Mobile iOS GEO Location Polling & Notification

Question

We are in the early stage of planning a mobile application. We have some needs specific to the GEO functionality and capabilities.

Our desire is to create a hybrid, however, I understand that may not be possible with all of the following requirements.

Assuming that the user has given the correct notification privileges to the application:

Customer is running the application in the foreground:

1. Device notify server of GEO location upon some client action (Customer does some action that sends data to the server, can we include current GEO location?)

2. Device sends ping of current GEO location every n minutes.

3. A business event occurs, server sends message to device due to its GEO location (Server sends a message to one or more applications in GEO proximity

Customer is NOT running the application in foreground

1. Device notify server of GEO location every n minutes. (Server wants to know approximate location of device to determine if it is sent a server notification of an event in its proximity)

2. Server sends message to device due to it's GEO location while device is not running. (Server sends a notification message to the device due to its GEO location. I understand if the app is not running, this will go to the OS as an application alert that the user would then click on to run the app in the foreground)

My main focus is iOS at the moment, but I'm interested in Android capabilities with respect to the above.

I have no experience with mobile development. We are putting together a specification of functionality and trying to determine feature set feasibility.

The vast majority of our application is simple client data interaction between the device and server, hybrid will be fine. However, it's our client not running GEO requirements that have me concerned. Is it possible to create a small iOS app that will handle the things that the hybrid cannot? If so, can those apps be packaged together or would they be a separate install?

Edit: Assuming the user has the device configured correctly, i.e. device GPS is on and able to receive notifications etc. the core question is can the device notify the server of it's GEO location every n minutes with the app running, and then same question with the app closed? Does this differ significantly between native / hybrid.

With respect to iOS, when an app is in the "app tray" is that app still considered running? Or, once an app is not in the foreground it is effectively closed?

Thank you

Answer 1

First, you can't get a client's GEO if they turned GPS off.

I think you need PhoneGap to make it work(if you want hybrid app) after read your requirements. Read:

Do hybrid mobile apps support Push Notifications?

On iOS, you don't need and you can't have any extra mesurements to ensure they are open. The only thing you can do is notice user "your GPS is not running" and ask them to turn it on. About notification: You can use notification center provided by Apple only, it's quite simple task if you just want to develop on iOS.

On Android, things are a little different. On newest version of Android you can't turn GPS on in background, but you can in older version, read this:

turn on off GPS android

So you'd better show your user setting screen to ask them open GPS.

About notification: Google GCM is not recommended since google services are not installed on some device. Third party push service is a decent choice like urbanairship.

About background task:

In Android you can run this task background, in iOS it's also possible like what Endomondo did. But it's not stable all the time since if user process reached memory limit system might kill your process to release memory. This might happen on both iOS & Android.