In the previous article we walked through implementing a new iOS 7 multitasking feature called background app fetch which is great way for your app to get periodically launched in the background and update its content in order to keep the app fresh for a user – and the best part is its adaptive – meaning its based on when your user uses your application. If you haven’t had a chance to read that article I suggest you give it a look to see how you can build this feature into your app. In this article we will continue our exploration of new iOS 7 multitasking features with Remote Notifications which allows your app to launch immediately whenever you send it a special push notification – it can even launch your app in the background with a silent remote notification which will not bother the user.

How does it work? Continue reading →

Some of the apps I work on have periodic updates of information like news that I thought would benefit from new iOS 7 multitasking functionality.  If I could update the app, I thought, while the user is not using the app then when the user opens the app the news will be fresh, new content will be available, and the user will feel no need to do a pull to refresh. Better yet if somehow I could predict when the user uses the app I could schedule the update just before they use it.  Well, turns out iOS 7 introduced new background task handling that helps developers achieve this exact user experience.  The functionality is called Background App Fetch.

How does it work you may be thinking.  Continue reading →