background_fetch is not reliably invoked on iOS 7

[shankari]

It is not clear how to address this since if we are not invoked, we can't do much. Explore remote notifications? Or at least, launch a sync when the app is launched?

[shankari]

I am hoping that switching to our own data collection will help with this, since we will be invoked in the background anyway when people take trips, and then we can piggyback on that to send data back and forth. However, it seems like knowing how to make remote notifications work is a good thing in general, as a backup/failure mechanism - for example, if we don't get any data for several days.

@neerajbaid said that there are third party integration services that make this easier with two lines of code, which is why this is a small task.

The goal here would then be:

• Find and evaluate such third party services. Hopefully there is one that is free for open source projects/non-commercial software
• Integrate with them so that we dispatch remote notifications to users who have not called getUnclassifiedSections() for at least a day
• Test and check in :)

[neerajbaid]

I would recommend something like Parse Push. It's free until 1 million users. On the client side, you simply register a user's device with their user_id. Then, you can send them a direct push any time from anywhere.

[shankari]

Cool! It looks like using Parse Push might help solve #16 as well, specially if they support a wide range of android versions. If one team would like to take on both, I would count it as a "medium" issue...

[shankari]

Also, if you want to get a sense of the problem: http://www.shankari.org/2014/09/ios-background-sync.html