detect in background that other iPhone app has been opened

Question

I just would like to know if it is possible, in any way, to know from my app that another app has been opened and if yes. Can I retrieve the name of the app.

I think that it's impossible, but maybe it exists a tricky way to do it.

Thanks

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 07 '12 at 01:25

1

Sorry, but no, there's no way to do this. You actually can get the other pids on the system via standard POSIX calls, but when you're in the background, you're not actually running, so you can't do anything.

answered Mar 07 '12 at 01:25

Lily Ballard

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You can, but you're limited to 10 minutes in the background. – futureelite7 Mar 07 '12 at 01:31
@futureelite7: I don't know about you, but I expect my apps to continue to do what they're designed to do for more than 10 minutes. – Lily Ballard Mar 07 '12 at 01:32
Yes, but I'd see what the author has to say about this first. – futureelite7 Mar 07 '12 at 01:34

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:12

Well, you can get a list of currently running processes using sysctl

see this qn:

Get Free Mem and Running Processes

However, since your process can explicitly run in the background for 10 minutes after being backgrounded (unless you're running voip, audio, or location service), the utility of this may be limited. You will also need to find a way to determine if a process is running in the foreground (perhaps checking for the delta of running processes?)

detect in background that other iPhone app has been opened

2 Answers2