Live Activities
Live Activities are an iOS feature that lets apps display real-time, glanceable information directly on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, without requiring the user to unlock their phone or open the app.
Two surfaces
Lock Screen, A persistent, expandable card at the bottom of the Lock Screen. Shows all your fields: message, metric, progress bar, and status. Tapping it opens Island Pulse with a details view for that job.
Dynamic Island, The pill-shaped cutout at the top of iPhone 14 Pro and later. In compact mode it shows a small summary. Long-pressing expands it into a larger card. When the phone is unlocked the Dynamic Island collapses to a compact indicator in the top bar.
Requirements
| Requirement | Details |
|---|---|
| Device | Physical iPhone, the Simulator does not support Island Pulse. |
| iOS version | iOS 17.2 or later. |
| Dynamic Island | iPhone 14 Pro / Pro Max or any iPhone 15 and later. Other devices show the Lock Screen view only. |
| Notifications | Must be allowed for Island Pulse. The app prompts on first launch. |
Activity lifecycle
Every Island Pulse activity moves through three states, controlled by the status field in your JSON:
status | Color | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
running | Accent (teal/custom) | Work is in progress. |
success | Green | Job completed successfully. |
failed | Red | Job failed or degraded. |
Setting status: "success" or status: "failed" doesn’t automatically dismiss the activity, the card stays on screen so you can read the result. Dismissal happens when you send action: "end", when the user swipes it away, or after the iOS system timeout.
Session length
iOS limits Live Activities to 8 hours. Pro users get automatic session renewal, if a session expires, the next webhook seamlessly starts a fresh one. Free users’ activities expire after 8 hours without renewal.
How updates reach your phone
When you POST to your webhook URL, Island Pulse delivers the update to your iPhone in real time, no polling, no delays. The app doesn’t need to be running in the foreground. Updates arrive even when your phone is locked.
What Island Pulse adds
Apple’s Live Activity API requires an iOS app to start activities from within the app itself. Island Pulse bridges this gap so any external source, a CI job, a shell script, a Zapier action, can start and update activities remotely with no iOS SDK or Swift code required.