Play audio or sound while the app is in the background

Question

Hi I have a Pedometer app that uses location services to stay in the background, now I need to play a beep sound every 1000 steps.

I'm trying to play like this:

AVAudioSession *audioSession = [AVAudioSession sharedInstance];
BOOL success = [audioSession setCategory:AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback error:nil];

NSURL *audioFileLocationURL = [[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:@"beep" withExtension:@"mp3"];

success = [audioSession setActive:YES error:nil];
AVPlayerItem * item = [[AVPlayerItem alloc] initWithURL:audioFileLocationURL];
queuePlayer = [[AVQueuePlayer alloc] initWithItems:@[item]];

[queuePlayer play];

But it doesn't play, it does play if I run this code while the app is in the foreground, but it I run it while it's in background it does nothing.

Any idea?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I still don't get why, but I manage it to work.

What I had to do was to play the music(silent sound) for a little way while the app is active and then pause it.

After doing that, everything works if I resume the playback while being in the background.