Air 3.3 and background ios apps

Question

Hi All
I cannot find some coherent information on this so I am asking here.
I need to write an iOS app that needs to perform a webservice call every x minutes to update the slqite db on the device, even if the application is not running in the foreground.
From google what I could find out was that iOS will only allow your app to run a small time after closing(to finish an upload etc).
e.g. "AIR does not provide support for this iOS background processing model":  http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/articles/considerations-air-apps-mobile.html#articleconten tAdobe_numberedheader_5
but then later " applications may now support location updates and networking in the background": http://forums.adobe.com/message/4380335http://forums.adobe.com/message/4380335
Can I do what I need in Air 3.3+ an iOS 5.1+ ?
Thank You

Answer 1

Some of the statements in this thread are no longer true, or need to be updated.
Here is a recap:
As of AIR 3.9, background execution will work on iOS+Android with render mode set to 'direct' ( which implies that you are using Stage3D ).
For background execution to work in iOS, you need:
to set NativeApplication.nativeApplication.executeInBackground = true, in your as3 code somewhere ( note: strangely, background exec on iOS has worked for me in the past even by not doing that ).
to add in the iPhone section of your app manifest ( *-app.xml ):
UIApplicationExitsOnSuspend = false
UIBackgroundModes = audio ( and/or location, or some other background mode ).
a good excuse / reason :  since battery-gate on the iPhone4, Apple has  tightened its policies regarding background execution.  For example:  last time I tried, setting UIBackgroundModes=audio was only allowed if the app was intended to play a sound persistently in the background ( not occasionally, such as an alarm clock sound ).
For local notifications, I recommend Distriqt's local notification ANE ( Android+iOS), since it's the ony one I know which uses the AlarmManager api on Android ( Koesler's Android Local notif doesn't last time I checked ).  This means that on Android, the local notification can be scheduled for a later time ( same as iOS ), and will fire EVEN if the app is either minimized or has been closed properly ( meaning closed by the OS, or by the user via NativeApplication.nativeApplication.exit() -- note: force-stopping is the exception and cancels scheduled notifications on Android ).  You can also have the local notification play a custom sound which is up to 30 secs long ( mp3s on Android / cafs on iOS).  Sound will be audible on both platforms, even if the device is suspended.  This is ideal for an alarm-clock, for example.  The downside of local notifs is that they don't execute code, per se, however they can pass a data payload ( text ) back to the app, if it is running ( even if minimized ), which a handler can receive to do stuff.