I am working on a POC iOS application that will eventually be released through an internal enterprise MDM solution. The app itself is pretty straightforward. It makes a quick call to an internal endpoint to return some simple json and then displays it on screen. At the same time, I have an app extension (Today Widget) displaying a small fraction of that data as well.
I have created a shared framework that includes the service calls, as well as any other common code I am using. Unfortunately, the parent app and extension all work perfectly fine if I'm on the internal network where the service endpoints live. However, this app will not always be on our trusted, internal network. As a result, we wrap the build with a secure container provided by our MDM solution and open up traffic to our specific internal endpoints. This works perfectly fine for the app, but our MDM provider doesn't currently provide similar capabilities for App Extensions.
As a result, I am working to come up with creative ways to best ensure the data in my Today Widget is up to date without it directly making a service call. To do so, I am sharing data between the app and extension via an app group, but if the service call is only made from the parent app and the user very rarely accesses the parent app, the data will still be out of date.
In order to simulate making the service call from the app extension to update the data, I would like a way to call the service on behalf of the parent app, which would then update the NSUserDefaults data being shared between app and extension.
So my question: What is the best way for me to initiate that service call in the parent app? Is it even possible? I know Apple provides the 'openURL' method to allow an extension to open it's parent app, but I don't want to actually open the app. I want the app to be running in the background while the extension makes the service call on it's behalf.
I have been looking into the following, but with not much luck:
- Parent app has an observer on NSUserDefaults, watching a specific key, that when modified by the app extension will fire off the service call to update the shared data being displayed. Unfortunately, I don't believe this will work, since as long as the parent app is in the background, the
NSUserDefaultsDidChangeNotificationwill not get fired off in the parent app. - Send a local notification from app extension to parent app, telling it to fire off the service call and update data shared via app group. Unfortunately,
UIApplication.sharedApplication()is not accessible from an app extension.
Any suggestions of ways to simulate the service call, to give my Today Widget the highest likelihood of being up-to-date with it's information?
Note: Obviously giving Today Widgets access to internal resources has it's own security concerns, but for this POC, the data is non-sensitive and must only live internally..