How to get audio volume level, and volume changed notifications on iOS?

Question

I'm writing a very simple application that plays a sound when pressing a button. Since that button does not make a lot of sense when the device is set to silence I want to disable it when the device's audio volume is zero. (And subsequently reenable it when the volume is cranked up again.)

I am seeking a working (and AppStore safe) way to detect the current volume setting and get a notification/callback when the volume level changes. I do not want to alter the volume setting.

All this is implemented in my ViewController where said button is used. I've tested this with an iPhone 4 running iOS 4.0.1 and 4.0.2 as well as an iPhone 3G running 4.0.1. Built with iOS SDK 4.0.2 with llvm 1.5. (Using gcc or llvm-gcc doesn't improve anything.) There are no issues during build implementing either way, neither errors nor warnings. Static analyzer is happy as well.

Here is what I've tried so far, all without any success.

Following Apple's audio services documentation I should register an AudioSessionAddPropertyListener for kAudioSessionProperty_CurrentHardwareOutputVolume which should work like this:

// Registering for Volume Change notifications
AudioSessionInitialize(NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL);
returnvalue = AudioSessionAddPropertyListener (

kAudioSessionProperty_CurrentHardwareOutputVolume ,
      audioVolumeChangeListenerCallback,
      self
);

returnvalue is 0, which means that registering the callback worked.

Sadly, I never get a callback to my function audioVolumeChangeListenerCallback when I press the volume buttons on my device, the headset clicker or flip the ringer-silent switch.

When using the exact same code for registering for kAudioSessionProperty_AudioRouteChange (which is used as an analogous sample project in WWDC videos, Developer documentation and on numerous sites on the interwebs) I actually do get a callback when changing the audio route (by plugging in/out a headset or docking the device).

A user named Doug opened a thread titled iPhone volume changed event for volume already max where he claimed that he is sucessfully using this way (unless the volume would not actually change because it is already set to maximum). Still, it doesn't work for me.

Another way I have tried is to register at NSNotificationCenter like this.

// sharedAVSystemController 
AudioSessionInitialize(NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL);
NSNotificationCenter *notificationCenter = [NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter];
[notificationCenter addObserver:self
                                         selector:@selector(volumeChanged:) 
                                             name:@"AVSystemController_SystemVolumeDidChangeNotification" 
                                           object:nil];

This should notify my method volumeChanged of any SystemVolume changes but it doesn't actually do so.

Since common belief tells me that if one is working too hard to achieve something with Cocoa one is doing something fundamentally wrong I'm expecting to miss something here. It's hard to believe that there is no simple way to get the current volume level, yet I haven't been able to find one using Apple's documentation, sample code, Google, Apple Developer Forums or by watching WWDC 2010 videos.

Answer 1

Any chance you did your signature wrong for the volumeChanged: method? This worked for me, dumped in my appdelegate:

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application
didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter]
     addObserver:self
     selector:@selector(volumeChanged:)
     name:@"AVSystemController_SystemVolumeDidChangeNotification"
     object:nil];
}

- (void)volumeChanged:(NSNotification *)notification
{
    float volume =
    [[[notification userInfo]
      objectForKey:@"AVSystemController_AudioVolumeNotificationParameter"]
     floatValue];

    // Do stuff with volume
}

My volumeChanged: method gets hit every time the button is pressed, even if the volume does not change as a result (because it's already at max/min).