ios app open safari in background

Question

I have an app that logs you in via opening safari and redirecting you back to the app - however on "Log out" I need to open safari in order to log you out - is there a way to do this in the background instead?

For Log in:

[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:[DataService loginURL]]];

However, I would like to not have to do the same for Logout - and simply get safari to run in the background or something similar. The problem is that the cookies are saved, and I need to get rid of them. Can I get safari to open a website without having to open Safari through the application?

Answer 1

Can you open Safari in the background? I'm pretty certain that the answer to that is no. In any case, if your main concern is to delete the cookies then you may not get the chance - the user could just kill the app, and the cookies would sit in Safari.

Is it an option to use a UIWebView or WKWebView to perform authentication? So rather than taking them off to Safari, the user would see the browser content actually inside the app.

That might improve the user experience, and you'd get a lot more control. For example, you could point the web view to your log out url when the time came for it. That might save you some cookie hassles too.

Besides which, I think openURL: is now deprecated because it was involved in some shenanigans.