Live is not live: Apple restricts live activities in iOS 18

Up to now, the live activities displayed on the lock screen and Dynamic Island on the iPhone have been updated every second. With iOS 18, which is expected to be released in September, the intervals of the function once presented as a real-time display are to be longer. This could have a negative impact on some apps, as a developer has now made public.

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The developer named Nico posted on X that he was able to update his app's Live Activity every second in iOS 17. Since Beta 7 of iOS 18, the time has increased to 5 to 15 seconds. The developer initially thought it was a bug because Apple also noted the Live Activities in the beta's release notes with regard to battery consumption. Live Activities were introduced by Apple with iOS 16.1.

“A gap in the API”

However, an inquiry to developer support provided further information about the change. They said that the updates every second would also increase the wear and tear on the NAND memory, as the updates would have to be written there each time. With iOS 18 and watchOS 11, live activities are also displayed on the Apple Watch, which means an additional synchronization step is necessary.

According to the screenshot of the response posted by Nico, Apple makes it seem as if Live Activities were never intended to enable real-time experiences. The fact that this was possible was a “loophole in the API” that is now being closed.

Which apps suffer and which do not

But it's not quite that simple: Apple has so far explained on its developer pages that the function is possible in a “fitness app” that displays real-time data. This is exactly what developer Nico implemented with his app, which transmitted the speed of a bicycle's speedometer in real time on the iPhone and in the live activity display. “But it's no use to me to know the speed from 10 seconds ago,” he writes.

In other use cases that look like real-time displays, however, the change will not have an impact – namely when the display can be calculated in advance. This applies, for example, to timer countdowns. Here, the timer runs within the live activity. If changes are required during the process, the longer intervals are just as sufficient to take these into account. The change will also be partially noticeable in the popular displays for sports results that some apps offer in live activities, but it is not a fundamental obstacle as in the case of the fitness app.

(MKi)