Is there a way in iOS for one app to trigger the opening of another app? I was thinking more in an alarm clock situation but perhaps also in a timer situation. For example, "start my Spotify in 1 hour".
URL Schemes are the only way to communicate between apps. So to launch an app you'd need to know it's NSURL (for spotify it's "spotify") to build a URL and do: [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:];
That's $150 per month - average salary of an experienced full-time school teacher in Georgia (eastern Europe). And no, living costs are not that different from your place of living.