iPhone Proximity Sensor

Question

Can the iPhone SDK take advantage of the iPhone\'s proximity sensors? If so, why hasn\'t anyone taken advantage of them? I could picture a few decent uses.

For examp

Answer 1

@Dipak Patel & @Coderer

You can download working code at http://spazout.com/google_cheats_independent_iphone_developers_screwed

It has a working implementation of proximityStateChanged a undocumented method in UIApplication.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Evidently the proximity sensor will never turn on if the status bar is in landscape orientation. i.e, if you call:

[UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarOrientation = UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeLeft;

You will no longer get the proximity:ON notifications.

This definitely happens on OS 3.0, I can't test it on a 2.X device since I don't have one with a proximity sensor.

This seems like a bug.

Answer 3

In iPhone 3.0 there is official support for the proximity sensor. Have a look at UIDevice proximityMonitoringEnabled in the docs.

Answer 4

There is no public API for this.

Answer 5

There is a public API for this. -[UIApplication setProximitySensingEnabled:(BOOL)] will turn the feature on. BTW, it doesn't seem to be using the light sensor, because proximity sensing would tweak out in a dark room.

However, the API call basically blanks the screen when you hold the phone up to your face. Not useful for interaction, sadly.

Answer 6

If you aren't aiming for the AppStore, you can read my articles here on getting access to those:

Proximity Sensor: http://iphonedevwiki.net/index.php/AppleProxShim

Ambient Light Sensor: http://iphonedevwiki.net/index.php/AppleISL29003