What's the SIMPLEST way to play a sound clip in an iPhone app?

Question

I want to be able to play a sound clip in an iPhone OS app. I've seen info on both NSSound as well as AVFoundation as being means for getting sound clips played on an iPhone OS device, but I'm still not clear on the subject and could use some help. No need to spell it out for me step-by-step in actual code, but if someone could give me a hint as to the general direction (i.e. which classes I should be focusing on) in which I should start moving I'll fill in the blanks myself. So, what's the SIMPLEST way to play a sound clip in an iPhone app?

Answer 1

Here's the simplest way I know of:

1. Convert your sound file to caf (use afconvert commandline tool) and add to your project.

   caf stands for Core Audio Format (I think...)

2. Look for SoundEffect.h and .m in Apple's sample code. I believe both Metronome and BubbleLevel have it.

3. Copy to your project

4. Write code like below:

   SoundEffect *SimpleSound = [[SoundEffect alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:[mainBundle pathForResource:@"soundfile" ofType:@"caf"]];
   [SimpleSound play];
   [SimpleSound release];
   

Study SoundEffect.m to get an idea of simple sound handling.

Answer 2

Apple has an article on this subject, see: this link

AVAudioPlayer is the simplest way to play sounds of any length, looping or not, however it requires iPhone OS 2.2 or higher. A simple example:

NSString *soundFilePath =
                [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource: @"sound"
                                                ofType: @"wav"];

NSURL *fileURL = [[NSURL alloc] initFileURLWithPath: soundFilePath];

AVAudioPlayer *newPlayer =
                [[AVAudioPlayer alloc] initWithContentsOfURL: fileURL
                                                       error: nil];
[fileURL release];

[newPlayer play];

[newPlayer release];

It will play virtually any file format (aiff,wav,mp3,aac) Keep in mind that you can only play one mp3/aac file at a time.