Question

I’m issuing a local notification alert (iOS 5) that will repeat its reminder periodically (every minute) until the user acknowledges it by setting repeatInterval on the UILocalNotification instance added to [[UIApplication sharedApplication] scheduleLocalNotification:

The effect of setting ‘repeatInterval’ is that each time the notification is repeated while not acknowledging it, there’s another entry in the Notification Center. e.g: After 5 minutes of not ack’ing the firing, there are 5 separate entries in the Notification Center.

Is there way to only have one entry, but sound/vibrate alert every 1 minute?

Here’s how I’m creating the local notification:

UILocalNotification *localNotify = [[UILocalNotification alloc] init];

localNotify.fireDate = aFireDate;
localNotify.timeZone = [NSTimeZone defaultTimeZone];
localNotify.userInfo = userInfo;

// 3. Configure the substance of the notification: alert, icon badge number, and sound.
localNotify.alertBody = NSLocalizedString(alertTitleText, nil);                            
localNotify.alertAction = NSLocalizedString(alertActionText, nil);

localNotify.soundName = UILocalNotificationDefaultSoundName;
localNotify.applicationIconBadgeNumber = 1;

localNotify.repeatInterval = NSMinuteCalendarUnit;

// Schedule the local notification for delivery.    
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] scheduleLocalNotification:localNotify];

Answer 1

Unfortunately no. As long as the user has Notification Center turned on for your app, every local notification you fire will show up as a distinct entry in Notification Center; even if they are multiple firings of the same UILocalNotification object. The UILocalNotification API gives you no control over this.