I am trying to build an iOS application that streams audio coming directly from the input (or mic) of a device. What I am thinking is that every certain period of time, I'd have to send the audio buffer to the server, so that the server sends it to another client that might want to listen. I am planning to use WebSockets for the server-side implementation.
Is there a way to grab just a specific stream of buffer from the input (mic) of the iOS device and send it to the server while the user speaks another bit and so on and so forth? I am thinking that if I could start an AVAudioRecorder perhaps with AVAudioEngine and record every 1 second or half a second, but I think that that would create too much of a delay and possibly lost streams in the transition process.
Is there a better way to accomplish this? I am really interested in understanding the science behind it. If this is not the best approach please tell me which one it is and maybe a basic idea for its implementation or something that could point me in the right direction.
I found the answer to my own question!! The answer lies in the AVFoundation framework, specifically AVCaptureAudioDataOutput and its delegate that will send you a buffer as soon as the input source captures it.