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Comment by coldcode | Hacker News Reader

Also remember that apps do not run continuously in background, which would make the data only useful if the user was actively running your app.

I don't believe the data is precise enough to do much that could be nefarious.

Also trying to matching two phones (without location info) that have the same highly imprecise vibration is not worth the effort on the server side.

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Just an FYI, Apple does give its developer the ability to have the app wake up from background on-demand or at scheduled intervals to perform specific tasks. This is something that can be done as long as the phone is ON and connected to the public gateway either via cell towers or WiFi.

An example would be the Facebook app icon with notification count or the Mail app with unread emails count. This counter is updated based on background processing of Fb or email notifications.

I don't know exactly how it works, but I know notifications are their own separate concept that gets handled by the system and doesn't require the app to be running arbitrary code in the background

There is also the "allow background activity" permission though, which I'm not sure the bounds of, but you can disable it

Notifications and background activities are orthogonal for the use case you mentioned.

Background activity on iOS is severely restricted and mostly relegated to finishing a long or regular upload or download.

Unless you are a phone communication app — and a reason why you may see voice added to apps.

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