Share your use cases to allow ActivityKit to start an activity when the app is in the background

I would like to socialize the idea of starting a Live Activity while the app is in the background. According to the ActivityKit, documentation, Live Activities can only be started while your app is foreground. I wrote up a really lengthy feedback about this enhanced ActivityKit permission concept but will summarize to share with others here. FB11308611

The idea is this, like CoreLocation, the ActivityKit framework could have the permission model of 'when in use' and 'always'. Apps that the user has granted the 'always' permission for would then be allowed to start an activity from some sort of background execution. I'm looking at the Background Modes defined in Xcode namely: Location Updates, Bluetooth, Remote Notifications, Nearby Interactions, etc.

My specific use case is to combine my usage of Core Location Region Monitoring and Visit Monitoring into triggering a Live Activity to the users Lock Screen when they are at a place contextually relevant to my app(s). I can imagine this applies to many other applications too. While the current experience I have will present the user with a local notification gets the job done, the user experience could be so much more engaging. When I saw the Live Activities feature get announced during WWDC22, this was the first thing that came to mind. FB11308699

Some very high level concepts:

  • Live Activity when entering a sport stadium
  • Live Activity when entering a concert venue
  • Live Activity when entering a gym
  • Live Activity when entering a restaurant
  • Live Activity when entering a store

Got another use case? Share it! Like a use case in this thread? Comment on it!

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