Control while app is not in the foreground

[BrandonSmith]

README states:

your application takes control when it comes to the foreground

With the advancements of iPadOS multitasking, especially with iPadOS 26, apps will more frequently not be the foreground app.

Is it possible to control a Stream Deck while not the foreground app?

[r-dent]

Hi Brandon!

Thanks for your question! That depends how you define "the foreground app".

Stream Deck Kit currently gives access to the last app that did enter foreground or ran the setUp method. So even is you have 2 apps in foreground (e.g. in split screen layout), only one of them gets SD access. We decided to do this, because there is currently no entity that manages access to a Stream Deck from multiple apps.

I guess if you implement a background task and make some changes to the SDK, you should be able control a Stream Deck. But as soon as the task gets stopped by the OS, there is no entity that responds to key presses anymore.

We were not yet able check out possible new APIs of iPadOS 26. So if you have an idea of how to implement such behavior in a stable way, we would be happy to discuss it (or for a pull request).