Alternative to getUserMedia() for reading live camera stream on iOS?

Brian Mansfield picture Brian Mansfield · Jan 12, 2017 · Viewed 15.7k times · Source

We are building a mobile barcode-scanner using QuaggaJS that reads barcodes directly from the device's camera stream. Works fine on desktop/Android, but doesn't work at all on iOS.

From initial research, I've found that iOS simply does not support WebRTC/getUserMedia through Safari or iOS Chrome (related links below), which is what QuaggaJS uses to read the camera stream.

I've also seen this question about capturing a still image on iOS, but the answer provided is only for capturing a still image, not for reading the stream real-time.

My question - is there any other way to grab the stream from an iOS camera? Perhaps an alternate library other than QuaggaJS that does not use getUserMedia? I am not well-versed in Javascript, so I am not sure if there even is a possible way to access the camera stream other than getUserMedia.

A "no" is an acceptable answer here; I'm simply looking for someone more experienced to provide guidance.


Appendix/related links:

navigator.getUserMedia alternative API for iOS safari mobile browser?

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-navigator-getUserMedia-not-supported-in-Safari

https://bloggeek.me/webrtc-apple-or-microsoft/

HTML5: getUserMedia iOS issue?

Answer

wildpeaks picture wildpeaks · Jun 6, 2017

2017 update: Apple just announced that getUserMedia will finally be supported in iOS11.

Aug 2019 update: ONLY works in Safari, not in a WebView of any kind. Thanks @Klathmon for the comment.