Brazilian developers showcased how Apple’s Live Activities app can be used for a meaningful purpose. Using an app that tracked the recently concluded Brazilian elections, the developers were able to use Live Activities to provide real-time information about the election on the iPhone Lock Screen and Dynamic Island.
Developers Use Live Activities API During Election Vote Count
When Apple introduced Live Activities, it did so to allow third-party developers to provide useful information on the iPhone Lock Screen and Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro. Apple intended Live Activities to enable apps to use it for flight details, among other things. Since its release, several apps have already made use of the Live Activities API.
Some Brazilian developers decided to make use of the new feature in the recently concluded Brazilian elections. The developers created an app that showed the vote count of the elections with real-time updates. The updates were shown on the iPhone Lock Screen and Dynamic Island for iPhone 14 Pro users.
The Brazilian Developers’ Dynamic Counting App
The developers integrated the Live Activities API in the app called “Apuração Dinâmica” (Dynamic Counting). Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court provided the voting data as a tool. William Max, one of the developers from the mobile app company Sorcerhat, said (via 9to5 Mac), “When Apple announced iOS 16 with Live Activities, we already knew the feature would be perfect for moments like this.” He added, “The runoff election coincided with the release of iOS 16.1, which officially brought the feature to everyone, and inspired us to create this small utility app, developed in SwiftUI, to add our special touch to the experience of following the counting.”
During the vote counting, the mobile app started showing the first numbers to those who installed Sorcerhat’s app. Those who installed the app on their iPhones were able to view live updates on the iPhone Lock Screen and, on the iPhone 14 Pro models, the Dynamic Island. The Dynamic Island also showed a brief look at the percentages of votes for each candidate.
The Project Is Not Without Challenges
The developers were happy to have made use of the Live Activities API together with their mobile app. It was a successful endeavor indeed, but the developers said that they encountered some challenges when implementing the feature. Max noted the difficulty of getting around the technical limitations of the frequency of Live Activities updates. The app needed to collect data first from the Electoral Court’s API before Sorcerhat’s mobile app could push it to Live Activities. Still, the developers were able to update data every minute.
Even with its limitations, the application of the Live Activities API during the Brazilian elections showed one potential usage of this new feature of Apple’s iOS. Even better, we expect more meaningful applications of this in the coming days.