I'm building a simulator that runs in the browser and needs to be deployed to the iPad. I've run into an issue where I need to be able to play a .wav file on a button click.

I know that the ipad supports the HTML5 audio tag, but this application will run on PC's, Mac's and the iPad and all browsers do not support the HTML5 audio tag yet. So I really need a solution that will work on the ipad, as well as the desktop.

Thanks in advance for any help with this issue.

I know it's not best practice to play audio in web pages, but it's what the client ordered, and he's the one paying the bills.

I'm building a simulator that runs in the browser and needs to be deployed to the iPad. I've run into an issue where I need to be able to play a .wav file on a button click.

I know that the ipad supports the HTML5 audio tag, but this application will run on PC's, Mac's and the iPad and all browsers do not support the HTML5 audio tag yet. So I really need a solution that will work on the ipad, as well as the desktop.

Thanks in advance for any help with this issue.

I know it's not best practice to play audio in web pages, but it's what the client ordered, and he's the one paying the bills.

• javascript
• jquery
• ipad
• audio

2 Answers 2

The JavaScript would be:

var audio = new Audio("noise.mp3");
audio.play();

I've heard, however, that iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod) disable autoplay and the JavaScript .play() method at start up and will only play a noise in response to a explicit user action.

Google "HTML5 audio" to find out more details (and there are lots of detail.)

<object type="audio/mpeg" data="muzak.mp3">Your browser doesn't seem to like MP3s</object> 

that should fire up whatever plugin's registered for mpeg audio, or display the alternate text.

You're better off embedding an mp3, because support for that is very widespread. A .wav, by parison, can be anything. Wav is a container format and can use any number of different codecs, most of which are probably NOT supported by your average pc/browser.