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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

First of all -- awesome concept and execution, and great sound samples. Well-done.

> Mobile Safari iOS 6 on iPad 2+, iPhone 4GS+

But... not working on my 4S/iOS6. :(

Anyone got it working to play in the background, even when your phone's screen is off? I also wonder about battery life as HTML5 audio, vs if it were an app.

The creators clearly want to support HTML-only, according to the FAQ, but this calls for an app if anything ever did -- you want it to run, providing sound in the background, while you do other stuff (whether on or off your phone).

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I don't really understand how it runs on iOS devices at all - to the best of my knowledge, it simply isn't possible to control device audio volume from javascript on iOS [1]. Or at least, that seemed to be the consensus last time I attempted to.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/library/safari/documentation/Aud... - "On iOS devices, the audio level is always under the user’s physical control. The volume property is not settable in JavaScript."

You can always reduce the volume in software before sending it to whatever API plays your sounds. This is especially easy if you're synthesizing the sound with the desired output volume known.

It should be noted that this operation (digital gain staging) reduces headroom/resolution, although in practice this doesn't really matter. Especially not with ambient rain sounds.

Very interesting Web Audio API experiment,

To reply to you, forgetting that the interface is not really touch friendly, I was totally able to make it run in the background on a Nexus 4 with Chrome (the Web Audio API works in the background with Chrome), however I got some clicks (interruptions) in the sound probably due to the bad performance the Web Audio API gets in Android Chrome today.

I wish there was a way to contribute (Github?) to improve this app.

I have been using an iPhone app called Ambiance for a long time, it even allows you to record your own sounds, works in the background, has a sleep and alarm modes etc.

The only down side is it tries to do too much, they have like a sound store and stuff, which is a cool feature but affects the simplicity.

http://ambianceapp.com/

Agreed. And I would pay quite a bit of money (in the context of what apps cost ... i.e., $10 or so) for an app that did this with this level of quality.

Definitely! Unfortunate that the Web Audio API doesn't work with PhoneGap on Android due Android's built-in browser not supporting it.

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