Coming Soon to Pastebot: Music in the Background
- August 3rd, 2010
- 66 Comments
When we first decided to develop Pastebot, the biggest problem was that it could not run in the background. Working in the background is fundamental to a clipboard app. How useful could a clipboard app be if you had to launch it after each copy? We decided to move forward with it because we felt it had enough potential features to still be quite useful. Turned out we made the right choice. However, we also hoped that someday Apple would allow multi-tasking in some form so Pastebot could finally work how we truly intended it to. Being able to run in the background has been the biggest feature request from our customers.
When iOS4 was announced, we were ecstatic. Multitasking was finally coming to the iPhone! But as we listened on, our dreams of an ideal Pastebot were crumbling away as we heard the limitations of this new feature. In the end, Apple had not provided a way to let Pastebot run in the background. We spent weeks replying with bad news to our customers as they emailed us about Pastebot running in the background on iOS4.
But not all was lost. About a week later (after iOS4′s release), Paul came up with an idea that would actually allow Pastebot to run in the background. Yes, you heard that right. It was a bit of a gamble, but it did not use any private API’s. All we want is to make Pastebot work in the way we always intended it to. The idea is to have a silent audio clip play in the background. This would use one of Apple’s backgrounding APIs that allows music to play in the background. Turns out it works flawlessly. You can finally copy from your Mac or on your iPhone without having to open Pastebot after each copy. When you copy from another app, the signature Tapbots copy sound plays to inform you that Pastebot received it. We added options for timing out after inactivity (to preserve battery life even though it doesn’t use much in the first place) as well the option to turn it off completely. It’s a very elegant solution and behaves flawlessly. We tested it for about a month and our beta testers seem to love the feature and have reported no issues with it.
With excitement, we submitted the final build to Apple last week. A week passed by and we finally received a notice about Pastebot. Rejected. It wasn’t what we hoped for, but to be honest it was expected. We aren’t allowed to play a silent audio clip in the background. After reading over the rejection letter a few times, frustration faded away. They have rules to follow to keep the background services from being used in ways they were not intended to. Fair enough. In the rejection letter, Apple gave us two options:
- Provide audible content to the user while running in the background
- Remove the audio from the background
We thought about it for a bit more. We want to provide this invaluable feature to our customers. Pastebot benefits greatly from it. Why don’t we just let our users select a song from their music library to play in the background? This would allow this feature to get approved and everyone would be happy. Yes, having a song playing in the background while Pastebot runs in the background isn’t ideal, but nothing is stopping the user from putting their device on mute or better yet, using a silent audio clip of their own (wink wink). So that’s what we are going to do. We are going to take option #1 so you’ll have to select a song to play if you want Pastebot to run in the background. All you need to do is add a short silent audio clip to your library and use that. After all, silence is golden and nobody can prevent you from listening to nothing if you choose. Apple even sells silent songs themselves.
In Other Pastebot News
I also wanted to mention that in this last update, we’ve added 2 more small features:
- The ability to view images full screen. This was actually requested by a few iOS app designers so they can store mockups in Pastebot and be able to view them full screen.
- The ability to send clippings as text messages. This was a long time request, but wasn’t available until iOS4.
That’s all the info we have for now. We will resubmit Pastebot soon and hope that this time it will be approved. Cross your fingers!
Awesome. What a great solution!
What about an update for an iPad version of Pastebot eh? Eh???
Can you include the option to play some super custom Pastebot audio tracks, chosen by the user, one which just happens to be silent? ;)
So, if a silent song is playing in the background, I can’t listen to other music right?
It
Whoops, apostrophes were saved incorrectly.
@David: You can listen to other music just fine. As I said in the post, everything just works great.
@pim: It is nonsense, but it’s optional and invaluable for people who want Pastebot running in the background. If you don’t like the solution, you don’t have to use it.
brilliant! Nothing like a god dose of malicious-compliance to give the people what they want and fight irrational rules.
I don’t currently have Pastebot, (only Convertbot and Calcbot) but I’m seriously considering getting it now solely based on this blog post.
Congrats fellas, keep up the innovation!
GENIUS period
Unfortunately I’m thinking that David’s right – when I have background music from a 3rd party app and I start the music from the iPod app, the background music stops. If you added iPod library integration, that might work around this by turning Pastebot into your music app (rather than repeating the same non-silent track over and over). If you happen to pause the music, though, won’t Pastebot’s primary functionality fail to work?
@Ryan: Not sure what other developers are doing, but we’ve made it work without conflicting with other music apps. Pausing music has no effect on Pastebot if we haven’t mapped those controls to our app. We’ve tested with Apple’s iPod app as well as with Pandora and have yet to run into any issues.
So, if I am reading this properly. If I am listening to streaming radio via Tune In Radio (No Pandora in Canada), and launch PasteBot and run it in background, it won’t stop my music stream?
@Mike: Correct. Though we haven’t tested “Tune In Radio” specifically.
Really glad you found a solution but my concern is that as other developers read about this and implement it in their own apps apple will start rejecting apps using the workaround.
@Kevin Clark: Well, I guess it’s good that PasteBot was first in line :P
Thanks for this feature Mark and Paul, I can’t wait.
I really hope this feature is available in some form very soon, as it would change Pastebot from a great app to an indispensable app.
Regardless, I will continue to support you guys in any way I can. You’re doing great work.
I guess theres a perfectly good answer to this but I’ll ask it anyway…
How come you didn’t piggy back on the GPS hook and run the app in the background claiming it was attaching location data to each copy action? TomTom has this sort of feature and offers navigation while not active.
Why not use another of the iOS4 background APIs, location for instance?
All righty then. Pastebot will be running these lyrics on my iPhone and iPad: “..you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.”
Oh yeah.
Interesting solution, but it must be frustrating. But hey, whatever it takes, right?
I’m excited for the release.
Didn’t I tell this the other day, Mark? That Paul is a freakin genius? He is. I dare say Tapbots_paul is even more brilliant than Paul the octopus, and that’s saying something!
Fantastic news, this is something I’ve really wanted/needed for a long time.
Just out if interest did you ever look into using Dropbox to store a clipboard history on Macs (that would automatically sync to other Macs), and that could load those clipboard items on the iOS version when it launched?
Could something like that even be possible to do?
I’d like to second this’un… “Can you include the option to play some super custom Pastebot audio tracks, chosen by the user, one which just happens to be silent? ;)”
Maybe a track that’s just BARELY audible, or plays one short sound before total silence, or whatever would satisfy Apple with the least-audible intrusion for users? Providing other options as well, of course. Perhaps some public-domain classical, if creating your own tracks is economically unfeasible?
A perfect opportunity to become familiar with John Cage’s 4’33″
Something I didn’t quite understand: In order to have Pastebot running in the background, the music actually has to be playing? Does it consume battery because of that? I know the iPhone doesn’t consume much while playing music, but it’s still something I’d like to understand.
Other then that, awesome workaround ;)
> nonsense.
The first rule of App Store is you don’t complain about App Store. Second rule also, yada yada.
Great addition! Looking forward to it.
The only other major feature request I have is being able to Copy an image from my Photos library directly in Pastebot. Don’t want to switch to Photos for that.
How about including a free custom download of silence or other unobtrusive audio with purchase. You could get it from the support site (much like zen bound’s ghost monkey) and have them add it into iTunes to sync and use that. Just a thought.
Yay for insanity!
“Radio Alarm” is one app where they have managed to run in the background, and get into the appstore. Not sure how they manage it (perhaps the additional time hook?)
Your allowed to run for a finite time in the background, I haven’t heard about anyone else using NSDate’s futureDate method, it gives a date years in the future but still finite.
So if I have iPod (or Pandora or whatever) already playing in the background, running Pastebot will stop my music? And after I’m done with Pastebot I still have to manually resume the music, right? Seems like a far-from-perfect solution, if you ask me. Congratulations anyway :)
Reading the comments I found answer to my above comment (so it seems) and quite probably a better solution to the problem by Chris Rowe (http://tapbots.com/blog/pastebot/pastebot-music-in-background/comment-page-1#comment-1862) by using GPS. I guess it would use more energy (maybe), but it’d be less disturbing than interrupting your music…
@Chris Rowe GPS API consumes much more power.
@Gaurav Khanna That API only let’s you stay running for 5 minutes
I don
Clever workaround, nice job guys. Looking forward to trying this out, hope it gets approved!
Great work!
Does this mean, everything I copy on my iPhone now gets copied into Pastebot as well ?
Call me the odd-ball here, but I’d much rather tell Pastebot when to copy the clipboard rather than do it in the background, regardless of the tricks used to do
it!
My current “solution” is to dock Pastebot so that it is accessible regardless of what Home screen is being displayed. And with iOS 4′s folders and background app tray, this process is easier.
But the backgrounding APIs can still be useful as a way to lengthen the time Pastebot can run before it has to shut down or be suspended, but while it is still up, wouldn’t Pastebot be quicker to switch to in order to pick up what is on the clipboard anyway? If that is the case, I’d still be happy to use the Pastebot
icon in the Dock to control when Pastebot picks up the clipboard.
Bottom line is, I don’t find it useful that Pastebot picks up EVERY clipping you make! How it currently works is just fine, except for the time Pastebot takes to stop and
start. The background APIs and the new iOS 4 dock controls make switching almost painless.
Cheers!
Clever! Can’t wait for it to come out!
Wow, this is a really clever idea. Does this mean that any app can run in the background if it uses this idea? In other words, does this basically get around Apple’s backgrounding restrictions altogether?
Five minutes is plenty for most copy and paste sessions. I’d like to see an option to go that route instead of the music playing method.
I agree with Platkus. Five minutes are great and the solution would be so cleaner than the (clever) one you described on this post.
In regards to switching to the location services API, my guess is it would impact battery performance. I would think activating the GPS hardware would use more juice than simply playing music.
A really brilliant solution. The idea of Pastebot was amazing when I first saw it in the AppStore, but it was far from perfect, having to open it every time I copied
something I had to open it, with fast app
Switching it became even better, and if this comes through then it’ll be the perfect clipboard app.
Clever solution.
I also like what Jono said about some kind of integration between Pastebot and Dropbox, it could be great!
I hope Apple rejects your app. It’s a clear contravention of 3.3.6.
Agree with Wes. Have you considered porting this app to Android which supports true multi-tasking?
> I hope Apple rejects your app. It
A track with a little beep or doop every 30 minutes could work, the rest silence. :P
You could add a few Public Domain tracks (such as Rhapsody in Blue and some classical music) into the App, with a nice interface, and one “silent track”, along with the ability to play tracks from your iPod. I would love that.
@Strider The problem with Android is that it doesn’t seem to support well-designed applications.
>Bottom line is, I don
I disagree – I think Pastebot becomes more useful when it’s logging all of my clipboard activity; it means that I don’t have to keep bouncing back and forth between an app and Pastebot to have a bunch of stuff, or even explicitly remember to save it in the first place (how much would you use the Mac’s copy and paste if, after you copied something, you had to open up Paste.app in order to save the clipping and make it available to paste?). There are tons of different uses for Pastebot, so I’m sure there will be different views on this, but as purely a clipboard manager, this will be a huge step in the right direction.
I think it is strange when people argue against an update for an app, especially when it is an optional addition. No one said you had to use the complete background feature, they wrote that you can turn it off. Now those of us who would see this as functional would be happy, and those who just want the simple version can still have it. No problems for anyone.
This can be very useful, especially when you want to move things from you iDevice to your mac, and vice versa. I cant wait to think about what things this can be useful for while working on intense Photoshop projects, or lengthy papers.
being able to add as many items to the clipboard as i want without relaunching the app each time in discover one would be quite simply amazing, and it should have been something implemented a long time ago. I hope the update runs smoothly.
Any news about this?
Hello, my name is Raphael Sanches, and would like to discuss with you about your application was great and very simple elegantese. Unforgettable. I loved very much your applications, first bought the App CONVERTBOT and I was digging a lot, my God this App is better than App Converter. And then I bought the App and PASTEBOT CALCBOT and WEIGHBOT. It’s amazing, and quite intelignte and fun. If it comes out with another App certezavou I highly recommend buying the company TAPTAP.
And wonder how you have developed in the Portuguese language? Because my wife does not understand much English.
I’m waiting.
Raphael Sanches grateful.
Any new updates about what is happening on this?
Apple’s new App Review Policy seems to specifically prohibit this behavior quite clearly: “Multitasking apps may only use background services for their intended purposes: VoIP, audio playback, location, task completion, local notifications, etc”
So me thinks this is sunk…
First people who think you wouldn’t want the option to grab a series of clips as you browse, read email, go through Instapaper collections — then you haven’t collected data this way on any platform. Whether you’re compiling notes, research, or simply want to gather a series of photos and text to send to someone in an email without jumping back and forth every single copy and paste. But it’s fine if you don’t understand it — just realize that everyone who uses clipboard apps on ANY platform want them to do this. It is the very point of a clipboard.
Second — it’s just absurd that we the user can’t have this option on clipboard — or any app. It’s something we have to actively choose, and just as Apple warns about leaving the Remote app connected could drain battery – WE make the choice. You can’t do it unwittingly, and you can turn it off when you’re done clipboarding.
Second, this is where Apple’s control goes from excellent and smart control over the key performance points where other platforms’ free-for-all may make for a less controlled OS that is efficient about maintaining certain stability, performance, and battery issues. HOWEVER- this is the way to allow us to have control when we need it, and a place where Apple should loosen its grip. We buy the device and license the software. Let us choose to turn an option on that we fully understand.
Finally, I’m going to guess a rejection if Apple’s past is prologue. They are currently loosening restrictions in the App review process as we speak. But I’m afraid they know this will mean many apps will choose to use this workaround and decide against.
Again, I think a clever workaround shouldn’t be required. When apps benefit the user can give us a temporary, clearly notified/warning’d option to run in the background for a specific purpose — then let it be an option! No tricks. Just a setting switch in the app. It might even have a time period where it switches back off if you forget.
Come on. I want this feature — I have been able to avoid jailbreaking iOS 4 so far thanks to Apple’s progress. Don’t end that here, please Apple. Defy my prediction and approve this.
Clever, but I agree with what somebody else mentioned: Use the GPS backgrounding method and claim that the app is geo tagging.
Any news? Are they going back and forth with you? Talking about precedents they don’t want to set? Telling you not to talk, as per the new guidelines…
Gosh, it’s not easy…
Have you tried going for the ‘location’ background option, I can see a viable reason for wanting to know where you were when you pasted something. Maybe I pasted something while I was in the office and I want to keep it separate from when I am at home.
The SDK supports background location services and I think this would be more reasonable than having a silent song playing.
Never tried it personally so let me know if it would work :)
Just realised someone had already mentioned that, sorry for the double post!
So background clipboarding is added to the latest update! Awesome!
You fine folks at Tapbots certainly aren’t touting it much, not yet anyway. I have some guesses why that might be. But for now, it’s hardly even specified in the updated features list that accompanies the App Store update notice. The brief
The slight remaining mystery, for me, anyway, is how that solution finally came about.
It looks like Apple was motivated, assuming they were closely reviewing this update, to make it happen some way or another. Of course I can’t say if Apple involved at all in the final implementation — or is this method is deemed sketchy in Apple’s eyes. So they didn’t want to reject it but either Apple and/or Tapbots didn’t want to attract too much attention for the time being.