Airship iOS SDK

The Airship SDK for iOS provides a simple way to integrate Airship services into your iOS applications.

Resources

• Airship Docs

• AirshipLocation Docs

• AirshipNotificationServiceExtensions Docs

• AirshipNotificationContentExtensions Docs

• Getting started guide

• Migration Guides

• Sample Quickstart Guide

• Swift Sample Quickstart Guide

Installation

Xcode 11.0+ is required for all projects and the static library. Projects must target >= iOS 11.

CocoaPods

Make sure you have the CocoaPods dependency manager installed. You can do so by executing the following command:

$ gem install cocoapods

The primary Airship pod includes the standard feature set and is advisable to use for most use cases. The standard feature set includes Push, Actions, In-App Automation, and Message Center

Example podfile:

use_frameworks!

# Airship SDK
target "<Your Target Name>" do
  pod 'Airship'

  # Optional: uncomment to install the location subspec
  # pod 'Airship/Location'
end

The Airship pod also contains several subspecs that can be installed independently and in combination with one another when only a particular selection of functionality is desired:

• Airship/Core : Push messaging features including channels, tags, named user and default actions
• Airship/MessageCenter : Message center
• Airship/Automation : Automation and in-app messaging
• Airship/Location : Location including geofencing and beacons
• Airship/ExtendedActions : Extended actions

Example podfile:

use_frameworks!

target "<Your Target Name>" do
  pod 'Airship/Core'
  pod 'Airship/MessageCenter'
  pod 'Airship/Automation'

  # Optional: uncomment to install the location subspec
  # pod 'Airship/Location'
end
{{< /highlight >}}
Specify Airship, and optionally, Airship/Location pods in your `podfile`
with the use_frameworks! option:

Install using the following command:

$ pod install

In order to take advantage of notification attachments, you will need to create a notification service extension alongside your main application. Most of the work is already done for you, but since this involves creating a new target there are a few additional steps. First create a new "Notification Service Extension" target. Then add AirshipExtensions/NotificationService to the new target:

use_frameworks!

# Airship SDK
target "<Your Service Extension Target Name>" do
  pod 'AirshipExtensions/NotificationService'
end

Install using the following command:

$ pod install

Then delete all the dummy source code for the new extension and have it inherit from UANotificationServiceExtension:

import AirshipExtensions

class NotificationService: UANotificationServiceExtension {

}

Carthage

Make sure you have Carthage installed. Carthage can be installed using Homebrew with the following commands:

$ brew update
$ brew install carthage

Specify the Airship iOS SDK in your cartfile:

github "urbanairship/ios-library"

Execute the following command in the same directory as the cartfile:

$ carthage update

In order to take advantage of notification attachments, you will need to create a notification service extension alongside your main application. Most of the work is already done for you, but since this involves creating a new target there are a few additional steps:

• Create a new iOS target in Xcode and select the "Notification Service Extension" type
• Drag the new AirshipNotificationServiceExtension.framework into your app project
• Link against AirshipNotificationServiceExtension.framework in your extension's Build Phases
• Add a Copy Files phase for AirshipExtensions.framework and select "Frameworks" as the destination
• Delete all dummy source code for your new extension
• Inherit from UANotificationServiceEntension in NotificationService

Other Installation Methods

For other installation methods, see the - Getting started guide.

Quickstart

An Important Note about Location

In Spring 2019, Apple began rejecting applications that use, or appear to use, Core Location services without supplying usage descriptions in their Info.plist files. In Airship SDK 11, all references to CoreLocation have been removed from the core library and placed in a separate location framework. Developers with no need for location services can continue to use Airship as before, but for those who have been using the UALocation class, see the Location sections for updated setup instructions.

Warning

As of SDK 10.2 and Apple's current App Store review policies, apps building against Airship without location usage descriptions in Info.plist are likely to be rejected. The easiest way to avoid this, if location services are not needed, is to use Airship SDK 11 or greater. If building against previous Airship SDKs, you will need to add add usage description strings to your Info.plist file under the NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription, NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription, and NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription keys.

Capabilities

Enable Push Notifications and Remote Notifications Background mode under the capabilities section for the main application target.

Adding an Airship Config File

The library uses a .plist configuration file named AirshipConfig.plist to manage your production and development application profiles. Example copies of this file are available in all of the sample projects. Place this file in your project and set the following values to the ones in your application at http://go.urbanairship.com. To view all the possible keys and values, see the UAConfig class reference

You can also edit the file as plain-text:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
    <plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
      <key>detectProvisioningMode</key>
      <true/>
      <key>developmentAppKey</key>
      <string>Your Development App Key</string>
      <key>developmentAppSecret</key>
      <string>Your Development App Secret</string>
      <key>productionAppKey</key>
      <string>Your Production App Key</string>
      <key>productionAppSecret</key>
      <string>Your Production App Secret</string>
    </dict>
    </plist>

The library will auto-detect the production mode when setting detectProvisioningMode to true.

Advanced users may add scripting or preprocessing logic to this .plist file to automate the switch from development to production keys based on the build type.

Call Takeoff

To enable push notifications, you will need to make several additions to your application delegate.

    - (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application
            didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {

        // Your other application code.....

        // Set log level for debugging config loading (optional)
        // It will be set to the value in the loaded config upon takeOff
        [UAirship setLogLevel:UALogLevelTrace];

        // Populate AirshipConfig.plist with your app's info from https://go.urbanairship.com
        // or set runtime properties here.
        UAConfig *config = [UAConfig defaultConfig];

        // You can then programmatically override the plist values:
        // config.developmentAppKey = @"YourKey";
        // etc.

        // Call takeOff (which creates the UAirship singleton)
        [UAirship takeOff:config];

        // Print out the application configuration for debugging (optional)
        UA_LDEBUG(@"Config:\n%@", [config description]);

        // Set the icon badge to zero on startup (optional)
        [[UAirship push] resetBadge];

        // User notifications will not be enabled until userPushNotificationsEnabled is
        // set YES on UAPush. Once enabled, the setting will be persisted and the user
        // will be prompted to allow notifications. You should wait for a more appropriate
        // time to enable push to increase the likelihood that the user will accept
        // notifications.
        // [UAirship push].userPushNotificationsEnabled = YES;

        return YES;
    }

To enable push later on in your application:

    // Somewhere in the app, this will enable push (setting it to NO will disable push,
    // which will trigger the proper registration or de-registration code in the library).
    [UAirship push].userPushNotificationsEnabled = YES;

SDK Development

Make sure you have the CocoaPods dependency manager installed. You can do so by executing the following command:

$ gem install cocoapods

Install the pods:

$ pod install

Open Airship.xcworkspace

$ open Airship.xcworkspace

Update the Samples AirshipConfig by copyingAirshipConfig.plist.sample to AirshipConfig.plist and update the app's credentials. You should now be able to build, run tests, and run the samples.

The distribution can be generated by running the build.sh script:

./scripts/build.sh

Continuous integration will run scripts/run_ci_tasks.sh for every PR submitted.