How to make a mobile app stay alive in the background?

[Graham Samuel]

The app I’m developing runs continuously once launched, recording quantities such as the elepsed time and sensor data. In the version I’ve managed to load into my phone (thanks, Panos!) it does this quite efficiently, but if the phone locks or another app is launched, my app stops running and apparently quits. It quits in good order and can be restarted with cached data from the last run, but it doesn’t continue to run in the background. It does seem to be still in the machine, as one can see it among the currently loaded apps, but if I bring it back to the front, I see the splash screen, and it restarts.

I want my app to continues to run in the background unless it’s explicitly stopped. Existing apps can do it, typically sports apps like Strava, which records information which needs constant updating such as distance travelled. But I don’t know how. 

I notice in the Standalone Settings for iOS in LC 9.5.1, a button ‘Background Execution’. If I click it, I get a warning that I don’t really understand which suggests that LC doesn’t officially support the feature. I’m not even sure if this feature is what I need.

Has anyone produced a mobile app that runs in the background? Or should I be asking LC Support about this?

Graham

PS - Klaus, if your name appears as part of the ‘to’ address of this mail, it’s unintentional, and sue to a quirk of Mac mail. I apologise.