Question

Before I dive into development, I want to know if this is possible at all.

I’m a developer, but haven’t developed an app. before, so sorry if the question sounds dumb..

Here is the use case –

User buys the app. and enables badges/alerts/sounds in the settings.
At certain point of time, my applications server sends a message to all users who have this app.

On the iphone, when the app. receives this notification, it launches a third party app. automatically. e.g. launch calendar to a certain date or start a game.

The main point being the user doesn’t want to interact when this notification is received on the phone.

I want to know if this is allowed/possible at all. Should work on non-jailbroken phones.

Answer 1

You can launch any app that publishes a custom URL scheme, where you know the scheme. Several of the built-in apps have well-known schemes, and some (e.g. Facebook app) have well known documented schemes as well.

You launch an app using the UIApplication openURL method, passing a url with the custom scheme.

I’m not certain this is permitted / allowed when an app receives a push notification, but it’s quite possible.