Launching iOS BLE Central application on iPhone reboot

Question

I am planning to develop an iOS application using CoreBluetooth framework which monitors a pedometer peripheral continuously and counts the footsteps.

I know that if backgroud execution mode is set to BLE Central, the application will continue to receive BLE events even in the background.

Apple documentation states that in case the app gets terminated due to low memory, the system can keep track of BLE events for a particular Central Manager if state preservation and restoration is adopted.

Assume I have an iOS application that operates in Central mode. The app is subscribed to receive notification from a Pedometer when ever the footstep characteristic changes.

I have adopted the following in my app.

• BLE Central background mode
• BLE State preservation/restoration for Central Manager

I start my app, Scan, Pair and Connect to the pedometer and the app starts receiving footsteps.

My Questions:

1. Now if the iPhone reboots, Will I continue to receive BLE events so that my app will be launched in the background without the user having to manually launch the application again and connect to the pedometer?

2. If the app is terminated by the user explicitly using the multitasking gesture, Will the app be able to receive BLE events without the user having to manually launch the application again and connect to the pedometer?

3. Is there a way to launch my application on iOS boot up?

Answer 1

1. Now if the iPhone reboots, Will I continue to receive BLE events so that my app will be launched in the background without the user having to manually launch the application again and connect to the pedometer?

Your app won't receive BLE events because all apps are started in the terminated state after a reboot (despite remaining in the app switcher). The user will have to manually launch your app at least once after reboot in order for it to use BLE.

2. If the app is terminated by the user explicitly using the multitasking gesture, Will the app be able to receive BLE events without the user having to manually launch the application again and connect to the pedometer?

Same as above, the app has entered the terminated state, so it won't be able to communicate using BLE until it is explicitly launched again.

3. Is there a way to launch my application on iOS boot up?

iOS doesn't provide any way to launch your application on boot.

The one exception to all of this that I can find is iBeacons. If your app registers to receive updates for a specific iBeacon, iOS will launch your app when it finds it (even after a reboot or if the user explicitly kills it from the switcher). When you get the iBeacon callback you can start all your BLE logic and it will then run in the background per usual. Of course this means you need to advertise as an iBeacon on your pedometer, which may or may not be feasible.

Bear in mind the detection of the iBeacon is pretty finicky, especially after a reboot. You have little guarantee as to how fast or even if you will be delivered the iBeacon callback to start your app. But it's something.

Source