Is there a way to deliver push notifications in iOS 11 during Guided Access?

Asked 13/11, 2017 at 2:26 Answered 10/1, 2018 at 20:18

Solved ios apple-push-notifications ios11 guided-access

Our iPad app relies on silent push notifications to trigger certain events, and is used by many of our users in Guided Access mode. This has worked well until iOS 11 which now seems to block delivery of push notifications while Guided Access is enabled.

I've tried a variety of different payloads according to the Apple documentation here (such as content-available, alert, sound, badge etc.), but I can't get anything to be delivered while Guided Access is enabled. This isn't necessarily a bug, but may in fact be the new intended behaviour.

Is there a way I can configure a notification so that it is delivered during guided access?

For what it's worth I raised a Technical Support Incident for this issue with Apple, who promptly refunded my ticket and asked me to report a bug instead. There has been no feedback from the bug report yet.

Irvinirvine answered 13/11, 2017 at 2:26 Comment(8)

Are you using UserNotifications framework and UNUserNotificationCenter? The older way of using AppDelegate callbacks and [UIApplication registerForRemoteNotifications] is deprecated and could potentially be having issues in iOS 11 in Guide Access mode. – Trillbee 30/11, 2017 at 15:56

Thank you for the suggestion, but I can confirm that we are using the UserNotifications framework present in iOS 10 and above. – Irvinirvine 30/11, 2017 at 23:12

I confirm the same in our project. – Schofield 4/12, 2017 at 19:44

If your app is in the foreground, why not create your own push system, such like c/s mode bsd socket to reach your goal. There are lots samples: xmppframework on the iOS side, openfire on the server side. – Literality 5/12, 2017 at 3:39

Thanks Kevin, we ended up going down the path of websockets which is working well (although came with it's own challenges). – Irvinirvine 5/12, 2017 at 4:5

@Kevin Cao, your method works, turn it into an answer for people to reference – Eliseelisee 5/12, 2017 at 20:46

I can confirm this is also a problem in Single App Mode. – Lionel 9/1, 2018 at 22:39

Push notifications work for Core Data with iCloud apps (not CloudKit) in Guided Access Mode. So Apple hasn't disabled push notifications entirely. I'm not sure if this is a bug or a design decision. – Lionel 10/1, 2018 at 18:37

This appears to be fixed in the newest iOS 11.2.5 beta 4. Confirmed with Guided Access and Single App Mode using CloudKit push notifications.

Lionel answered 10/1, 2018 at 20:18 Comment(2)

We've verified this with behaviour with our own app. All indications are this was nothing more than an iOS bug. – Irvinirvine 15/1, 2018 at 23:50

What about using Google Cloud Function? Will the device receive the notification to in kiosk / single app mode too? Thanks – Baryta 24/6, 2019 at 22:54

If your app is in the foreground, you can create your own push system using c/s mode BSD socket to reach your goal. There are good sample like xmppframework on the iOS side and openfire on the server side.

Literality answered 6/12, 2017 at 1:43 Comment(1)

While I appreciate the suggestion, I'm reluctant to mark this as the answer because I really wanted a definitive answer on whether or not notifications can be delivered during Guided Access. – Irvinirvine 7/12, 2017 at 3:59

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