Keep alive in the background
I often have long-running connections to worlds that may stay inactive for long periods, but where it's still beneficial to be connected. (Social MU*, for example). Currently, I must periodically bring MUDRammer to the foreground to prevent the sessions from closing (which it does warn me about, which is appreciated).
Now that iOS 7 is out, is there anything that could be done with background app refresh to minimize or eliminate these timeouts?
Unfortunately background app refresh is meant for periodically refreshing content, and it’s really no help at all with keeping a persistent socket connected in the way MUDRammer does. I don’t think I see anything yet in iOS 8 that will help with this either — we are still only able to keep a socket connected for as long as the system allows, which depends ultimately on several factors. Two of the big factors are your device’s hardware and what else you’re doing on your device — launching a resource-intensive app like a game is much more likely to kill off a background app. I’ll keep an eye on iOS 8 to see if anything changes.
(Edit) As glib as it sounds, your best strategy for keeping MUDRammer open in the background is to periodically switch back to it :)