Live Activities allow your iOS and iPadOS apps to deliver real-time updates to the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, keeping users informed without needing to open the app. Introduced in iOS 16.1 (Oct 2022) and expanded to iPadOS 17 (Jun 2023), Live Activities are perfect for time-sensitive information like delivery tracking, game scores, or transit updates.

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Why use Live Activities?

Live Activities are:

• Visible for up to 8 hours (plus an optional 4-hour extension on the Lock Screen)
• Great for real-time, transactional, or time-bound updates
• Provisional—no permission is required to show the first Live Activity
• Highly engaging and visible on premium device surfaces like the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island

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Why use OneSignal?

OneSignal simplifies Live Activities by handling:

• Temporary push token management
• Scaling to millions of devices with a single API call
• Real-time analytics and performance insights
• Cross-channel orchestration with Push, Email, SMS, and In-App Messages

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Getting started with Live Activities

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Requirements

• iOS 16.1+ or iPadOS 17+
• OneSignal Mobile SDK integrated
• Setup completed per our Live Activities Developer Guide

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How Live Activities work

• Visible Duration: Active for up to 8 hours, with a possible 4-hour Lock Screen extension unless dismissed earlier.
• No Permission Needed: First activity is provisional; future ones depend on user settings.
• Limit: Max 5 Live Activities per app simultaneously.
• Remote Start: Supported from iOS 17.2+ via push.
• Non-promo Use: Must provide user value—not designed for ads.

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Creating & Updating a Live Activity

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Best practices & guidelines

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Functionality

• Use Live Activities for transactional or contextual updates (e.g., ETA, score, timer).
  • Instead of users constantly going into your app to check for statuses or changes, they can get updates at a glance of their phone.
  • Events or tasks with a defined beginning and an end. Do not use a Live Activity to display ads or serve purely promotional purposes. What value are you providing?
• Avoid excessive updates to preserve device battery.
• Ensure a Live Activity is for an event or task that is no longer than 8 hours, and that it is only showing for as long as it is useful to the user.

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Ui/UX

• Support all Live Activity presentations: Compact, Minimal, Expanded, Lock Screen.
• Use branding, spacing, and dark/light themes correctly.
• Prioritize clarity and tap targets. Don’t try to draw attention to the Dynamic Island.
• Avoid displaying sensitive information in a Live Activity.

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Targeting & sending at scale

Ensure that a Live Activity appears when expected, usually when a user takes an action (e.g. to follow an event) or opens the app to check for updates (e.g. updated delivery time).

• Target segments of users for events like sports games, concerts, or other live events.
• Target individual users for personal or transactional events.

When updating Live Activities, you have the option to set a “priority” which Apple uses to determine how urgent the update is. Apple has internal thresholds in which they will throttle requests that use the high priority flag too frequently. Due to this internal threshold, Apple recommends choosing a mix of normal and high priority to prevent throttling. Details on how to set priority can be found in our Update Live Activity API reference.

If your use case relies on more frequent high priority updates, you can add the key NSSupportsLiveActivitiesFrequentUpdates to your Info.plist as a Boolean type set to YES as directed in Apple’s Developer Docs. Users will be presented with a dialog when the Live Activity exceeds its push budget, and if they allow the Live Activity to continue, the budget will automatically be increased for a seamless user experience.

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FAQ

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Do I have access to Live Activities in my plan?

Live Activities are available on all plans except for Free plans with more than 10,000 opted-in subscribers. If you have more than 10,000 opted-in subscribers on a Free Plan, you can upgrade to use Live Activities. See pricing or contact support@onesignal.com for assistance.

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What is the budget for high-priority updates?

Apple does not provide a fixed limit for high-priority (priority: 10) updates, but they do enforce a dynamic system-level budget. Sending too many high-priority updates in a short period may result in throttling, where updates are delayed or dropped.

To reduce the risk of throttling:

• Use a mix of priority levels: Apple recommends using both priority: 5 (standard) and priority: 10 (high) for balance.
• Reserve priority: 10 for time-sensitive or critical updates only (e.g., order status changes, game scores).

If your use case requires frequent updates:

• Add the key NSSupportsLiveActivitiesFrequentUpdates to your app’s Info.plist file, set as a Boolean YES.
• When this budget is exceeded, iOS may prompt the user to allow additional updates. If the user agrees, Apple will automatically expand the allowed update limit to maintain a seamless experience.

For more details, refer to Apple’s Developer Docs.

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Where can I see Live Activities in the OneSignal Dashboard?

Live Activities can only be sent via our Live Activities APIs. However, you can view historically sent Live Activities (up to 30 days) in the dashboard in Sent Messages, after filtering for Live Activities. Here you will be able to see which Live Activities were sent, what updated information was sent, and the audience size that received the update.

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What devices work with Live Activities?

Apple keeps an updated compatibility guide with all devices that work with iOS 16+ and iPadOS 17+.