Question

I know this question may be a little bit common and over asked but I cannot find any precise information… so :

Is it possible to have some kind of thread running when the app is in background so I can perform basic sync with my webservice ?

App is in background : I mean the user clicked the Home button, or switched to another app
basic sync : photo upload and download with AFNetworking. I know it has method to continue an HTTPRequest while app is in background, but this is not my point.

My goal would be to make some kind of sync manager, reading a list of photos to update created while the user was on the app, and perform those changes.

I know that the manager could be killed by the OS, but since my server uses atomic transfers it is not a problem. I just need a way to relaunch it… Push ?

I think apps like Google Latitude or Mail and those kind of apps uses what I am looking for but I cannot find any relevant details on it. And using iOS5 is not a problem but waiting for iOS6 would not be a solution.

Thank you for your replies !

PS : well I almost forgot. the app is designed for an enterprise program, so maybe rules are different ? I don’t think there is any check for in-house deployment so it might lead to new possibilities…

Answer 1

Found it !

Using Suhail Patel ‘s link on Apple’s Multitasking Guide I added the voip tag to UIBackgroundModes in Info.plist and use setKeepAliveTimeout:handler: method of UIApplication to relaunch it if needed once the app is going to sleep.

I hope this will help a lot of you !

Of course this app won’t be allowed to be on the App Store but for in house development this is in my opinion the best way to do so.

Thanks everyone for showing me the right direction !