iOS/Android contact tracing article

[maberer]

Hi,

I found your article about contact tracing apps on iOS/Android.
Thank you so much for this valuable piece - it highlights a lot of very interesting points and is exceptionally well written.
Great job!

I feel that Android's foreground services are somewhat of a killer feature for the platform.
The system can be generous about what is allowed for an app without being screen filled and the user has total control over it... I somehow really really miss a similar concept on iOS.

One point where this also gets immediately clear is if you send videos in an instant messenger app (eg. WhatsApp): while iOS skips an ongoing upload as soon as the app leaves the foreground, Android can continue to send the file as a foreground service (and even show a progress bar)... iOS really lacks in this regard, as it does not provide any form of user feedback for stuff that is "secondary"...

Additionally, iOS does not handle silent push notification for apps that have been closed in the task switcher... (VoIP is a exception... with iOS pushkit) This is especially bad for apps that can be used on other devices and therefore heavily relay on background processing... I tested this behavior with Google Calendar. As soon as the app gets swiped away in the task switcher, no new calendar events are synced if you add them on a desktop computer.... unfortunately, users miss important reminders because no notification is shown...

I really struggle with this kind of stuff... as I feel that it severely limits the use of modern smartphones...

How about you? Do you use iOS on a daily basis despite these limitations?
Sure, being conservative about battery is nice, but after all, I think Android has a better visual representation for these kind of stuff...

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One question to your article b.c. not sure about that: if you swipe away an app on iOS and restart the device, the app is still considered as being closed and cut-off from the system until it is manually started by the user - is this correct?