Live Activities: Real-Time Updates on Your Lock Screen

iOS Live Activities let apps display real-time information on the lock screen and Dynamic Island. With PushTower, you can control them with a simple API — no Swift code required.

What Are Live Activities?

Live Activities are persistent, updating widgets that sit on your lock screen. Think of them as notifications that stay visible and change over time. They’re perfect for tracking things like:

Build progress in your CI/CD pipeline
3D print completion percentage
Server deployment rollouts
Home automation sensor readings

Getting Started

If you already have PushTower set up, you’re ready to go. Live Activities work through the same channel system as regular notifications.

Start a Live Activity

curl -X POST https://api.pushtower.com/v1/live-activity \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "channel": "ci-builds",
    "event": "start",
    "content_state": {
      "status": "Building",
      "progress": 0.0,
      "message": "Starting build #1337..."
    }
  }'

Update It

As your process progresses, send updates:

curl -X POST https://api.pushtower.com/v1/live-activity \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "channel": "ci-builds",
    "event": "update",
    "content_state": {
      "status": "Testing",
      "progress": 0.8,
      "message": "142/178 tests passed..."
    }
  }'

End It

curl -X POST https://api.pushtower.com/v1/live-activity \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "channel": "ci-builds",
    "event": "end",
    "content_state": {
      "status": "Passed",
      "progress": 1.0,
      "message": "All 178 tests passed!"
    }
  }'

Tips

Keep updates meaningful — Don’t send more than one update per second
Always end activities — Stale Live Activities degrade the user experience
Use the Dynamic Island — Compact and minimal layouts show in the Dynamic Island automatically

Check out the full Live Activities documentation for the complete API reference.