iPhone applications question

July 14, 2008 3:57 PM

iPhone development question - can an application control any of the system settings?

Unfortunately, Apple's dev site won't let me read documentation until I pay $99 for a developer license - something I'm not ready to do yet.

Googling around for various combinations / permutations of "iphone application change settings", etc, have not been fruitful.

Specifically, I want to know if an iPhone application has access to change things such as ringer and notification volumes, or if those are locked off because they're system settings.

Anyone know? Thanks much!

posted by twiggy to computers & internet (6 comments total)

You don't need to pay for a developer license to read documentation. Visit the program page, scroll down, and click on "Download the free SDK".
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:06 PM on July 14, 2008

You don't need to pay for the documentation... just create an ADC account. It's free. The $99 is to upload applications to the iPhone. You can compile them and run them in the simulator for free.

Besides, this question is probably covered under the NDA.
posted by sbutler at 4:07 PM on July 14, 2008

Anybody who knows likely can't tell you legally (since the contents of the iPhone SDK are still covered by an NDA). However, it isn't necessary for you to pay $99 to get access to the SDK and iPhone developer documentation. It's only when you want actually place your developement builds on a dev iPhone or deploy to the iTunes App Store that you need to be a paid member of the iPhone developer Program. The SDK and iPhone developer documentation are available for free — go to the iPhone Developer Program home page and click the "Download the Free SDK" link. As part of the process you'll be required to become a Registered iPhone Developer, which is free, but requires agreeing to an NDA and other contract terms. Once you're a member, you can download the SDK, access the documentation, view the videos, etc. that are available at the iPhone Dev Center.
posted by RichardP at 4:09 PM on July 14, 2008

Well, you can access the Address Book, from which you may be able to determine and possibly even change the custom ringer settings for different contact numbers. Beyond that, no, applications are pretty thoroughly sandboxed.
posted by jedicus at 4:21 PM on July 14, 2008

From the FAQ:

How do I control playback level?

On iPhone, the user controls playback level using the hardware volume control. You can control relative playback level when playing sounds with Audio Queue Services (AudioToolbox/AudioQueue.h). To control relative playback level, create a playback audio queue object and use the AudioQueueSetParameter function with the kAudioQueueParam_Volume parameter.

System Audio Services, AudioToolbox/AudioServices.h, does not offer level control.

--

My guess is that "relative" means relative to system volume. I don't have the simulator in front of me, though, so I couldn't tell you. You might also look into the AV documentation.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:37 PM on July 14, 2008

Oy, thanks guys... it wasn't real intuitive that I had to "download the SDK" in order to read the documentation. I just saw all of the grayed out links and figured I couldn't read it...

Thanks for the information Blazecock Pileon... as I suspected, my cool idea for an iPhone app is crushed due to "security"... blah.
posted by twiggy at 6:44 PM on July 14, 2008