iOS 7.1 fixes issue with geolocation in force-closed apps

Apple released iOS 7.1 earlier this week, bringing a handful of new features as well as bug and security fixes. As expected, the Cupertino company also made some improvements under the hood that change how iOS handles background processing for apps that use geofencing and similar location services. In iOS 6, apps that were force-closed by the user still received and responded to background events without the user doing anything. This behavior was changed in iOS 7, with apps no longer responding to background events when they were force closed by a user. The reasoning was that users who forcibly closed an app wanted it shut down and did not want it responding to background calls. In iOS 7.1, the background event handling was restored to its iOS 6 state, again allowing apps to respond even when forcibly closed. The change was first noticed by iBEEKn, which detailed how iOS 7.1 now provides an improved iBeacon experience by allowing apps to receive iBeacon alerts even when they are not open.This change apparently extends to geofencing apps as well, claims developer Bill Burgess. One unlisted feature of iOS 7.1, is the default behavior of Geofences and iBeacons has been restored to iOS 6 defaults. For those of you not aware, starting in iOS 7, if you force close an app (double-tap home, and swipe the app up) you are telling iOS that you don’t want this app to run anymore, and that the app should not be allowed to respond to background events. This is completely opposite of the behavior in iOS 6. If your app needs to respond to a Geofence update, it would get notified, woke up if you will, and be allowed to respond to the event. This new change has caused a lot of problems for our users that are used to closing apps from the app switcher and not getting updates to various background updates. This is good news for developers who no longer have to develop a workaround for handling background events when a user forcibly shuts down an app. As an iOS user, though, do you appreciate this change? Continue reading →

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