/dev/world 2025

Live Activities on iOS

This presentation explores Live Activities on iOS, diving into what they're good for and when to use them, followed by an overview of everything you need to build your first one. You'll learn about the different UI states and design considerations across the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. We'll walk through practical code examples covering the full lifecycle - starting, updating, and ending Live Activities both locally and via remote push notifications. Along the way, we'll cover implementation tips, and note limitations to watch out for. We'll also explore broadcast push notifications, showing how channels enable you to efficiently update Live Activities simultaneously for all devices with a single server request - perfect for live sport and events. By the end of this talk you'll have an appreciation for Live Activities and be ready to explore uses for them in your own apps.

About the presenter

Zach is an iOS developer and organiser of the Sydney CocoaHeads meetup. He has experience working on all kinds of apps for companies large and small, and has multiple indie apps of his own that happen to be perfect for trying out the latest in iOS development including, you guessed it, Live Activities.