Question

I am making an app where I need to know

1. every button that was ever pushed by the user in the app, and when it was pushed, and
2. where the iPhone has gone (using gps), but there are no cell towers in the area so I can’t use that significant location changes method everyone uses.

It seems to me like the Plist method for data saving won’t work because I don’t want the app to start where it left off, I want it to start at the beginning every time.

Also, if any of you have any idea how I can make my app wake up at certain specific times, and/or how I can make it impossible to exit, that would be awesome. This is for an experiment with the University of Queensland St. Lucio Psych Department and the Grute Eylandt Aborigines.

Answer 1

You can know everything the user does in your app if you want. You could use your own solution with an SQLite database for example, and dispatch the data to a server every once in a while.

The GPS is also easy, you could just track the user with the Core Location framework.

You can’t make the app wake at specific times, the best you can do is implement push notifications but it’s up to the user to open the app via the notification or by themselves by tapping the app icon on the iPhone home screen.

Otherwise you could set up a local notification just before exiting the application, this is faster and easier to implement then setting up push notifications.

There is also no way to stop the app being closed, that is until iOS 6 comes along with it’s accessibility features, you can disable the home button then. But not now.