I have the need to have an application always active in windows phone 8. All users have to use this application. More precisely, all users will have a background agent inside this application which will receive and send informations.
Note : I'm talking here about a private application use by a limited number of users.
During my research, I became aware that i couldn't paramater my application in order to launch it at startup. This isn't possible with Windows phone 8. So, i start looking for others options.
In my understanding, the only way to do that in the Microsoft way is to use the notifications. If the phone don't have the application launched, a notification is send periodically to invite the user to launch the application.
My question, did I miss some functionnalites in Windows Phone 8 whiches propose the same functionnality in a better way ?
Thank you very much
Related
I would like to launch an application using parameters provided from an SMS.
The behaviour I wish to achieve is that as soon as the user receives an SMS, the application will be launched with the parameters provided in the SMS. I.e. seamlessly present the SMS in a more user friendly way.
I have experimented with URI protocol associations and so far I can send an SMS to the test phone with text unleashed:param=test (protocol is taken from book “Windows Phone 8 Unleashed”, code is in WP8UnleashedSource_01_05\Source\FileAndProtocolAssociations).
When pressing the link in the received SMS the application is launched successfully.
But it would be great if the is a way to also launch the application automatically as soon as the SMS is received.
Is this possible on all Windows Phone models and versions from 8 and up?
Or are there other approaches, for example use push notifications, that are better suited to achieve the seamless use-case I described?
Thanks & Regards
This question is similar to Launch App through SMS (URI-Association) but I would like to concentrate on the automatic launch.
This is not possible on the Windows Phone 8 due to some security reasons.
This might be possible in Windows Phone 8.1. I read somewhere that 8.1 supports 3rd party SMS clients. This might mean there may some event that fires when new SMS are received. I am not sure though.
I would still suggest you to use Push Notifications.
I am developing a Windows phone 8 app that need to run only in background with UI. Is there any way I can run the app in the background, or without actually being open?
It depends upon what you want to do in the background. Generally speaking you can't implement something like a Windows service that will startup automatically when the phone is launched.
That said you can run your app in the background within given limitations. Check out MSDN for detailed information.
Why all these limitations you might ask yourself? It's to provide a good battery life to the user.
Edit:
For the periodic agent to start running the app must be started once. Further the agent must update a live tile (user must pin it to the start screen) or the app has to be once opened every 14 days.
Another option might be using push notifications to trigger an update..
I have to do my university project. We suppose to develop windows phone application that should track the user behavior and interaction with phone while driving.
At the moment we just trying to understand what we able to do and track.
we thought about monitoring maybe
incoming call, incoming sms and afcourse if the user answered to those,
maybe outgoing call
headset plugged in/out
click on any hardware button
screen touching..
and all the interrupts made by the user.
What our options? Can someone refer me to relevant reading?
for the purpose of your app, I suggest you implement something with voice control so that the driver can interact with his windows phone without having to touch it.
Visit these links for more info:
Here's the first link
Here's the second link
Is there any way a Windows Phone 8 app can make phone calls, sending SMS, and perform other cellular network activities without user interaction?
According to this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/7342769 it is somehow possible to perform AT commands to directly access the cellular functionality on Windows Phone 7 (in an inofficial way). Since the Windows Phone 8 SDK supports native code, my question is if you can make use of this to send the required AT commands or access the RIL layer somehow.
In case anyone is wondering why I need this: it's not about an app wich is going to get published but it is needed for an automated testing process.
You cannot do that, this is not possible in windows phone
I’ve been developing Windows desktop applications for many years, but just started developing Windows Phone 8 applications so, as you can imagine, I have many questions and doubts.
This is my problem so far:
I need an application to check any certain time if there are new messages / notifications in the server database, even if the application is not running, and show it (in some way, not sure how) on the phone. At the end, I want something similar to Facebook application (or others) that checks constantly if there are new messages even if I’m not using the phone.
How can I do that? Is there any tutorial or guide that explains that?
Thank you very much
There's two mechanisms available on Windows Phone to periodically check a data source and display notifications:
Push notifications: the server directly sends the notification to the phone. It provides the best user experience, because the notification is send (nearly) instantaneously, and because all the processing is done server-side (so it doesn't impact the phone's autonomy). The obvious drawback is that you need a server infrastructure to send the notifications.
Background agents: your application runs in background, is woke up periodically (every 30 minutes or so), and is allowed to run for about 15 seconds. During those 15 seconds, you can check your data source, and display a notification if needed. The two major drawbacks are that you can't choose when you're background agent executes (so the notification can be displayed 30 minutes late), and it'll have an impact on the battery life.
What you need is push notifications.
Microsoft already provides this functionality throught Azure Mobile Services and here is something to get you started : Get started with push notifications in Mobile Services