Return to app behavior after phone call different in native code than UIWebView

Question

According to Apple's documentation, in order to make phone call from my app, I need to implement the following protocols:

HTML link:

<a href="tel:1-408-555-5555">1-408-555-5555</a> 

Native application URL string:

tel:1-408-555-5555 

However, upon completion of a phone call initiated from an HTML link inside a UIWebView, I am redirected right back to my application. But upon completion of a phone call made from a native application URL string, my iphone stays in the iphone's regular phone application, and if I want to return to my application I have to do so manually.

As far as I can tell from reading what others have said, there is no way to change this behavior.

Here is my question:

1. Is it true that it's impossible to return to an application after making a phone call from a native application URL string?
2. Would there be any downside to implementing a UIWebView instead of a UILabel in situations where I really wanted the user to be redirected back to my application after completing a phone call?

Answer 1

The simplest way seems to be:

[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"telprompt:0123456789"]]; 

You will get a prompt and your app will regain focus after the call is finished.

Answer 2

1. Behavior does differ between calling -[UIApplication openURL:] with a tel: URL, and clicking a link to the same URL in a UIWebView.

2. Using a UIWebView instead of a UILabel might have some downsides, but you don't have to actually display the UIWebView to get its tel URL handling behavior. Instead, just load a tel URL request in an instance of UIWebView without adding it to your view hierarchy.

For example:

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h> #import <UIKit/UIKit.h>  @interface PhoneCaller : NSObject {   @private     UIWebView *webview; } - (void)callTelURL:(NSURL *)url; @end  @implementation - (id)init {     self = [super init];     if (self)     {         webview = [[UIWebView alloc] init];     }     return self; } - (void)callTelURL:(NSURL *)url {     [webview loadRequest:[NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url]]; } - (void)dealloc {     [webview release];     [super dealloc]; } @end