WebRTC Doesn’t Fit iOS – or Does it?

May 27, 2013

Apple doesn’t support WebRTC. So what?

Stop whining please. Yes, WebRTC isn’t supported by everyone, but guess what? WebGL doesn’t either. For that matter, neither is FaceTime.

WebRTC on iOS

Let’s go for a reality check here, and for that I need your full attention. We’ll start from the basics: What assumptions do we have?

  • iOS is an important platform, with its millions upon millions of iPhone and iPad devices. Oh – and its large fan base
  • Consumption on smartphones takes place more in apps than in the browser
  • We are realists and not purists – we strive for practical solutions rather than the best technical ones

Ok. With that off the table, let’s see what WebRTC on mobile means. And most of the time, that means having an app. To make things easy, I’ll start with some known WebRTC vendors that have “something” on iOS:

And these are only the companies I remember out of the top of my head – numerous other companies have their iOS support status in “coming soon”.

Sure. It required these companies to port WebRTC’s source code and integrate it for their own needs – but then again – do you have a clue how much it cost without WebRTC? 10 times more would be a conservative estimate.

So you tell me – does WebRTC work on iOS or is there a gap somewhere in there?


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  1. Can’t seem to get it to work with Chrome or Firefox, from http;//streetjelly.com Plays music smoothly but the video constantly freezes. Needs constant refreshing.

    1. Don,

      This is rather unrelated to the article, but there’s probably packet loss and congestion issues that you are experiencing and the media server you are using (I am assuming there is one) doesn’t do anything about it (like reducing its bitrate).

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