26 ms·

I'm curious, does anyone have a list of apps that would have legitimate use of sensor data in the background?

by ehsankia 9y ago

jvolkman 9y ago
What about a baby monitor app? Is the app considered backgrounded when the screen is off?
- 9034725985 9y ago
  I was hoping we could use old phones as IP cameras with the screen turned off. I hope apps that are last in the foreground can continue to access camera and microphone and sensors with the screen turned off -- at least when connected to power.
simlevesque 9y ago
Fitness apps.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  Yup, these will now have to run a foreground service or be part of the platform.
agildehaus 9y ago
I recently wrote an Android Wear app for someone who wanted sensor data recorded in the background for legitimate medical research. I would assume upgrading to P will break that app.
- dlhavema 9y ago
  Prolly not for wear apps. Those are all about biometric data collection...
traek 9y ago
Quantified self apps e.g. Human, Moves.
- Groxx 9y ago
  I personally enjoy exploring long-running GPS logs of myself. Interesting patterns, hotspots, etc. (not sure if those two apps cover that in particular, but yeah - quantified self in any form is a perfect example)
daveguy 9y ago
A "Google Assistant" competitor.
OkGoDoIt 9y ago
1. Apps that track sensor data to determine sleep quality or other nonstandard movement calculation (and thus can't use alternative step counting API's) 2. I'm working on an app that constantly records audio in the background and later allows me to search for things I might have said throughout the day 3. Apps that track location long-term, like the defunct Moves app. Sure it kills the battery and is a major privacy concern so it should be opt-in, but I personally love this functionality and I'm sad there doesn't seem to be a modern equivalent (Google Maps location history is less accurate and there's no good API). Apps that record location short-term like MapMyRun do not solve the same problem. ... I'm sure there's other use cases. I kind of feel like the only developers allowed to really innovate on mobile anymore are Google (and Apple) themselves. Bad developers abusing privacy/battery/data have made it so Google/Apple have to lock down anything interesting. It's frustrating, because the current state of affairs is definitely better than the free-for-all it used to be, but I wish I had more control to override what my own device is able to do.
- on_and_off 9y ago
  Sounds like all these apps can use a foreground service to do that. Am I missing something ? The only case I see this change not covering is apps like Cerberus. They would need to ask their users to go to settings and hide their notification. Not the nicest UX, but that's a pretty rare use case.
  - nl 9y ago
    Define foreground/background. If I’m using Strava and Spotify I don’t want either to stop working when I switch to the user interface of the other one.
    - on_and_off 9y ago
      A foreground service needs to display a notification. Not really an issue for Spotify since media apps want to display the media notification anyway. For other apps, the idea is that foreground services should be visible to the user. One of the reasons would be this very capability to access sensors. Another difference between foreground and background is that a background service is eligible to be killed on low memory events.

I'm curious, does anyone have a list of apps that would have legitimate use of sensor data in the background?

jvolkman 9y ago

What about a baby monitor app? Is the app considered backgrounded when the screen is off?

9034725985 9y ago
I was hoping we could use old phones as IP cameras with the screen turned off. I hope apps that are last in the foreground can continue to access camera and microphone and sensors with the screen turned off -- at least when connected to power.

simlevesque 9y ago

Fitness apps.

AstralStorm 9y ago
Yup, these will now have to run a foreground service or be part of the platform.

agildehaus 9y ago

I recently wrote an Android Wear app for someone who wanted sensor data recorded in the background for legitimate medical research. I would assume upgrading to P will break that app.

dlhavema 9y ago
Prolly not for wear apps. Those are all about biometric data collection...

traek 9y ago

Quantified self apps e.g. Human, Moves.

Groxx 9y ago
I personally enjoy exploring long-running GPS logs of myself. Interesting patterns, hotspots, etc. (not sure if those two apps cover that in particular, but yeah - quantified self in any form is a perfect example)

daveguy 9y ago

A "Google Assistant" competitor.

OkGoDoIt 9y ago

1. Apps that track sensor data to determine sleep quality or other nonstandard movement calculation (and thus can't use alternative step counting API's) 2. I'm working on an app that constantly records audio in the background and later allows me to search for things I might have said throughout the day 3. Apps that track location long-term, like the defunct Moves app. Sure it kills the battery and is a major privacy concern so it should be opt-in, but I personally love this functionality and I'm sad there doesn't seem to be a modern equivalent (Google Maps location history is less accurate and there's no good API). Apps that record location short-term like MapMyRun do not solve the same problem. ... I'm sure there's other use cases. I kind of feel like the only developers allowed to really innovate on mobile anymore are Google (and Apple) themselves. Bad developers abusing privacy/battery/data have made it so Google/Apple have to lock down anything interesting. It's frustrating, because the current state of affairs is definitely better than the free-for-all it used to be, but I wish I had more control to override what my own device is able to do.

on_and_off 9y ago
Sounds like all these apps can use a foreground service to do that. Am I missing something ? The only case I see this change not covering is apps like Cerberus. They would need to ask their users to go to settings and hide their notification. Not the nicest UX, but that's a pretty rare use case.
- nl 9y ago
  Define foreground/background. If I’m using Strava and Spotify I don’t want either to stop working when I switch to the user interface of the other one.
  - on_and_off 9y ago
    A foreground service needs to display a notification. Not really an issue for Spotify since media apps want to display the media notification anyway. For other apps, the idea is that foreground services should be visible to the user. One of the reasons would be this very capability to access sensors. Another difference between foreground and background is that a background service is eligible to be killed on low memory events.