Open Radar

 
Summary:
iOS 7 changes how the multitasking background timeout works. Instead of having up to 10 continuous minutes in the background, this limit has been changed to 3-4 minutes.

While I can understand the rationale -- many apps can use the new background push notification and downloading task APIs to keep themselves updated -- it does not wholly consider all cases of apps that exist.

For apps that deal with third party services (XMPP servers (whether it be a Jabber network to HipChat or AIM's limited bridge), IRC servers or a comet/websocket-based web service that you do not control), there is no good solution for an app to provide users an uninterrupted experience. And on iOS 7, the interruptions become up to 2.5x more frequent than they have in the past.

This is bad. Really bad.

It will lead to a lot of users of these apps complaining and leaving negative app reviews because it doesn't work the same as it used to! And there's nothing I can do about this!

I don't have the time or ability to run a proxy service for people to use for my app. It isn't that popular in the App Store -- it's largely just a labor of love that produces some spare pocket change. A proxy service would actively cost me more money than I would possibly bring in from my app -- not to mention, the loss of time from dealing with people who would abuse it and causing others to have an even worse experience (see: tragedy of the commons).

Steps to Reproduce:
- Run an app
- Configure a background task to run for however long UIApplication gives an app to last

Expected Results:
- The app to be open for ~10 minutes

Actual Results:
- The app is opened for another 3 minutes if I'm lucky, usually closer to 2. And this time decreases each time I reopen the app to keep my session alive.

Regression:
- iOS 6 wasn't this bad or likely to cause me to get 1 star reviews from users.

Additional Notes:
- The 10m limit on iOS 4-6 wasn't ideal, but, is much preferred to iOS 7's behavior.