How to play tock sound when tapping custom keyboard buttons

Question

I've been working on a custom keyboard for iOS 8 for some time and everything went fine so far, but I still couldn't get my head around this tapping sound stuff.

I searched high and low for this issue and tried several approaches including

1. Using AudioToolbox
2. Using AVFoundation
3. Put the tock.caf inside my bundle and just play it

Some of them works, in the simulators but none of them works in my devices. Could anyone who has successfully played sound when tapping on custom keyboard buttons care to share some working code? And it is the best if the code could honor the sound settings.

Answer 1

As Farzad Nazifi mentioned above Allow openAcesess after a fresh install , solved my issue . And I recommend a simpler solution for playing system keyboard tap sound

Swift and Objective-C All the same `we don't need to import any custom sound file just play the system tap sound.

Import AudioToolbox framework:

#import <AudioToolbox/AudioToolbox.h>

AudioServicesPlaySystemSound(1104)

This code is tested in iOS 8 beta 5 , I hope apple would fix the bug (if it is a bug) in the GM version .

Answer 2

Import the framework:

#import <AudioToolbox/AudioToolbox.h>

And use:

AudioServicesPlaySystemSound(1104);

Answer 3

Finally I got an answer from other SO thread.

- (void)playSound
{
    NSString *soundPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"Tock" ofType:@"caf"];
    SystemSoundID soundID;
    AudioServicesCreateSystemSoundID((__bridge CFURLRef)[NSURL fileURLWithPath: soundPath], &soundID);
    AudioServicesPlaySystemSound (soundID);
}

I have implemented and verified this method works on both simulators and devices on iOS8 Beta 2.

Answer 4

The key here is that iOS can only play the file types described here. iOS cannot play the file type .caf. The following code should work fine on iOS. You can use this website to convert your .caf file to any file they have available on the site and that are compatible. I've tested it out already and .caf conversions work even though it's not specified anywhere.

-(void)buttonPressed:(UIButton *)theButton {


    [[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setCategory:AVAudioSessionCategoryAmbient withOptions:AVAudioSessionCategoryOptionMixWithOthers error:nil];
    [[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setActive:YES error:nil];

    AVAudioPlayer *av = [[AVAudioPlayer alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"Tock" ofType:@"mp3"]] error:nil];
    [av setVolume:1.0];
    [av setNumberOfLoops:0];
    [av prepareToPlay];
    [av play];

}

Answer 5

Playing sounds requires OpenAccess, I don't know why Apple is doing it like this but it is what it is for now. This will also fix the lag and issues with it not working after trying to play the sound.

You can get OpenAccess by setting YES for the value of RequestsOpenAccess Key in the info.plist of the keyboard.

Next you should import AudioToolbox to your project, then use this code:

- (void)playSound{
NSString *soundPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"Tock" ofType:@"caf"];
SystemSoundID soundID;
AudioServicesCreateSystemSoundID((__bridge CFURLRef)[NSURL fileURLWithPath: soundPath], &soundID);
AudioServicesPlaySystemSound (soundID);

Now install your keyboard and give the Openaccess while adding it to your keyboards and it should work.

Answer 6

You can use playInputClick() method.

Swift:

UIDevice.currentDevice().playInputClick()

Objective-C:

[[UIDevice currentDevice] playInputClick];

See documentation for details.