Did Facebook Live Audio Get Punished for Sins of the Past?

— 2 minute read

In late 2015 it was discovered that Facebook's app for iOS may have been using a loophole to keep the app in the background longer than it should have by pretending to be playing audio.

Now while reading Facebook's announcement for Live Audio streaming, I couldn't help but wonder if that incident from 2015 is coming back to bite Facebook (emphasis added):

We know that people often like to listen to audio while doing other things; people using Android devices will be able to continue listening to a Live Audio broadcast even if they leave the Facebook app or lock their phones, while iOS listeners will be able to continue listening as they browse other parts of Facebook.

There's plenty of apps for iOS that can play audio in the background when you switch away from them: music apps like Spotify or podcast apps like Pocket Casts, so Facebook for iOS technically should be able to do it - but might Apple not be allowing them to do it because of past issues? Or do apps who's primary purpose isn't playing audio not get to stay in the background no matter what kind of other features they have?

Live audio/video is the next battleground for mobile apps, at least from Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, Amazon/Twitch, and YouTube's perspective. As a podcaster, it's interesting to see how this will all shake out as Kyle and I and the rest of the Goodstuff.fm crew figure out where/how/why to use one platform over the other for streaming our own content.