todays announcements

[awaybbl]

Kinda interesting...

Apple Push Notification Service...

While not the answer to allowing applications to run in the
background, Apple announced a new network service where a third-party
can send a notification to an iPhone via some "in the cloud" service.
I guess that would be OK, for some apps like IM or alerts services,
but it doesn't really answer the background app question.

They said that the reason that they didn't give us full background
support was "battery life, and processor overloading"... sounds like
they've wimped out.

[Michael Rutman]

As long as you can open any URL with it then you can open any
application, including your own. This is actually better than running
in the background, believe it or not.

Of course, I haven't seen how it works yet, so I could be wrong.

[awaybbl]

Michael,

If I am writing an application that needs to be on all the time, a
notification message from some external server won't help. Let's say
as an example that I have a location tracking application and it
relies on knowing where a device is, then whenever another app is
started, my app would die. Getting a notification from a server might
only be able to tell the app that it's not reported in in a while, but
that notification can't start the app.

In Apples solution it seems to rely on some external server for the
origination of the notification, so that won't work for many of the
standalone applications that will be built.

It's not a bad idea to have this Push Notification Service, but I
don't buy Apples attempt to call this the solution for background
processing. Background processing is not new, and in fact the
Blackberry OS, and Windows Mobile do a great job with background
processing (with less CPU), so why can't Apple? All it would of taken
is an ability to let developers listen for system events, and to be
able to add events to the system queues.

[Michael Rutman]

I believe the notification can start the app.

With regard to why Apple has decided you cannot run in the background,
you can research the original versions of sshd on the Jailbroken
iPhones. 45 minute battery life is unpleasant :).

I have many many problems with Apple, so I will not defend ANY of
their decisions. On the other hand, if you want to work around
Apple's restrictions, well, that's always interesting.

[GDean]

There was no indication in the keynote that a push notification could
launch an app, or even a URL.

It can do 3 things:

* Change the application badge
* Play a sound
* Pop an alert text on the screen

All of those are most likely handled by Springboard. The application
need not be launched, and probably has no idea that anything happened.
Apple currently seems committed to preventing all forms of background
processing by third-party applications.

- George

[awaybbl]

Also, it's important to note that the notification system that they
described was a network feature that is driven by server based apps
that send notifications to the apps. So that really doesn't help
someone thats just writing apps that live locally on the device
(hopefully they'll allow local apps to send themselves notifications
so that an app could at least change the application badge to let the
user know that they were previously working on something)

> > >> Of course, I haven't seen how it works yet, so I could be wrong.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Jorge Chamorro]

>
> On Jun 10, 5:32 pm, GDean <porg...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>
>> Apple currently seems committed to preventing all forms of background
>> processing by third-party applications.
>>
>> - George
>>

Yes, that's the way it's going to be. Take it or leave it. Because
running (in the background) applications consume resources : memory
and CPU and energy (they drain the battery).

Besides, doing it this way warrants that whenever an application is
run, it always gets the same CPU %.

--Jorge.

[GDean]

On Jun 13, 8:28 am, awaybbl <rico.vacc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> (hopefully they'll allow local apps to send themselves notifications
> so that an app could at least change the application badge to let the
> user know that they were previously working on something)

A running application can always set its own application badge,
independent of push notifications. (I think it's a property on the
main application object - anyway it's somewhere in the docs.) Push
notifications are only required to change the badge when the app is
not running.

[GDean]

Apple could use limiting techniques to mitigate the battery problems,
say by limiting total background processing to 1% or 0.5%, running in
periodic bursts (triggered by some kind of callback) so that the apps
can be unloaded from memory between bursts. They have chosen not to
pursue such techniques yet, but I suspect that eventually some
accommodation will have to be made.

One could even imagine user-adjustable limits, with a slider and and
estimate of the impact on battery life. But Apple never gives users
that kind of power, because people might misuse it and suffer a
suboptimal experience. Don't worry, Daddy Steve is here to protect us
from ourselves.

- George

[ryanspahn]

So it seems the overwhelming opinion here is push notification will
not wake up an application?

LIke an alarm clock program for instance?

[Cesar Alaniz]

I don't see that you need to. If your going to do a simple alarm
clock, the push message can just play the wake up sound for you. I
can understand Apple's desire to limit the background processes. If
you need to run, your going to need to entice the user to launch you
application. Via some badge I guess.

[GDean]

On Jun 15, 7:30 am, Cesar Alaniz <cesar.ala...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you need to run, your going to need to entice the user to launch you
> application.  Via some badge I guess.

I believe that when you push an alert to the phone, one of the buttons
on the alert box can be set launch your app. That was the impression I
got, but I'm not sure. It would be very handy if it is set up that
way. But you'll still need the user to click that button, rather than
the Dismiss button, in order to launch the app.

- George

[ryanspahn]

So for an alarm clock program... user would set it, go to sleep,
during the course of sleeping their iPhone would do the same and when
alarm time came the iphone would not wake up?

Is that a correct assumption?

If so then a work around would from my server send a wake up
notification to device a minute before their set alarm time?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and understandings

Ryan

[Michael Rutman]

I was at the session.

You can have a sound play for the alert, but it will not launch an
app. Not even a built in app.

[Cesar Alaniz]

Ryan,

Yes, your server would have to initiate the playing of the sound
through a push message notification.

Cesar