How do I get a background location update every n minutes in my iOS application?

Question

I\'m looking for a way to get a background location update every n minutes in my iOS application. I\'m using iOS 4.3 and the solution should work for non-jailbroken iPhones

Answer 1

if ([self.locationManager respondsToSelector:@selector(setAllowsBackgroundLocationUpdates:)]) {
    [self.locationManager setAllowsBackgroundLocationUpdates:YES];
}

This is needed for background location tracking since iOS 9.

Answer 2

In iOS 9 and watchOS 2.0 there's a new method on CLLocationManager that lets you request the current location: CLLocationManager:requestLocation(). This completes immediately and then returns the location to the CLLocationManager delegate.

You can use an NSTimer to request a location every minute with this method now and don't have to work with startUpdatingLocation and stopUpdatingLocation methods.

However if you want to capture locations based on a change of X meters from the last location, just set the distanceFilter property of CLLocationManger and to X call startUpdatingLocation().