Autoplay HTML5 audio in Chrome for Android, Mobile Safari in iOS

  • Mobile browser's ignore the autoplay attribute on <audio> and <video> elements. Stupid reasons include saving mobile bandwidth on behalf of the user and/or securing app store sales.
  • Audio and video elements will only play as the result of a user interactions (click, touch).
  • A workaround is to have a "start button" in your application that loads and plays an initial sound.
  • You can now play further sounds without user interaction by changing the source on the same <audio> element.

I tested this on Chrome for Android. The interweb says Show archive.org snapshot it should work on Mobile Safari as well.

Henning Koch