Would Arc Recorder continue to record without Arc subscription

Arc App Support
1

There is maybe an obvious answer to this, but I’m curious how the Arc Recorder system works.

If I continue to leave it running, but canceled my arc subscription for a month or two, would everything I did in that month show up when redownloading/repurchasing Arc Timeline or Arc Editor (given that it’s integrated at that point).

From a technical side, what this question is asking is: where is the arc recorder data stored, and how much will it store? Does it store the data in the iCloud file for Arc? If Arc was hypothetically “shut down by iOS” for a month would it still process the information?

There may be better ways to word this, but unfamiliar with app to app connections like this.

2

I had to go check the code to confirm the answer to this one! It’s a while since I’ve thought these business bits through.

It looks like in Arc Recorder it doesn’t care about an active subscription. If recording is on, it’ll record.

Arc Timeline on the other hand enforces the active subscription requirement. If it sees the subscription is expired it’ll stop recording once it becomes aware.

For Arc Editor, at this point in the public beta it doesn’t know and doesn’t care. But at it gets closer to proper release that will change.

So for actually keeping recording going while a subscription isn’t active, Arc Recorder would do that. Though Arc Timeline if brought into the foreground would probably notice and stop the recording. Ah, actually, checking Arc Timeline’s code more closely, it looks like it’d only do that check on launch, not on foregrounding. But I guess there’s a good chance that Arc Timeline could get terminated in the background then automatically restarted, which would … oh, ok, it looks like it wouldn’t stop recording, it just wouldn’t start it. So if Arc Recorder were already doing the job, then Arc Timeline restarting wouldn’t interfere.

Okay, quite a convoluted answer, but my current reading of the code is that it should be able to continue recording during that time. You just wouldn’t have access to the data. Which leads to the next question and answer.

The data is stored in an “app group” container shared by the two apps. But that container isn’t accessible from the outside. Only those apps can access it, and currently there’s no manual way to extract the SQLite database from there. Though perhaps apps like iMazing could access it - that’s something I’ve never looked into, but sounds plausible.

I think the tldr then is something like this: Theoretically the two apps, left alone to do their thing, would continue to record over the inactive subscription period. But you’d have no easy access to the data (but possibly awkward manual access with something like iMazing), and you’d have no way to keep the timeline data clean. So when you came back to the subscription you’d have potentially quite a timeline cleanup job to do.

3

Thanks for the great answer Matt! I enjoyed the real-time analysis of the code. I’ll have to test out the theory and see how well it works and how much timeline cleanup it leaves me.

I assume it would be the same as my importing of Polarsteps and Strava (thats a long story), a lot of raw data that it churns through over an hour or two.

4

For the processing workload, Arc Editor is actually the much better option there. If you’re going to leave anything running mostly unattended and without housekeeping and cleanup, Arc Editor is the winning choice. Its processing engine is much more efficient and reliable than the one in old LocoKit / Arc Timeline. It’s smarter, faster, and makes better decisions. So I’d trust it to be left alone unattended for much longer.

Though the problem then is that iOS tends to terminate most apps about once a day on average, unless they’re extremely low memory/resource profile. Arc Editor does actually come in under that line most of the time, but there’s still risk of iOS killing it off every few days. Which means you have to remember to restart it - check that it’s still alive.

Arc Recorder has the benefit of being as slim and minimal as possible, so it’s even less liable to be terminated. If the phone isn’t restarted Arc Recorder might be left alone to do its thing for weeks at a time. But the catch there is that it’s not yet recording to the new database that Arc Editor uses. I need to ship a new Arc Recorder that’s built to be backup buddy to Arc Editor instead of Arc Timeline.

Anyway long story short: If you’re wanting to not spend money just yet, stick with Arc Editor. It’s the better app, even if not yet having feature parity with Arc Timeline, and for now it’s entirely free.

5

Thanks for the in-depth answer! I’ll truly be your most invested Arc Editor user if I have nothing else. Although for now it’s not importing history me, but I believe you’re already on top of that.

A natural follow up is: will the arc editor be in the same lifetime subscription as timeline? Or should I wait to buy a lifetime until “editor hits the shelves” ?

6

Oh! Have you got the new build from yesterday? That should’ve fixed all known import issues.

If it’s still not working, check the debug log to see if there’s any errors reported in there. I’ll want to get those fixed!

I treat the Arc subscriptions and Lifetime purchase as covering the entire “Arc Family”, so Arc Editor is definitely included!

Also eventually Arc Editor will get renamed to Arc Timeline and the old Arc Timeline will get sent to the apps graveyard. So it’ll end up being back as just Arc Timeline and Arc Recorder, but with a fresh and new Arc Timeline instead of the creaking old current Arc Timeline.

Oh, on a random note: Arc Timeline will be 10 years old very soon! The first ever code commit was on 2015-10-28.

7

Yep, it fixed some of the issues but still didnt import! I submitted an official feedback through TestFlight if that helps.

Ooh good to know, I’ll definitely make the purchase at some point then.

Congratulations! It’s been a long term project but I’m glad to see it’s working out for you and you’ve managed to sustain interest in it.

1 Like
8

Oh, best to report in a new thread here! TestFlight is terrible for feedback - it doesn’t send emails to inform me of anything. So feedback sent through there can go unseen for months :grimacing: TestFlight really is only good for distribution. I don’t know why Apple haven’t done more work on fleshing out the rest of it :man_shrugging:t2:

9

Terrible! Good thing I screenshotted. I’ll make a thread in a moment.

1 Like