Learn how to use iOS Live Activities with OneSignal to deliver real-time updates directly to the lock screen and Dynamic Island. Enable seamless tracking for events like sports scores, deliveries, and more.
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.
Live Activities are an iOS feature, but you can achieve similar capabilities with Android Live Notifications.
Live Activities Examples
Live Activities are:
OneSignal simplifies Live Activities by handling:
Live Activities are available on all plans except Free plans with more than 10,000 opted-in subscribers. See pricing or contact support@onesignal.com
for assistance.
Start a Live Activity
Live Activities can be started in 2 ways:
See our Live Activities Developer Setup for more information on how to start a Live Activity.
Update a Live Activity
Use the Update Live Activity API and pass the activity_id
to update all associated devices.
End a Live Activity
Live Activities can end in the following ways:
activityId
.activityId
.Use the "event": "end"
field to stop further updates and include a "dismissal_date"
to remove the Live Activity from the screen:
The SDK method does not dismiss the Live Activity visually. Developers must use the API with dismissal_date
or native iOS methods (e.g., activity.end(dismissalPolicy: .immediate)
).
Refer to Apple’s Live Activities Human Interface Guidelines for more information on best practices for Live Activities.
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).
Details on how to target users can be found in our Sending messages with the OneSignal API docs.
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.
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.
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:
priority: 5
(standard) and priority: 10
(high) for balance.priority: 10
for time-sensitive or critical updates only (e.g., order status changes, game scores).If your use case requires frequent updates:
NSSupportsLiveActivitiesFrequentUpdates
to your app’s Info.plist
file, set as a Boolean YES
.For more details, refer to Apple’s Developer Docs.
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.
Apple keeps an updated compatibility guide with all devices that work with iOS 16+ and iPadOS 17+.
You should now be equipped with everything you need to know about Live Activities.
Start setting up your Live Activities by following our Live Activities Developer Docs.
Learn how to use iOS Live Activities with OneSignal to deliver real-time updates directly to the lock screen and Dynamic Island. Enable seamless tracking for events like sports scores, deliveries, and more.
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.
Live Activities are an iOS feature, but you can achieve similar capabilities with Android Live Notifications.
Live Activities Examples
Live Activities are:
OneSignal simplifies Live Activities by handling:
Live Activities are available on all plans except Free plans with more than 10,000 opted-in subscribers. See pricing or contact support@onesignal.com
for assistance.
Start a Live Activity
Live Activities can be started in 2 ways:
See our Live Activities Developer Setup for more information on how to start a Live Activity.
Update a Live Activity
Use the Update Live Activity API and pass the activity_id
to update all associated devices.
End a Live Activity
Live Activities can end in the following ways:
activityId
.activityId
.Use the "event": "end"
field to stop further updates and include a "dismissal_date"
to remove the Live Activity from the screen:
The SDK method does not dismiss the Live Activity visually. Developers must use the API with dismissal_date
or native iOS methods (e.g., activity.end(dismissalPolicy: .immediate)
).
Refer to Apple’s Live Activities Human Interface Guidelines for more information on best practices for Live Activities.
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).
Details on how to target users can be found in our Sending messages with the OneSignal API docs.
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.
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.
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:
priority: 5
(standard) and priority: 10
(high) for balance.priority: 10
for time-sensitive or critical updates only (e.g., order status changes, game scores).If your use case requires frequent updates:
NSSupportsLiveActivitiesFrequentUpdates
to your app’s Info.plist
file, set as a Boolean YES
.For more details, refer to Apple’s Developer Docs.
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.
Apple keeps an updated compatibility guide with all devices that work with iOS 16+ and iPadOS 17+.
You should now be equipped with everything you need to know about Live Activities.
Start setting up your Live Activities by following our Live Activities Developer Docs.