We have a need for continuous background processing as we are a network listener observing the state of many local network items that have no understanding of anything like push notifications, etc.
On iOS this can be solved via Guided Access, thus forcing foreground access on a permanent basis. In our case, users are perfectly fine with that as they purchase the Apple devices specifically for this software.
On Catalyst, there is no Guided Access. I had assumed this would be trivial because Cocoa doesn't stop execution for background apps, but Catalyst appears to simulate iOS by trying to stop any app not in the foreground even when the machine does not even have a battery (eg. iMac) and the concept of background tasks framework to save battery makes no sense, and it does so pretty quickly (30 seconds - 3 minutes).
In reviewing the new background APIs, all of it seems to ignore these use cases. My real question as per the title is "how do I get continuous background processing time on Catalyst?" As I have asked that fruitlessly for a decade on iOS, in this case I will modify the need to be more realistic, "given reality that Apple does not (yet) recognize network listeners as a valid background activity, what background behavior can I use on Catalyst to ensure as close to permanent background execution as possible?"
Note that, while we require continuous background execution, our actual CPU time is essentially zero. We just listen for specific network activity and take actions based on it. So I'm trying to figure out the best heuristic to get the longest lasting execution time, specifically on Catalyst. Thanks for any advice!
