Can you share a timer on an iPhone?
So I'm working on a project that needs to be able to count down the number of hours until the next meeting, and then countdown the hours until the next conference call.
It's a very simple project, but it's a little different than anything I've ever built before. I would like to know how to accomplish this. I am currently using Xcode, but if there is an app or other solution that would work better, that would be awesome.
I'm not too concerned about the accuracy of the time in seconds. I'm only concerned with the accuracy of the time in minutes and hours.
You can find out how many minutes there are between two dates by using the NSDate's componentsUsingUnits:withDate: to obtain a NSCalendarUnit. If you subtract the two units, you'll get a nice round number.
For the conference call countdown, you might have to use the calendar and do it manually, but the timer would be pretty easy to implement. If I did want to do the conference call countdown, could I just go from the current time to the conference time, then do a bunch of subtractions until I get a nice round number? Yes, this is the way it works. The NSCalendar units are added to the NSDate components.
Can you do multiple timers on an iPhone?
There is a small list of things that don't work.
I was wondering if you can make timers for multiple applications on the same iPhone. It seems like there is a lot of confusion over how to do this and there are no answers here or at Apple's support forums.
I have a few clients who want to use my app, but not at the same time (not exactly, they want to switch between them). I was going to create a toggle button and let the user toggle between them with that.
Or do I have to create multiple timers and keep track of each of them (which seems really complicated). I think the latter option may be the best, but I don't have a specific answer for you. I know there are a couple of apps out there that offer this functionality.
SteveVFeb 2 '12 at 18:58. For anyone using a version of iOS before 5.0, this will require writing some code.
The recommended approach is to implement each timer within its own process, and when the user selects a different app, it will terminate the previous timer and launch the new one. (It's a bit complicated, but not too hard to implement.)
Edit: The example in the comments below shows how it can be done. I don't see anything about making the same app with different timers on the same iPhone. It looks like you would have to have multiple apps, each with a timer. Or am I missing something?
MichaelMar 5 '12 at 12:47. What I meant is more along the lines of having multiple apps that can be activated at the same time. The app I'm currently developing has a function that will play a series of background videos (like the "Grow" feature in Plants vs. Zombies). I want users to be able to choose a different video in the same session (multiple timers), while the others will be terminated.
MichaelMar 5 '12 at 15:25. On my phone you can't have multiple timers that are running at the same time. You have to create a new one for each app, and then delete them when the user selects the other app.
Ciaran RyanMar 9 '12 at 14:53. You cannot run timers of one process on the same instance of another process.