Background sync
 

Hi. Now that the iPhone is going to offer multitasking, would it be possible for Omnifocus to run all the time, and automatically sync every half hour or something? It would make things much more seamless.

Thanks.

Kevin McKenzie

I don't have any concrete information just yet, but from what I've read I don't think this will be possible.

When an app is in the background, it goes into a "quiescent state", meaning its state is preserved and the app is ready for action should you need it again, but the app can't continue doing arbitrary processing, like syncing OmniFocus data.

There are some APIs provided by the OS that allow certain types of processing to continue, like background audio or VOIP. But I don't see anything that would allow OmniFocus syncing.

-Dennis

PS - Here's a good [URL="http://www.macworld.com/article/150496/2010/04/multitasking_iphone.html"]overview from Macworld[/URL].

[QUOTE=Toadling;75658]I don't have any concrete information just yet, but from what I've read I don't think this will be possible.

When an app is in the background, it goes into a "quiescent state", meaning its state is preserved and the app is ready for action should you need it again, but the app can't continue doing arbitrary processing, like syncing OmniFocus data.

There are some APIs provided by the OS that allow certain types of processing to continue, like background audio or VOIP. But I don't see anything that would allow OmniFocus syncing.

-Dennis

PS - Here's a good [URL="http://www.macworld.com/article/150496/2010/04/multitasking_iphone.html"]overview from Macworld[/URL].[/QUOTE]

All we need is omnifocus to use the multitasking service called 'Task Completion' this will enable you Im guessing to hit the sync button and close or move to another application and the syncing will continue in the background until completed. Any word Omnigroul if this is the case? Thanks!

[QUOTE=Nikemkballer;75728]All we need is omnifocus to use the multitasking service called 'Task Completion' this will enable you Im guessing to hit the sync button and close or move to another application and the syncing will continue in the background until completed.[/QUOTE]

That would be handy and sounds like it should work. It would be an improvement over what we have today.

But that's not what Kevin was asking. I don't think OF will be able to continuously sync at regular intervals in the background. It wouldn't, for example, be able to keep its database up-to-date with tasks entered and synced on your Mac while some other app is frontmost on your iPhone. You'd have to bring OF to the front again on your iPhone to sync it.

Of course, I don't work for Omni, so who knows what they'll be able to come up with. My assertions are based purely on what I've read about iPhone OS 4.0 on the web.

-Dennis

As I understand it, "Task Completion" would be enough to let the sync [i]finish[/i], but I don't think the app gets unlimited background time to keep syncing whenever it wants. Essentially, as the name implies, "task completion" is just to finish whatever the app is doing, and I believe it has to register an amount of time with the OS that it expects to be finished within.