Scheduling iOS tasks

[Richard Gaskin]

Mike Kerner wrote:
> Is there a way to schedule LC-built iOS apps to do something in the
> background occasionally?

Unlike most OSes, iOS has such a strong priority for battery life that 
the definition of "multitasking" is a bit different than what you may be 
used to, amounting in most cases to something more like suspend/resume 
than true background operation.

In iOS 4 and earlier, if memory serves there were only four APIs that 
could be used in the background, so most apps had no functionality at 
all unless they were the active one.

With iOS 5 the range of APIs available to background apps has broadened 
dramatically, but it's still just a slender subset of what an app might 
otherwise do so most operations remain verboten for all but the active app.

It's my understanding that LiveCode for iOS doesn't currently 
differentiate between everything it does and the subset that Apple 
allows in the background, so all LC operations are suspended when put 
into the background.

Hopefully that'll change, and RunRev will at least allow our apps to 
have the same background functionality that other iOS apps can have.

But even if they do, you may want to review the iOS developer 
documentation at Apple to determine if what you want your app to do in 
the background is even supported at all in that OS.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  Developer of WebMerge: Publish any database on any Web site
  ___________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com