Book Image

Appcelerator Titanium Smartphone App Development Cookbook Second Edition

By : Jason Kneen
Book Image

Appcelerator Titanium Smartphone App Development Cookbook Second Edition

By: Jason Kneen

Overview of this book

This book will take you through the process of building cross-platform, native UI applications for the mobile from scratch. You will learn how to develop apps, how to use GPS, cameras and photos and how to build socially connected apps. You will also learn how to package them for submission to the App Store and Google Play. This cookbook takes a pragmatic approach to creating applications in JavaScript from putting together basic UIs, to handling events and implementation of third party services such as Twitter, Facebook and Push notifications. The book shows you how to integrate datasources and server APIs, and how to use local databases. The topics covered will guide you to use Appcelerator Studio tools for all the mobile features such as Geolocation, Accelerometer, animation and more. You’ll also learn about Alloy, the Appcelerator MVC framework for rapid app development, and how to transfer data between applications using URLSchemes, enabling other developers to access and launch specific parts of your app. Finally, you will learn how to register developer accounts and publish your very own applications on the App Store and Google Play.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
15
Index

Updating data using background fetch


The release of iOS 7 added a new background service called background fetch, which allows an app to poll for new data, updates, or changes at regular intervals. For example, a weather app can update itself during the day, or a news app can fetch new articles throughout the day.

The interval for background fetch can be set. However, this is not recommended as setting an interval that is too short will cause iOS to ignore it in order to save battery life. So, in this example, we will be using Apple's default settings. Typically, background fetch runs by default, in the morning, evening, and periodically in between.

Note

Note

Background fetch will also run a few minutes after a device is restarted, due to any of these reasons:

  • A crash causing a reboot

  • A restart because of low battery

  • The user has turned the device off and on

In these instances, background fetch will run soon after the device is restarted. However, if the application is killed by the user and the...