Q: Find my Friends doesn't work after IOS 7 update

I just did all of these things to 2 phones. No luck unfortunately. If I kill the app, the phone disappears.  For a while, it will show the phone's last location but this is denoted by "location 18 minutes ago".

hmmm.   Upon further analysis, I will make a clarification.  It seems that a "reboot" is not a sufficient test, since apps that were "running in the background" (e.g. visible when double-tapping the Home button) seem to persist across reboots.  Again, in my case, Find My Friends still worked after a reboot, but that's because it was launched earlier.  I checked to see if it was running in the background, and it was.   If I then "kill the app" by swiping up, you're right, that Phone can no longer be located with FMF, until the App is launched again.

Sorry everybody.  It's not as bad as it seemed, but it's not optimal functionality either, like we had with Find My iPhone...

Whether Apple will consider this to be truly a bug or not, remains to be seen.   I agree that to be useful it needs to be able to track devices even when they are idle and not being used.

Whether Apple will consider this to be truly a bug or not, remains to be seen.   I agree that to be useful it needs to be able to track devices even when they are idle and not being used.

I think the key will be whether Apple calls this a bug or not, as it is definitely not intended functionality from the beginning of this app, all the way up to iOS7.  The app worked one way since inception, and now does not work that way.  From what I see, this is a bug.

Exactly. This is a major operational change. When I only see 1/10 friends showing their location, compared to 10/10 prior to iOS 7 (most of them know how to avoid this issue, by leaving FMF running)... It highlights how drastic this change is.

Some will be affected more than others. It just so happens to be, most of my friends forcefully close their apps daily.

Surely, it has to be a bug. If intentional... It's disgraceful to see it changed so drastically without any effort to notify users. Hidden in the help file isn't sufficient.

Of course it's a bug, folks. Must be related to the new security features (Find my iPhone enhance with Activation Lock), or something like a problem with the "run/update apps in the background" not behaving as expected.

Most of you probably don't have access to the Developers Forums for iOS betas, but it was an ongoing issue well before the official release of iOS 7.

Just ****** us off that it wasn't fixed before the gold master...

As a developer, I have filed a bug report to help speed up the process by increasing awareness of this issue. Bug report number is 15097490.

Description:

Summary:

On iOS devices where iOS 7 is installed, the Find my Friends app does not run in the background, i.e., if it is closed from the app switching interface, the device will no longer appear on someone else's iOS device where Find my Friends is enabled and linked to the first device.

This happens even if the device has "privacy" and "background app refresh" options enabling Find my Friends to run appropriately.

Rebooting the device does not solve the issue.

Only time it works as intended is if the owner of other iOS device linked via Find my Friends is deleted from the Find my Friends contact list, and re-invited. Stops working as soon as the app is closed from the application switching interface.

Steps to Reproduce:

1- open the Find my Friends app on device with iOS 7

2- other devices with iOS 7 installed do not appear (but if they have iOS 6, they do appear)

3- re-inviting the linked devices works temporarily

4- closing the Find my Friends app causes this issue to reappear every time

Expected Results:

The Find my Friends application should run as a background service, as it used to in iOS 6, and more so since they settings for "privacy" and "background app refresh" suggest that it does.

Actual Results:

The Find my Friends application does not keep logging the iOS 7 device's location, if the app has been closed from the multitasking interface.

Version:

iPhone 5 on the Fido (Rogers) network in Canada, running iOS 7.0.2 build 11A501. Phone model MD295C/A.

Notes:

Configuration:

Reproducible 100% of the time.

It is due to how iOS 7 handles background apps, as many posters here have suggested.  That's why it works only when it has NOT been killed manually by "swiping upward."

See this post by the developers of Life360 expressing their frustration over the problem too: https://c.getsatisfaction.com/life360/topics/ios7_users_please_read_this_update_ from_the_team_thanks

But FMF was never required to run in the multitasking interface before iOS 7. Which makes a good counter-argument as to why it shouldn't now.

As I have also written on the Dev forums concerning this specific issue:

""" begin quote

I do not believe this is the iOS design team's intent at all, since they have very explicit options in the Settings app:

- privacy-> location services on/off -> Find my Friends on/off

and

- general -> background app refresh on/off -> Find my Friends on/off

I understand what you are saying, I just think it is not the case at all. Makes little sense if you have the above-mentioned options to manage your own preferences.

""" end quote

I run both Find My Friends and Life 360 for devices other then iOS. I am finding the exact same bug in Life360 as I am in Find My Friends. Before the update to iOS 7 both apps worked as intended. After the update the same experience you find in Find My Friends is found in Life360 also. Both apps must be in the foreground and running for them to work properly.. If you switch to another app they will run as should for approx 2 minutes until it is cached and then stops working again.

Whether it be a need to fix each of these apps seperately to fix the issue or a fix in iOS 7 is not for me to tell seems I am not a developer. I just wanted to point out that it seems to me it's an iOS issue as both apps have the same issue and can both be replicated alike.

Using Life360 with Androids works flawless as it did before. Using iOS 6 versions work as before. I finding this to be specific to iOS 7 itself in my personal tests.

I know some of this info may of already been presented but the thread pages are getting up there and I didn't go through each and every post.

Exactly!!!....very frustrating!!!1

I ran a simple test.  I place my iphone next to my ipad turned on both find my friends app.  they found each other.  I then turned  off fmf and my iphone.  They ipad could not find the iphone. so far so good.  I turned back on the iphone and the ipad could not find my iphone.  I waited 15 minutes and it still could not find my iphone.  I turned on fmf on my iphone and the ipad found the iphone within 1 minute.   I sure hope this is not the way it is supposed to work now!  I wonder if that is the way the app was originally intended to work?  if so, it is time to find a new app!

Ok, all this talk about whether to leave apps open or not is really silly. I've been testing the new ios7 on a coupl of my iphone5's and if you leave gps enabled apps open in the background you can almost see the battery drain. If you close them with the swipe up the battery lasts a lot longer. In fact ios7 seems to be a much bigger power user than ios6 so saving battery life is crucial.

Also, try find my iphone. It still finds your iphone whether the find my iphone app is running on your iphone or not. This is how find my friends should work. Apple screwed up and needs to update find my friends and/or fix the problem in ioS7.

Exactly,

wmrpdx got it right: Find my iPhone/iPad still works as intended, so the FMF flaw is indeed a bug. I see no reason why one would work and not the other.

I would tend to agree from a high level find my iPhone and find my friends should be very similar. But I think there is a huge difference I believe. Find my friends needs to grab someone's Apple ID triangulate or GPS someone's location. Then send that information securely to apple same so far. Then it would need to gather all this info to the user requesting it. You are finding multiple apple id's at once as opposed to just yourself. I have also heard this app is 3rd party not entirely owned and operated by apple. They used to work the same so I agree with you there. I just think that find my friends is more complex than find my iPhone from a code perspective.

nope, its still and issue, but with only some of my friends and my self

Actually looking at the app. it still has the skumorphism and control set up. So it leads me to believe that it due for a major update, So they are going to hold off on any fixes till then I am sure. Here is hoping it will be soon