UIPasteboard not cleaned up

Question

I have two apps that use an assortment of UIPasteboard names as a scheme to share data between each other.

The pasteboards use the reverse DNS naming convention, like so: com.mycompany.myapp.stuffx, com.mycompany.myapp.stuffy

All the apps that use these pasteboards belong to the com.mycompany namespace.

When I uninstall app A the data that was stored in the pasteboards, as expected, lives on. After I uninstall app B, effectively removing all apps that use the pasteboards, I expect any associated data/pasteboards to be cleaned up as the documentation of the persistent property suggest this. However, this does not happen; after I reinstall an app, it is still able to access the old pasteboard data.

The pasteboards are created by whatever app needs it first and have their persistent property set to true. Is it possible to ensure the old pasteboard data is cleaned up if nothing is using it anymore?

Answer 1

Sounds like you should open a bug with Apple on this.

http://bugreport.apple.com

As you said the documentation states that the pasteboard should be removed when the application that created it is uninstalled, and that's not happening for you.

Answer 2

i think this is expected behavior

"effectively removing all apps that use the pasteboards" - and how is the system supposed to know that?

i suggest performing some special action on first launch after install, you can test if you're the first app of your special app group to be installed and clear out the pasteboards