Iphone – How to record audio on iPhone

It's certainly possible to develop on a Windows machine, in fact, my first application was exclusively developed on the old Dell Precision I had at the time :)

There are three routes;

1. Install OSx86 (aka iATKOS / Kalyway) on a second partition/disk and dual boot.
2. Run Mac OS X Server under VMWare (Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) onwards, read the update below).
3. Use Delphi XE4 and the macincloud service. This is a commercial toolset, but the component and lib support is growing.

The first route requires modifying (or using a pre-modified) image of Leopard that can be installed on a regular PC. This is not as hard as you would think, although your success/effort ratio will depend upon how closely the hardware in your PC matches that in Mac hardware - e.g. if you're running a Core 2 Duo on an Intel Motherboard, with an NVidia graphics card you are laughing. If you're running an AMD machine or something without SSE3 it gets a little more involved.

If you purchase (or already own) a version of Leopard then this is a gray area since the Leopard EULA states you may only run it on an "Apple Labeled" machine. As many point out if you stick an Apple sticker on your PC you're probably covered.

The second option is more costly. The EULA for the workstation version of Leopard prevents it from being run under emulation and as a result, there's no support in VMWare for this. Leopard server, however, CAN be run under emulation and can be used for desktop purposes. Leopard server and VMWare are expensive, however.

If you're interested in option 1) I would suggest starting at Insanelymac and reading the OSx86 sections.

I do think you should consider whether the time you will invest is going to be worth the money you will save though. It was for me because I enjoy tinkering with this type of stuff and I started during the early iPhone betas, months before their App Store became available.

Alternatively, you could pick up a low-spec Mac Mini from eBay. You don't need much horsepower to run the SDK and you can always sell it on later if you decide to stop development or buy a better Mac.

Update: You cannot create a Mac OS X Client virtual machine for OS X 10.6 and earlier. Apple does not allow these Client OSes to be virtualized. With Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) onwards, Apple has changed its licensing agreement in regards to virtualization. Source: VMWare KnowledgeBase

Actually, there are no examples at all. Here is my working code. Recording is triggered by the user pressing a button on the navBar. The recording uses cd quality (44100 samples), stereo (2 channels) linear pcm. Beware: if you want to use a different format, especially an encoded one, make sure you fully understand how to set the AVAudioRecorder settings (read carefully the audio types documentation), otherwise you will never be able to initialize it correctly. One more thing. In the code, I am not showing how to handle metering data, but you can figure it out easily. Finally, note that the AVAudioRecorder method deleteRecording as of this writing crashes your application. This is why I am removing the recorded file through the File Manager. When recording is done, I save the recorded audio as NSData in the currently edited object using KVC.

#define DOCUMENTS_FOLDER [NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"Documents"]


- (void) startRecording{

UIBarButtonItem *stopButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Stop" style:UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered  target:self action:@selector(stopRecording)];
self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = stopButton;
[stopButton release];

AVAudioSession *audioSession = [AVAudioSession sharedInstance];
NSError *err = nil;
[audioSession setCategory :AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayAndRecord error:&err];
if(err){
    NSLog(@"audioSession: %@ %d %@", [err domain], [err code], [[err userInfo] description]);
    return;
}
[audioSession setActive:YES error:&err];
err = nil;
if(err){
    NSLog(@"audioSession: %@ %d %@", [err domain], [err code], [[err userInfo] description]);
    return;
}

recordSetting = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];

[recordSetting setValue :[NSNumber numberWithInt:kAudioFormatLinearPCM] forKey:AVFormatIDKey];
[recordSetting setValue:[NSNumber numberWithFloat:44100.0] forKey:AVSampleRateKey]; 
[recordSetting setValue:[NSNumber numberWithInt: 2] forKey:AVNumberOfChannelsKey];

[recordSetting setValue :[NSNumber numberWithInt:16] forKey:AVLinearPCMBitDepthKey];
[recordSetting setValue :[NSNumber numberWithBool:NO] forKey:AVLinearPCMIsBigEndianKey];
[recordSetting setValue :[NSNumber numberWithBool:NO] forKey:AVLinearPCMIsFloatKey];



// Create a new dated file
NSDate *now = [NSDate dateWithTimeIntervalSinceNow:0];
NSString *caldate = [now description];
recorderFilePath = [[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/%@.caf", DOCUMENTS_FOLDER, caldate] retain];

NSURL *url = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:recorderFilePath];
err = nil;
recorder = [[ AVAudioRecorder alloc] initWithURL:url settings:recordSetting error:&err];
if(!recorder){
    NSLog(@"recorder: %@ %d %@", [err domain], [err code], [[err userInfo] description]);
    UIAlertView *alert =
    [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle: @"Warning"
                               message: [err localizedDescription]
                              delegate: nil
                     cancelButtonTitle:@"OK"
                     otherButtonTitles:nil];
    [alert show];
    [alert release];
    return;
}

//prepare to record
[recorder setDelegate:self];
[recorder prepareToRecord];
recorder.meteringEnabled = YES;

BOOL audioHWAvailable = audioSession.inputIsAvailable;
if (! audioHWAvailable) {
    UIAlertView *cantRecordAlert =
    [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle: @"Warning"
                               message: @"Audio input hardware not available"
                              delegate: nil
                     cancelButtonTitle:@"OK"
                     otherButtonTitles:nil];
    [cantRecordAlert show];
    [cantRecordAlert release]; 
    return;
}

// start recording
[recorder recordForDuration:(NSTimeInterval) 10];

}

- (void) stopRecording{

[recorder stop];

NSURL *url = [NSURL fileURLWithPath: recorderFilePath];
NSError *err = nil;
NSData *audioData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfFile:[url path] options: 0 error:&err];
if(!audioData)
    NSLog(@"audio data: %@ %d %@", [err domain], [err code], [[err userInfo] description]);
[editedObject setValue:[NSData dataWithContentsOfURL:url] forKey:editedFieldKey];   

//[recorder deleteRecording];


NSFileManager *fm = [NSFileManager defaultManager];

err = nil;
[fm removeItemAtPath:[url path] error:&err];
if(err)
    NSLog(@"File Manager: %@ %d %@", [err domain], [err code], [[err userInfo] description]);



UIBarButtonItem *startButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Record" style:UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered  target:self action:@selector(startRecording)];
self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = startButton;
[startButton release];

}

- (void)audioRecorderDidFinishRecording:(AVAudioRecorder *) aRecorder successfully:(BOOL)flag
{

NSLog (@"audioRecorderDidFinishRecording:successfully:");
// your actions here

}