iOS Background Audio in a Web App

Question

I am writing a web app that uses HTML5 audio. I want to make sure that the user can move to a different application while still listening to the audio in the background. This wo

Answer 1

I observe exactly the same thing. It's really puzzling as to why Safari, webkit on iOS I suppose really, handles it differently in the two cases.

I notice one thing that might be a small clue, when running as a home-screen'ed 'app' when you playback the audio the iOS status bar (at least on my ios4.1/iphone4) does NOT show playback indicator (blue triangle). But when using the site directly via Safari (and the sound stays in the backgroun as expected) it DOES show the playback indicator.

I think the only people who can probably answer your question are apple since it's their webkit implementation. If you haven't already I would urge you to take this up on the apple developer message boards.

For others not familiar the 'full screen access' Dan is referring to is a Safari specific meta tag that enables a bookmarked web page to open in safari 'full screen' without the location and menu bars.

While HTML5 is making progress on supporting device native features through HTML 5 APIs (such as accelerometers, etc) having true background audio seems like it hasn't really been spec'ed out yet. By background I mean when the browser is not the application that the user is currently focused on. It was only more recently that iOS even supported application multitasking which is what making the behavior from safari possible but it's a separate thing together to integrate that tightly with the OS'es native audio control features, which is what would need to happen.

Answer 2

You can do so with an iPhone 4. On my website, I posted a song with the simple html5 tag and I went on it with the iPhone 4. Played the song, left the app. Song runs in the background and there is even a play button on the top bar like when you listen to music on the iPod app.

Answer 3

In iOS 5 and Android 4.0.3, putting a browser window to background does not stop playback. I am not sure about other versions prior to them.

Answer 4

This is not possible, at least not currently. You are playing the audio from the browser and when the browser closes the system kills the app, or freezes it, unless it has multi-tasking support(but that isn't allowed for web apps)