Apple: Please fix HTML5 on iOS

I’ve built an HTML5 audio player, Chavah Messianic Jewish Radio, that “works” on iOS.

By “works“, I mean, it plays the best it can on Apple’s crippled iOS <audio> implementation. At the time of this writing, this includes iOS 5, tested on iPhone 3 and 4, and iPad1 through iPad 3.

How is <audio> broken on iOS? Let me count the ways:

  • Apple does not let you play audio until user interaction. For me, this means detecting iOS, then showing the music as paused until the user clicks play. Their reasoning is that this will consume data and battery; in practice, though, it cripples web apps, forcing us to resort to platform-specific hoop-jumping  to get the web to work on your platform, Apple. It effectively stifles the evolution of the web in the same way IE did in the late 1990s.
  • Apple does not allow you to play concurrent audio files. This is a huge crippler for gaming apps that need to play sound effects, for example.
  • Apple doesn’t support OGG format. Patent-encumbered formats work, of course, but without support for free and open formats like OGG, Apple is effectively creating a long-term thorn in the side of the opened web.
  • Every dynamic <audio> element must receive user interaction. If you want to play successive sounds (one after another) without receiving user interaction for each one, you must use a single <audio> element, then do the iOS <audio> dance: set existingAudio.src, then call existingAudio.load(), then call existingAudio.play().
  • Audio events don’t fire unless Safari is in the fore. While audio will continue playing if the user switches to a different app, the .ended event won’t fire. This means it’s practically impossible to build a music player web app.

Apple, please, please, please give us better support for HTML5 in iOS Safari. Here are your action items, Apple:

  1. Let HTML5 audio work in the background.
  2. Support OGG.
  3. Support pre-loading audio.
  4. Support concurrent audio.
  5. Let us play audio without user interaction.

Do those things, Apple, you’ll be the industry leader in mobile HTML5 audio, everyone will emulate you, you’ll once again be leading the way, and HTML5 web apps will work best on your platforms. Wouldn’t that be good for Apple?

Yes, these features will use data and the battery, but native apps already do this, so why cripple web apps? Stop stifling the evolution of the web, and start being the leader. Make HTML5 <audio> a first-class citizen on iOS.