SendBird Calls—QuickStart Guide for iOS

Introduction

The Calls SDK for iOS is used to initialize, configure, and build voice and video calling functionality into your iOS application. This repository contains a sample application intended to demonstrate a simple implementation of this framework, as well as the preliminary steps of implementing the Calls SDK into your own project.

Prerequisites

• Mac OS with developer mode enabled
• Xcode
• Git Large File Storage installed
• Homebrew
• At least one physical iOS device running iOS 10.0+

Environement Setup

Step 1. Install Git LFS

To download SendBirdWebRTC, you first MUST install Git LFS by running the following command

$ brew install git-lfs

Please refer to https://git-lfs.github.com

Step 2. Install SDK via CocoaPods

Open a terminal window, navigate to your project directory, and then open your Podfile by running the following command.

$ open Podfile

Make sure that the Podfile includes the following:

platform :ios, '9.0'
 
target 'YourProject' do
  use_frameworks!
 
  pod 'SendBirdCalls'
end

And then install the SendBirdCalls framework via CocoaPods

$ pod install

Important: Make sure to install Git LFS before installing the pod. Check the size of WebRTC.framework in SendBirdWebRTC folder. It MUST be over 800 MB. If your loaded SendBirdWebRTC framework is smaller than that, check your Git Large File Storage settings and download again. Refer to SDK’s troubleshooting section.

Creating a SendBird application

1. Login or Sign-up for an account at dashboard.
2. Create or select an application on the SendBird Dashboard.
3. Note the Application ID for future reference.
4. Contact sales to get the Calls menu enabled in the dashboard. (Self-serve coming soon.)

Creating test users

1. In the SendBird dashboard, navigate to the Users menu.
2. Create at least two new users, one that will be the caller, and one that will be the callee.
3. Note the User ID of each user for future reference.

Specifying the App ID

As shown below, the SendBirdCall instance must be initiated when a client app is launched. Initialization is done by using your APP_ID of your SendBird application in the dashboard. This App ID of the SendBird application must be specified inside the sample application’s source code.

Find the application(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:) method from AppDelegate.swift. Replace YOUR_APP_ID with the App ID of the SendBird application created previously.

SendBirdCall.configure("YOUR_APP_ID")

Installing and running the sample application

1. Verify that Xcode open on the development Mac and the sample application project is open
2. Plug the primary iOS device into the Mac running Xcode
3. Unlock the iOS device
4. Run the application by pressing the ▶ Run button or typing ⌘+R
5. Open the newly installed app on the iOS device
6. If two iOS devices are available, repeat these steps to install the sample application on both the primary device and the secondary device.

Registering push tokens

In order to make and receive calls, authenticate the user with SendBird server with the SendBirdCall.authenticate(with:) method and register a VoIP push token to SendBird. You can register a VoIP push token during authentication by either providing it as a parameter in the authenticate() method, or after authentication has completed using the SendBirdCall.registerVoIPPush(token:) method. VoIP Push Notification will also enable receiving calls even when the app is in the background or terminated state. A valid APNS certificate also needs to be registered on the SendBird Dashboard : Application → Settings → Notifications → Add certificate.

To handle a native-implementation of receiving incoming calls, you can choose to implement Apple’s PushKit framework and CallKit. This is done by registering device tokens associate with your SendBird Applications. For more information refer to Apple’s Voice Over IP (VoIP) Best Practices

Making calls

1. Log in to the primary device’s sample application with the ID of the user designated as the caller.
2. Log in to the secondary device’s sample application with ID of the user designated as the callee. Alternatively, use the Calls widget found on the Calls dashboard to login as the callee.
3. On the primary device, specify the user ID of the callee and initiate a call.
4. If all steps have been followed correctly, an incoming call notification will appear on the callee user’s device.
5. Reverse roles, and initiate a call from the other device.
6. If the caller and callee devices are near each other, use headphones to prevent audio feedback.

Reference

• SendBird Calls iOS SDK Readme