I already had that switched off and only ever had compass calibration toggled in previous versions of iOS, yet my camera app still caused the GPS icon to come up in iOS7.1
I'm glad you cured yours anyway
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So Background App Refresh only works for apps in the multitask view, correct?
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I already had that switched off and only ever had compass calibration toggled in previous versions of iOS, yet my camera app still caused the GPS icon to come up in iOS7.1
I'm glad you cured yours anyway
The only options that iOS provides system-wide is the Notification Centre options. The options here are all or nothing. Show badges for all notifications, or don't show badges, show banners for all notifications or don't show banners, etc.
However, some apps will provide their own internal options for what notifications you want to receive in the first place, or the times or circumstances in which you want to receive notifications (e.g. in Facebook you can mute conversation notifications for an hour, or disable post comment notifications, etc. etc.)
An interesting case story is Skype, who up until a few months ago only pushed notifications to your phone if you were logged in and had the app running. They changed it so that now you receive notifications even when the app is shut. You have to sign out to stop receiving them. I found that change incredibly annoying due to the particular way I use Skype. They provided no option, but it was probably perfectly possible for them to do this.
So what you want to look for is options within WhatsApp to control which notifications you receive, when and under what circumstances. If it does not have these options, i.e. there is no way to say 'don't push notifications if the app is not running' there is not much you can do, as far as I know, other than temporarily disable notifications in the Settings app and/or in WhatsApp's internal settings, when you shut the app down.
In the attached image, you need to turn off the two Alert toggles when you shut down, and turn them back on when open it again.
P.S. Push notifications are different to Mail push. All apps' notifications go through Apple's push server. Only one connection to this server has to be maintained. Allowing many apps to send you push notifications doesn't use any more battery than allowing one. Although, of course, the number of notifications you receive is likely to increase as you allow more apps, and each notification uses a tiny bit more battery than idle. But, say, disabling WhatsApp push notifications overnight won't save you any battery if you don't receive WhatsApp notifications overnight anyway.
Mail on the other hand, will maintain a direct connection to each account's mail server, so turning off push for a Mail account will mean one less connection, which saves battery (vs not fetching at all; I won't get into the argument over whether regular scheduled fetches use more battery than maintaining an idle push connection).
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You seem to be misunderstanding how notifications work. Apps don't "check" for notifications. They are all pushed through Apple's push notification server or scheduled locally (time or location). It doesn't save you any battery life to only receive notifications when an app is open or suspended (vs when it is closed).
Apps don't open when a notification is received unless they are designed to take advantage of the new iOS 7 feature that allows a Background Refresh to be triggered by a notification. This feature can be turned off in Settings.
So Background App Refresh only works for apps in the multitask view, correct?
I've been experimenting a little bit with 7.1 due to another thread. Here is my experiment.
I use FmF with several friends. With background refresh ON and it not in the multitasking it never polls for GPS unless I open it or a friend looks for my location. I can check in location and see it hasn't been using GPS. When I open it it takes a couple of minutes to find everyone in my list.
If I keep background refresh ON but keep FmF in the multitasking it polls for location every 10-15 minutes, indefinitely. I can see the GPS icon pop up and it shows use in settings. When I open it even if I can tell the app is closed from being in multitasking too long it already knows where all my friends are.
So in this experiment I can see there is an obvious difference between keeping background refresh on and the app being in the multitasking apps vs not being in the multitasking.
Hope that made sense. I found FmF the easiest app to experiment with since I rarely use it.
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When you take a picture it stamps the GPS location in the metadata of the photo. You'll need to turn camera off in locations if you don't want that data recorded.
Here is an example. I used an Android device to access the data from my iPhones picture. You can do it on a PC/Mac too however.
Edit : be careful who you send pictures too.
I've been experimenting a little bit with 7.1 due to another thread. Here is my experiment.
I use FmF with several friends. With background refresh ON and it not in the multitasking it never polls for GPS unless I open it or a friend looks for my location. I can check in location and see it hasn't been using GPS. When I open it it takes a couple of minutes to find everyone in my list.
If I keep background refresh ON but keep FmF in the multitasking it polls for location every 10-15 minutes, indefinitely. I can see the GPS icon pop up and it shows use in settings. When I open it even if I can tell the app is closed from being in multitasking too long it already knows where all my friends are.
So in this experiment I can see there is an obvious difference between keeping background refresh on and the app being in the multitasking apps vs not being in the multitasking.
Hope that made sense. I found FmF the easiest app to experiment with since I rarely use it.
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I already had that switched off and only ever had compass calibration toggled in previous versions of iOS, yet my camera app still caused the GPS icon to come up in iOS7.1
I'm glad you cured yours anyway
When you take a picture it stamps the GPS location in the metadata of the photo. You'll need to turn camera off in locations if you don't want that data recorded.
Here is an example. I used an Android device to access the data from my iPhones picture. You can do it on a PC/Mac too however.
Edit : be careful who you send pictures too.
There is no Background Refresh option to check every 15 minutes.
What you are probably seeing is the background location tracking that has existed since iOS 4, but I'm not sure how FmF works. It has nothing to do with Background Refresh. You would get the same behavior if Background Refresh is off.
I have always had camera turned off in location services, but compass calibration on. Since 7.1, the GPS icon comes on when I open the camera app (it's visible briefly when I close the app) even when the camera setting is toggled off in location services. Only switching compass calibration off solves this issue.
I have always historically had most other location services switched off apart from maps, Tom Tom, compass calibration and a few other apps. Now I have to have compass calibration off too.
Maybe right, I need to try app in multitasking and background refresh OFF.
Before iOS 7 I could leave it in multitasking and it would not stay active.
I'll turn background refresh off for it now and put it in the multitasking to see if it continually polls for location.
Background Refresh isn't for polling locations. It's basically to provide an app with a brief opportunity to download a small amount of data from the internet.
It can be triggered by notifications (push, local, or location-based) or on a schedule determined by the OS based on when and how often you open the app, wifi status, and battery status.
It's allowing the app to refresh in the background correct?
FmF requires GPS to refresh my location. I'm not saying the OS or background refresh itself is using GPS but the app FmF is.
My point is when I have it in the background and background refresh on I can watch it checking location and verify it via location settings. VS having not having it in the background and location setting saying it's been over 24 hrs since the last time it used GPS.
I'm probably just not being very clear.
Again, you are talking about two different things. What you are describing is not Background Refresh (the new feature added in iOS 7).
Hmm...
Dumb it down for me please because obviously I'm not understanding how it works.
From what I gathered the background refresh setting is to allow apps to work in the background vs going to a suspended state after a few moments.
Like 3rd party GPS apps used to work in the background. Now they only do if you turn on background app refresh. If not they will stop navigation.
Before iOS 7, apps could run in the background, like the GPS apps you mentioned. These programs had to not be removed from the task manager view in order to keep running.
In iOS 7, your app can register with NSNotificationCenter to be notified of certain events even if the app has been closed. These events will cause your app to open if it is closed, unless you've disabled this functionality in settings.
In iOS 7, your app can register with NSNotificationCenter to be notified of certain events even if the app has been closed. These events will cause your app to open if it is closed, unless you've disabled this functionality in settings.
So Background App Refresh only works for apps in the multitask view, correct?
So would it be accurate to say, this is a setting to provide the user with more control over background task that was not previously offered?
So would it be accurate to say, this is a setting to provide the user with more control over background task that was not previously offered?
Background App Refresh is not replacing the background APIs that were introduced with iOS 4. They background APIs (music, location-tracking, VOIP, task completion) all still exist and still work the same as they always have.
Background App Refresh is a new feature that has nothing to do with those old background APIs. It simply opens an app temporarily in the background in order to allow the app to download a small amount of data from the internet. Depending on how an app is designed, these updates can be on a schedule determined by the OS ("intelligent scheduling") or they can be in response to a notification (push, local, or location-based.) The app simply downloads the data in the background and is quickly suspended.
For example, Tweetbot takes advantage of Background Refresh to download tweets in the background, so you don't have to wait for the tweets to load when you open the app. iOS 7 determines how often it is updated by monitoring when and how often you usually open the app manually.
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Not really. I'd say that it provides developers with a new option that they didn't have before.
How? It's a new feature that users can turn off completely or on an app by app basis.
Here in lies my confusion.
So if the old background API's are unaffected then shouldn't navigation apps still work in the background regardless of a background refresh setting?
Prior to iOS 7 Google maps operated fine in the background obviously without this setting since it wasn't there.
Now,
It does not.
I apologize for not picking up on this faster. Lol
I don't know the specifics of this situation, but perhaps Google Maps were redesigned to use Background Refresh in order to be more efficient. Instead of constantly running in the background, it could use location-based triggers for Background Refresh to allow the app to be closed or suspended until it is needed.
Other GPS apps are the same way. Waze for example if you move it too the background, ignore it for a while and reopen it you are met with "Navigation was end before the destination was reached, continue?"
It's not like it's more efficient. It either works in the background with background refresh turned on or it does not work in the background.
Again, without know the specifics, it's hard to comment.
Again, if it's running continuously in the background, it is doing so with the old background APIs. Not Background Refresh.
Of course it is more efficient to suspend or close the app when it is not needed rather than let it run continuously!
they really messed with all of this in the 7.1 update. All i know is that i have no apps running and my location services stay on for apps like camera.
Thats how its always worked until 7.0. So really 7.0 broke it and 7.1 fixed it you could say
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yes forgot that one. I have had it off since it first came into existence during the betas. Not liking a device or service knowing my every move and when
Not to mention the battery hit from doing so.To be honest it really shouldn't matter that much. Apps that do a LOT in the background get throttled back. Apps that wake up just momentarily are allowed to update more often.
That feature was designed with battery in mind.
You are saying an an app that runs continually in the background using using the old API's and NOT background refresh.
My question is, why do these apps not work by adjusting background refresh to off if they are using the old API's and not background refresh? Obviously these apps are affected by the background refresh setting.
I brought up efficiency because effective efficiency of something not doing anything is 0%. Sure battery life is better if that's what you are referring to but that's like saying it's even more efficient if the phone is off which doesn't make much sense.
Turn it off under data use? You can restrict which apps you allow to be used on 3G.
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Thanks for this! I had forgotten about this setting! Lol just disabled mine as I found it interesting when I first used the feature to pull down the NC to see how long it thought it would take me to get to work!
Yep.
Again, I don't know the specifics of how Google Maps implemented BAR. As I suggested earlier, maybe they use BAR to allow the app to be suspended or closed until it is needed.