Make app appear as iOS 8 Suggested App at lockscreen
As iOS 8 is out, there is a feature that show "Suggested App" on lockscreen based on your location.
The question is if I have an app, how can I define the locations that make my app appear as the "Suggested App" when user is around these locations?
I asked the same question on the Apple developer forums, the user Marlene Zenker quoted the answer to the question posed to the Apple Tech Support.
Here is the answer from Apple Tech Support - read it and weep!
Location relevant Apps are recommended on the lock screen and in the App Store based on a number of factors, including their popularity at the location, and there is no mechanism or process by which an App developer can add their App to the list of recommended Apps. However, if your iOS App is directly related to the location or venue (such as a mall guide iOS App which is published by the mall owner or operator), and you believe your iOS App’s relevance warrants it being included the list of recommended Apps, then you are encouraged to submit an enhancement request via http://bugreport.apple.com/, and request that Apple consider whether your iOS App should be included in the list of recommended Apps for that location. You should provide as much detail in the ’enhancement request' about the App and venue/location as possible, such as the App ID, App Name, URL to the App on the App Store, venue name, venue location (address & lat/lon), the relevance (if any) of your iOS App to the venue/location, and relationship (if any) between you as the developer and the owner/operator of the venue/location. Submission of an enhancement request does not guarantee that a particular iOS App will be added to the list of recommended Apps for a venue or location, and the sole feedback from Apple on the request will come through the http://bugreport.apple.com/ bug report system.
The "suggested app" feature works also with iBeacons. When you make your application listen to a CLBeaconRegion
with a certain iBeacon UUID, that application will be visible in the lock screen when you're close enough to that type of an iBeacon.
I developed a sample app to monitoring Beacon Region, in these case "Lockscreen suggested app" works. It appear when my phone is in the field of beacon region monitored. Then I developed a sample app to monitoring Geographical Region in the same way, but in this case "Lockscreen suggested app" doesn't work! Moreover in case of beacon region monitoring, if app isn't installed, "Lockscreen suggested app" doesn't work. Of course, how could it work? I think this feature could be linked to "Routing App" with use of geographic coverage file instead. Maybe at metadata submission time on iTunesConnect, uploading GeoJSON file. Have some people some feedback? I think I try this way next submission of my app.