5 ms·

Instapaper 4.2.2 with Background Update Locations

38 points by macrael 14y ago

macrael 14y ago
This is an interesting way to approximate running in the background on a timer.
- macrael 14y ago
  Which Marco says he first saw in News.me https://twitter.com/marcoarment/statuses/209073534289448961 https://twitter.com/marcoarment/statuses/209073534289448961 Cool, Ive never seen that before.
toisanji 14y ago
How is this implemented without effecting the battery life?
- bradleyland 14y ago
  It will inevitably affect battery life to some degree, but if there's no new data to download, it's on par with checking for email. Because it uses a geofence, it won't check nearly as many times though, so it should be minimal.
- mikeash 14y ago
  Geofencing works off cell towers. Since the cell hardware is already tracking towers anyway, the additional cost is minimal.
  - chmars 14y ago
    Geofencing works IMHO with all localization features available on iOS, i.e. it's not limited to 3G/UMTS.
    - mikeash 14y ago
      But it only works on devices with a cell radio, so it's obviously being triggered by that even if it might hit up other facilities once triggered.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
conroy 14y ago
It's ridiculous that iOS doesn't offer an API for scheduled background tasks. The clever tricks developers use to solve this problem (geofencing, silent audio[1], etc.) shouldn't be necessary. [1]: http://www.148apps.com/news/silence-golden-pastebot/ http://www.148apps.com/news/silence-golden-pastebot/
- aw3c2 14y ago
  I tried to get a friend to use XMPP/Jabber for free (private, secure) text messaging but it failed because of this. Improved my impression that iOS is not capable of much while being pretty good at what it can.
pkulak 14y ago
The lack of background scheduled tasks in iOS is turning into same origin policies for JS in web browsers. Everyone gets around it with ridiculous hacks (JSONP) to the point where the restriction is meaningless and it just causes more work for devs and problems for consumers. It is neat that people are finding these loopholes, though. Any Downcast devs reading this? Hint hint hint...
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  Despite the hacks (unnecessary since cross-domain xhr), the security benefits of same-origin remain.
  - simonw 14y ago
    I couldn't agree more. Same-origin is one of the most important components of browser security. JSON-P doesn't mean that same-origin is a waste of time just because there's a work-around - it demonstrates that sites should be allowed to opt-out of same-origin protection if they have a reason to, leading to the development of CORS. Without same-origin protection, I could run JavaScript on any website which silently used XMLHttpRequest to steal information from a web server running on your company's internal intranet. All I'd have to do then is trick you in to visiting my site.
rdl 14y ago
Is there any way to just do this when it is on a wifi network (that I choose), or does it have to go via cell tower? I guess if I'm on my home or office cell tower, I'm almost always also on wifi.
- speg 14y ago
  Instapaper has a setting to restrict downloads to wifi. I'm assuming this new feature respects that. edit: Apparentley Instapaper = Instagram when I am on HN way too early for a Sunday.
  - chmars 14y ago
    It's an Insta_paper_ feature, not an Insta_gram_ feature. https://www.instapaper.com/ https://www.instapaper.com/
- chmars 14y ago
  The function is location-based, not network-based, i.e. it is not dependent on GSM/3G and its cell towers and iOS location works with Wi-Fi too.
metamatt 14y ago
So neither the instapaper blog post (linked here) nor the news.me blog post (http://blog.news.me/post/21643399885/introducing-paper-boy-automatically-download-your-news http://blog.news.me/post/21643399885/introducing-paper-boy-a...) comes right out and says it, but the point here is that since iOS doesn't let an arbitrary program schedule itself in the background or on a time-based schedule, but the iOS geofence APIs do let an arbitrary program schedule itself when you cross a geofence, you can abuse the latter to simulate the former?

38 points by macrael 14y ago

macrael 14y ago

This is an interesting way to approximate running in the background on a timer.

macrael 14y ago
Which Marco says he first saw in News.me https://twitter.com/marcoarment/statuses/209073534289448961 https://twitter.com/marcoarment/statuses/209073534289448961 Cool, Ive never seen that before.

toisanji 14y ago

How is this implemented without effecting the battery life?

bradleyland 14y ago
It will inevitably affect battery life to some degree, but if there's no new data to download, it's on par with checking for email. Because it uses a geofence, it won't check nearly as many times though, so it should be minimal.
mikeash 14y ago
Geofencing works off cell towers. Since the cell hardware is already tracking towers anyway, the additional cost is minimal.
- chmars 14y ago
  Geofencing works IMHO with all localization features available on iOS, i.e. it's not limited to 3G/UMTS.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    But it only works on devices with a cell radio, so it's obviously being triggered by that even if it might hit up other facilities once triggered.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

conroy 14y ago

It's ridiculous that iOS doesn't offer an API for scheduled background tasks. The clever tricks developers use to solve this problem (geofencing, silent audio[1], etc.) shouldn't be necessary. [1]: http://www.148apps.com/news/silence-golden-pastebot/ http://www.148apps.com/news/silence-golden-pastebot/

aw3c2 14y ago
I tried to get a friend to use XMPP/Jabber for free (private, secure) text messaging but it failed because of this. Improved my impression that iOS is not capable of much while being pretty good at what it can.

pkulak 14y ago

The lack of background scheduled tasks in iOS is turning into same origin policies for JS in web browsers. Everyone gets around it with ridiculous hacks (JSONP) to the point where the restriction is meaningless and it just causes more work for devs and problems for consumers. It is neat that people are finding these loopholes, though. Any Downcast devs reading this? Hint hint hint...

ricardobeat 14y ago
Despite the hacks (unnecessary since cross-domain xhr), the security benefits of same-origin remain.
- simonw 14y ago
  I couldn't agree more. Same-origin is one of the most important components of browser security. JSON-P doesn't mean that same-origin is a waste of time just because there's a work-around - it demonstrates that sites should be allowed to opt-out of same-origin protection if they have a reason to, leading to the development of CORS. Without same-origin protection, I could run JavaScript on any website which silently used XMLHttpRequest to steal information from a web server running on your company's internal intranet. All I'd have to do then is trick you in to visiting my site.

rdl 14y ago

Is there any way to just do this when it is on a wifi network (that I choose), or does it have to go via cell tower? I guess if I'm on my home or office cell tower, I'm almost always also on wifi.

speg 14y ago
Instapaper has a setting to restrict downloads to wifi. I'm assuming this new feature respects that. edit: Apparentley Instapaper = Instagram when I am on HN way too early for a Sunday.
- chmars 14y ago
  It's an Insta_paper_ feature, not an Insta_gram_ feature. https://www.instapaper.com/ https://www.instapaper.com/
chmars 14y ago
The function is location-based, not network-based, i.e. it is not dependent on GSM/3G and its cell towers and iOS location works with Wi-Fi too.

metamatt 14y ago

So neither the instapaper blog post (linked here) nor the news.me blog post (http://blog.news.me/post/21643399885/introducing-paper-boy-automatically-download-your-news http://blog.news.me/post/21643399885/introducing-paper-boy-a...) comes right out and says it, but the point here is that since iOS doesn't let an arbitrary program schedule itself in the background or on a time-based schedule, but the iOS geofence APIs do let an arbitrary program schedule itself when you cross a geofence, you can abuse the latter to simulate the former?