Frequently asked questions mobile-live-faq

What is the difference between a Live activity and a Push notification?

A Live activity provides persistent, real-time updates on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island without requiring users to unlock their device. Push notifications are temporary alerts that disappear once dismissed. A Live activity stays visible and can be updated multiple times until explicitly ended.

How many Live activity instances can be active at once?

An iOS app can run multiple Live activity instances simultaneously, including several that use the same ActivityAttributes type.

There is no hard limit imposed by developers on how many Live activity instances of a given attribute type can exist. You can start as many as your app logic requires, for instance, one per ongoing delivery or ride. However, iOS enforces a system-level limit on how many Live activity instances can be active or visible at once.

In practice:

• iOS typically supports up to about five concurrent Live activity instances per app.

• If you exceed this number, the system may stop displaying some activity instances or terminate older ones to conserve resources.

• Each Live activity instance has a unique Activity.id, which lets you update or end it individually.

Do users need to have the app open to receive Live activity updates?

No. A Live activity can be started, updated, and ended remotely even when the app is completely closed, one of the key benefits of the feature.

What iOS versions support Live activities?

• iOS 16.1+: Basic Live activities support
• iOS 17.2+: Push-to-start functionality (remotely start without opening the app)
• iOS 18+: Broadcast channel support for audience-based Live activities

How long can a Live activity remain active?

Apple limits Live activity to 8 hours of active updates. After that, the system automatically ends the activity, though it may remain visible in a static state for up to 12 additional hours before removal. You can also end a Live activity sooner by setting a dismissalDate or explicitly calling activity.end() in your app.

What are the rate limits?

Campaigns have a default rate limit of 500 transactional messages per second across all channels, including iOS Live activities. This limit applies to all channels combined, and there is no separate rate limit specifically for iOS Live activities.

Do I need to create a separate widget extension for Live activities?

Yes. Live activities are displayed through WidgetKit, so you need to create a widget extension in your Xcode project and implement the ActivityConfiguration.
Learn more about Widget configuration

Can I use the same LiveActivityAttributes class for both local and remote Live activities?

Yes. The same attributes class works for both locally-started and remotely-started (push-to-start) Live activities. You need to ensure you register it with Messaging.registerLiveActivity().

What happens if I send an update for a Live activity that does not exist?

If you send an update or end event for a non-existent liveActivityID or channelID, the request will fail silently on the device. Always ensure you are tracking which Live activity instances are active for each user.

Can I test Live activities in the iOS Simulator?

Yes, you can test locally-started as well as remotely-started Live activities in the iOS Simulator.

• Local: This includes creating, updating, and ending a Live activity directly from your app using ActivityKit APIs.

• Remote: To test Live activity functionality remotely, integrate our Messaging SDK into your app and use the provided execution APIs to send remote start, update and end to your test device or iOS Simulator. Similar to how push notifications can be tested currently with Adobe SDKs integration.

How do I handle updates when the app is in the background?

The SDK handles this automatically. Once registered, a Live activity receives updates even when the app is terminated. No additional background modes are required.

What is the difference between liveActivityID and channelID?

• liveActivityID: Used for individual (unitary) Live activity targeted at specific users. Each ID represents a unique Live activity instance.
• channelID: Used for broadcast Live activity sent to audiences. All users in the audience receive the same updates on the same channel.

Can I customize the Dynamic Island appearance separately from the Lock Screen?

Yes. The ActivityConfiguration has separate closures for Lock Screen content and Dynamic Island content (expanded, compact, and minimal states), each design independently.

Do I need to store push tokens manually?

No. When you register a Live activity type with Messaging.registerLiveActivity(), the SDK automatically collects and manages push tokens for you.

Are there limits on remote starts of Live activities?

Yes. Remote starts via ActivityKit are subject to system-enforced limits. If you attempt multiple start requests in quick succession, iOS may reject further starts due to Live activity quotas or budget constraints. After about 5 consecutive start attempts, subsequent requests begin failing until a brief cooldown period passes.

What is the budget for high-priority updates?

Apple does not specify an exact numerical cap for high-priority (priority: 10) Live activity updates. The system maintains a dynamic internal budget that limits how frequently such updates can be sent. If too many high-priority updates are issued in a short span, iOS may throttle or delay subsequent ones.

To minimize throttling:

• Balance priority levels: Combine both standard (priority: 5) and high (priority: 10) updates depending on importance.
• Use high priority sparingly: Reserve high priority for time-critical updates, such as delivery progress, order status, or live sports scores.
• Support frequent updates: Include NSSupportsLiveActivitiesFrequentUpdates in your app’s Info.plist and set it to YES if you need frequent updates.

Can I personalize Live activity content for each user in a broadcast campaign?

Broadcast campaigns send the same content to all users in the audience. For personalized content, use unitary (transactional) campaigns targeting individual users.

How do I know if my Live activity was successfully delivered?

Monitor your campaign analytics in Adobe Journey Optimizer. You can track delivery rates, failures, and engagement metrics. Also consider implementing custom analytics events in your app.

Can I schedule Live activities in advance?

The API call triggers the Live activity immediately. However, you can schedule your API calls through your backend systems or use Journey Optimizer’s orchestration capabilities to time them appropriately.

What happens if I send a "start" event for a Live activity that already exists?

When remotely starting a Live activity through Adobe’s Execution APIs:

• You can include an x-request-id header in your request. Ideally, there should be a one-to-one relationship between each liveActivityID and its corresponding x-request-id. This ensures that if multiple requests are made with the same x-request-id and liveActivityID combination, only one Live activity instance will be started on the device, and duplicate requests will be ignored.

• If the x-request-id header is omitted, each request is treated independently, which can result in multiple Live activity instances being created with the same liveActivityID. In such cases, future updates may fail or apply to only one of the active instances.

• The x-request-id value should not be reused across different liveActivityIDs in separate API requests.

Can I A/B test different Live activity experiences?

Yes. Create multiple campaigns with different content structures and use Adobe Journey Optimizer’s experimentation features to test which performs better. Ensure your app supports all content state variations.

How often should I update a Live activity?

Update only when meaningful information changes since too-frequent updates can drain battery and reduce user experience quality. For real-time scenarios, such as delivery tracking, every 30-60 seconds is typically acceptable. For slower-changing content, such as sports scores, update on significant events only.

Can I target users based on whether they have Live activities enabled?

You will need to work with your development team to track and pass this preference to Adobe Experience Platform as a user attribute, then segment based on that attribute.

What's the difference between timestamp and dismissal-date?

• timestamp: The current epoch time when the event occurs, required for all events.
• dismissal-date: A future epoch time when the Live activity should auto-dismiss, required only for “end” events.

Do I need to send all attributes fields in every update call?

Yes, based on you LiveActivityAttribute class.

• All fields from your attributes object, including liveActivityData should be included in every call, for start, updates or end.
• Only the content-state fields represent what actually changes dynamically on a running live activity.
• Include an alert object as well, it ensures that the push is treated as a user-visible notification, not as a silent background one. Required only for ‘start’ cases and otherwise optional.

What format should epoch timestamps be in?

Use Unix epoch time in seconds not milliseconds. For example: 1759937682

Can I use the same requestId for multiple API calls?

No. Each API request should have a unique requestId to ensure idempotency and proper tracking. Use UUIDs or similar unique identifiers.

What authentication is required for the Headless API?

Refer to the API Triggered Campaigns Documentation for authentication requirements, including OAuth tokens and API keys.

What happens if my API call fails?

Implement retry logic with exponential backoff. Check the API response for error codes and messages to diagnose issues. Common failures include invalid campaign IDs, malformed payloads, or authentication issues.

Can I send Live activity updates from my own backend servers?

Yes, that is the intended behavior. Your backend calls the Adobe Journey Optimizer Headless API to trigger Live activity events when your business logic requires it.

Do I need a different campaign for start, update, and end events?

No. You can use the same campaign and change the event field in the payload. However, some organizations prefer separate campaigns for better analytics tracking.

My Live activity starts but does not update. What could be the issue?

Common causes:

• Mismatched liveActivityID or channelID between start and update calls.
• content-state fields don’t match your ContentState struct.
• The Live activity has already ended.
• Network connectivity issues on the device.
• The epoch time used as timestamp is not up-to-date.

The attributes-type field is not being recognized. What should I check?

• Ensure the class name matches exactly (case-sensitive) with your Swift struct name
• Verify the struct is properly defined and registered
• Check for typos in the JSON payload
• Confirm the app version installed has the Live activity implementation

Users only see the Live activity update and not the alert notification, is this a known issue?

No. The alert field is optional and may be suppressed by iOS in certain conditions, for example Do Not Disturb mode. A Live activity can update silently, which is often the intended behavior. The alert field is mandatory for sending remote starts otherwise apple treats it like a silent background notification.

Can I delete or clear all Live activity instances for a user?

You need to send an “end” event for each active Live activity instance. Track which Live activity instances are active for each user in your systems so you can properly clean them up.

My widget shows "No data" even though I sent an update. What could be the issue?

• Verify your widget implementation properly accesses context.state and context.attributes.
• Check that default values or error states are handled in your widget interface.
• Use the LiveActivityAssuranceDebuggable protocol to debug the schema.
• Test with Adobe Assurance to see if data is being received.