Learn To Use The Location Sensor In The Background With FireMonkey In Delphi 10 Berlin On IOS

Developer David Nottage proposes an interesting solution to a problem some of you might have noticed on FireMonkey when switching to iOS 9 or higher, in particular the Location Sensor stops working when the application is in background. The reason behind this behavior is that Apple introduced a new required property – allowBackgroundLocationUpdates to be set on CLLocationManager. Also you have to include location UIBackgroundModes in the project options. In order for the Location Sensor to work in the background you have to always pass True to requestWhenInUseAuthorization method. In order to make this change, you have to modify the implementation sections of the units: iOSapi.CoreLocation and System.iOS.Sensors and completely redeclare CLLocationManager here, and add the new methods for the property.

Here is some sample code:

type
  // Reintroducing the entire CLLocationManager and CLLocationManagerDelegate in order to add allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates property
  CLLocationManager = interface(NSObject)
    ['{B162A514-4334-48B8-B31A-32926B758340}'] // New GUID
    function activityType : CLActivityType; cdecl;
    procedure allowDeferredLocationUpdatesUntilTraveled(distance: CLLocationDistance; timeout: NSTimeInterval); cdecl;
    function allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates: Boolean; cdecl; // New method for allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates property
    function delegate: Pointer; cdecl;
// snip
    procedure setActivityType(activityType: CLActivityType); cdecl;
    procedure setAllowsBackgroundLocationUpdates(allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates: Boolean); cdecl; // New method for allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates property
    procedure setDelegate(delegate: Pointer); cdecl;
// snip
  end;
  TCLLocationManager = class(TOCGenericImport<CLLocationManagerClass, CLLocationManager>)  end;
 
  CLLocationManagerDelegate = interface(IObjectiveC)
    ['{113A227F-AD2D-4983-83C3-C5158F394257}'] // New GUID
    procedure locationManager(manager: CLLocationManager; didFailWithError: NSError); overload; cdecl;
// snip
    [MethodName('locationManager:didFinishDeferredUpdatesWithError:')]
    procedure locationManagerDidFinishDeferredUpdatesWithError(manager: CLLocationManager; error: NSError); cdecl;
  end;

If you want to always set the authorization for allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates not only when the sensor is active, you have to modify TiOSLocationSensor.DoStart method.

if TOSVersion.Check(9) and (FLocater <> nil) then
  begin
    {$IF Defined(BACKGROUNDUPDATES) and Defined(CPUARM64)} // for some reason, this function crashes in 32-bit
    FLocater.setAllowsBackgroundLocationUpdates(True);
    {$ENDIF}
  end;
  // check authorization
  if Authorized = TAuthorizationType.atUnauthorized then
    SensorError(SLocationServiceUnauthorized);
// snip

Head over and check out the demo for Using Location Sensor in Background for Delphi Berlin with FireMonkey.

Mirror: Download the background location sensor demo for Delphi on IOS.