NSUserActivity handoff not working for custom data

Question

I'm trying to test out the iOS 8.1 handoff feature with NSUserActivity between my iPhone and my iPad. For this, I tried both implementing my own solution, and to use Apple's PhotoHandoff project. However, it's not working.

If I provide a webpageURL, the handover works fine, but when I try to use userData or addUserInfoEntriesFromDictionary nothing works, and I can't for the life of me figure out what the catch is to make the data work.

Sample code:

NSUserActivity *activity = [[NSUserActivity alloc] initWithActivityType:@"com.company.MyTestApp.activity"];
activity.title = @"My Activity";
activity.userInfo = @ {};
//    activity.webpageURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://google.com"];

self.userActivity = activity;

[self.userActivity becomeCurrent];
[self.userActivity addUserInfoEntriesFromDictionary:@ { @"nanananan": @[ @"totoro", @"monsters" ] }];

(I'm also unable to make it work with a Mac app with a corresponding activity type)

Answer 1

I hope you found the solution already, but in case somebody stumbles upon this problem too, here is a solution. (Actually not very different from the previous answer)

Create user activity without userInfo, it will be ignored:

NSUserActivity *activity = [[NSUserActivity alloc] initWithActivityType:@"..."];
activity.title = @"Test activity";
activity.delegate = self;
activity.needsSave = YES;

self.userActivity = activity;
[self.userActivity becomeCurrent];

Implement the delegate to react to needSave events:

- (void)userActivityWillSave:(NSUserActivity *)userActivity {
    userActivity.userInfo = @{ @"KEY" : @"VALUE" };
}

When needsSave is set to YES this method will be called and userActivity will be updated.

Hope this helps.