Audio Looping on Smart Phones

June 4, 2012 11:31 AM

Smart phone question: Is it possible to be directed to a website and have a sound play on loop automatically (I suppose through Flash or HTML5).

I don't have a smart phone so I don't have a way to test this. I want to try something where sounds play automatically on a phone when a site is accessed (typically a faux pas, I know, but it's part of an installation).

Also, I don't really know much about programming, but I figure it'd be simple to create a little program that loops a short audio sample. What language would you recommend for maximum compatibility/easiest implementation?

posted by cloeburner to Technology (4 answers total)

If the device supports the audio tag you can use that with the loopattribute set. You may have to encode it in a few formats to be available on all devices.
posted by bitdamaged at 11:51 AM on June 4, 2012

For HTML5 compliant devices, the audio tag with the autoplay option should do it.
posted by Mad_Carew at 12:20 PM on June 4, 2012

… and a little testing and googling tells me that Apple has disabled autoplay and closed a number of workarounds in recent versions to prevent it from being used.

Google also suggests that it doesn't work in some versions of Android (and that Audio wasn't there before Gingerbread).

Honestly, I'd suggest you get someone to write you an app for the platforms you want to hit, because at best you're going to be fighting the browser people and even if you find a workaround, they may close it.

Or give up.
posted by Mad_Carew at 12:34 PM on June 4, 2012

Flash does not work on iphones.
posted by soelo at 2:19 PM on June 4, 2012