the target application is not running in the foreground, it presents the notification.
If there is a notification alert and the user taps or clicks the action button (or moves the action slider), the application launches and calls a method to pass in the local-notification object or remote-notification payload.

Managing local notifications for iOS framework with beacons

I have been working on iOS framework (in Swift) which contains beacon functionality. I made it work except that I'm not sure how to handle scenario where I'm in foreground and I encounter multiple beacons in short duration.
If I want didReceive delegate method to show Alert for beacon while in foreground, and if I encounter many beacons it will not work nicely (alerts will display one over another). Is there some solution to queue notifications somehow?
Also I would like to know, if there is a way to make all that logic for receiving local notifications inside my framework?
I have to be able to support iOS-8.0 so I can't use Notification Center which is available from iOS-10.0
Can I create some class which would act like appdelegate (probably some class which would implement UIApplicationDelegate inside framework), is something like that possible?
I want to put as much code as I can inside framework itself so that it won't be too messy job for someone to include that framework with all functionality.
After some time I figured out a way to make this. I'm beginner in iOS with few months experience so I can't say if this solution is the best but it works for me.
I found a way to implement all push and local notification related delegate methods from framework. Basically if main application wants framework to take care of notifications without having to implement anything yourself, on runtime framework will dynamically implement certain UIApplicationDelegate methods for AppDelegate.swift class (or whatever is your AppDelegate class called).
I used object_getClass(UIApplication.shared.delegate!) to get the main class.
Then I used func class_addMethod(_ cls: AnyClass!, _ name: Selector!, _ imp: IMP!, _ types: UnsafePointer!) -> Bool
to implement delegate methods for push and local notifications from inside framework so now it comes down to write one or two lines to use framework entirely with working notifications and beacon location services instead of having to write a lots of code outside framework.
As for handling notifications in foreground mode I made that work by adding them to queue so that if more than one notification comes, and wants to be displayed in foreground regime, only one will be displayed by UIAlertController and the rest will be put in queue and sent again but with some small delay (I set fire date to be some value which I thought was appropriate in my case) after user makes an action regarding that first notification which was the only one presented.
These are just my ideas for the problems I had, if someone shows interest for these solutions I will write more details if needed. I will also gladly accept any criticism.

Call WKInterfaceController's method from UIViewController

I have an iPhone app and added a WatchExtension. Now I managed to send a string to the Watch using the MMWormhole. In order to use the string I must call update() inside the WKInterfaceController from a method inside my UIViewController, so the iPhone application.
Is that possible?
I tried to do something like InterfaceController.update() but Xcode complained that it does not know the variable InterfaceController.
Thanks in advance :)
The iPhone App and Watch Extension are TWO seperate process, although they are stored in ONE bundle, so you can not call the method of other process in runtime.
In WatchKit:
If you want to share code, use Framework.
If you want to share data, use App Group.
If you want to use notification, use Inter-Process Communication(In iOS, It's Darwin Notification, and MMWormhole use this feature).
I think you want to let the Watch update its interface when iPhone app do something, you can do like this:
send a message to Watch Extension.
Watch Extension receive that message.
In the message handler, update interface.
In my option, the iPhone App and Watch Extension can be seen as a kind of C/S architecture, iPhone App is Server and Watch Extension is Client, maybe this metaphor is easier to understand.

Network lost on screen lock unlock

Encountered a very weird problem, using simple AFNetworking downloading operation, even tried with simple NSURLConnection operation, connection fails if you keep your app running, and lock screen and then unlock. Works absolutely fine in background though.
Any one encountered similar problem with NSURLConnection want to share some solution?
Thanks.
It looks like an iOS bug. Weird, but lock screen action affects NSURLSession somehow, so that it stops working and returns NSURLErrorNetworkConnectionLost. So in my app I gave up using shared session. I either use a new session object for every request or (if I need to maintain one session constantly) recreate it every time the screen gets unlocked. And it works. For users of AFNetworking or any other third party library working on top of NSURLSession the situation is harder, of course. You'll need to correct the code of the library, which is definitely not a good thing, but I think there's no other choice
Very helpful Andrey Chernukha,
In my case, figured out that you don't necessary need to recreate new session every time.
I ended up using array to save running NSURLSessionDataTasks and after phone is unlocked resume them.
Steps:
I created array NSMutableArray *dataTasksToResume
In - (void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication *)application I saved all tasks to dataTasksToResume array
Cancel all running NSURLSessionDataTasks
In - (void)applicationDidBecomeActive:(UIApplication *)application get all tasks from array and resuming them (re-creating them)
Enjoy!
Hope it helps.

How know if iOS device is sleeping in a background process

I have a application running in background and I need to know if device is sleeping in order to start a sincronisation process, but I didn't find information about this.
Does anyone know if it is posible and how do it?
Thanks.
You cannot know if the device is asleep because you have no control over the OS.
You can, otherwise, use the App Delegate method:
- (void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication *)application
{
//your code goes here
}
if you want to wait till your app goes to background
I believe you can't do this using public API. The only thing which you can check whether your application is active or in background (using AppDelegate callbacks). And as Luke pointed out in comments, checking whether device "falls asleep" isn't iOS best design practice.
There are some private API's to do what you want, you can look at following questions:
Is there a way to check if the iOS device is locked/unlocked?
Detect screen on/off from iOS service
However, you should be aware that your app won't be accepted in AppStore in such case.

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