Can the Windows Phone platform do something like the radar function in FourSquare on iOS?

Question

For those who don't know about the radar function: It notifies you (using a push notification) that you are close to a certain location which you might want to check into.

So I want to know if Windows Phone lets you monitor your current location in the background on a regular basis.

Answer 1

Windows phone allows background processes to run in the background, and be aware of positional information. Prior to Windows Phone 8, these are limited to a cached location that the operating system updates every 15 minutes or so. These same background processes could react to this locational information and react in a similar way.

With Windows Phone 8, app developers can gain accurate, and up to the second positional information whilst running in the background, so this could also do the same, with a higher level of accuracy (as well as allowing more flexibility for things like tracking a mountain bike route, etc.)

Answer 2

On the Windows Phone Dev Center, you can find a how-to on how you would go about implementing this in your app, in case you are a WP dev.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj662935(v=vs.105).aspx

It describes two steps:

1. Modify the app manifest file to enable background execution.
2. Implement a handler for the RunningInBackground event. This event is raised when the user navigates away from your background execution-enabled app while you are actively tracking location. When this event is raised, your app should stop all tasks that are not related to location tracking, including updates to the app’s UI. For a list of Windows Phone APIs that can be used during background execution, see Features that can be used while running in the background for Windows Phone 8.

I expect the 8.1 update for Windows Phone to incorporate more changes in the area of geofencing.