Programmatically get own phone number in iOS

Question

Is there any way to get own phone number by standard APIs from iPhone SDK?

Answer 1

You cannot use iOS APIs alone to capture the phone number (even in a private app with private APIs), as all known methods of doing this have been patched and blocked as of iOS 11. Even if a new exploit is found, Apple has made clear that they will reject any apps from the app store for using private APIs to do this. See @Dylan's answer for details.

However, there is a legal way to capture the phone number without any user data entry. This is similar to what Snapchat does, but easier, as it does not require the user to type in their own phone number.

The idea is to have the app programmatically send a SMS message to a server with the app’s unique installation code. The app can then query the same server to see if it has recently received a SMS message from a device with this unique app installation code. If it has, it can read the phone number that sent it. Here’s a demo video showing the process. As you can see, it works like a charm!

This is not super easy to set up, but it be configured in a few hours at no charge on a free AWS tier with the sample code provided in the tutorial here.

Answer 2

No official API to do it. Using private API you can use following method:

-(NSString*) getMyNumber {
    NSLog(@"Open CoreTelephony");
    void *lib = dlopen("/Symbols/System/Library/Framework/CoreTelephony.framework/CoreTelephony",RTLD_LAZY);
    NSLog(@"Get CTSettingCopyMyPhoneNumber from CoreTelephony");
    NSString* (*pCTSettingCopyMyPhoneNumber)() = dlsym(lib, "CTSettingCopyMyPhoneNumber");
    NSLog(@"Get CTSettingCopyMyPhoneNumber from CoreTelephony");

    if (pCTSettingCopyMyPhoneNumber == nil) {
        NSLog(@"pCTSettingCopyMyPhoneNumber is nil");
        return nil;
    }
    NSString* ownPhoneNumber = pCTSettingCopyMyPhoneNumber();
    dlclose(lib);
    return ownPhoneNumber;
}

It works on iOS 6 without JB and special signing.

As mentioned creker on iOS 7 with JB you need to use entitlements to make it working.

How to do it with entitlements you can find here: iOS 7: How to get own number via private API?

Answer 3

To get you phone number you can read a plist file. It will not work on non-jailbroken iDevices:

NSString *commcenter = @"/private/var/wireless/Library/Preferences/com.apple.commcenter.plist";
    NSDictionary *dict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:commcenter];
    NSString *PhoneNumber = [dict valueForKey:@"PhoneNumber"];
    NSLog([NSString stringWithFormat:@"Phone number: %@",PhoneNumber]);

I don't know if Apple allow this but it works on iPhones.

Answer 4

At the risk of getting negative marks, I want to suggest that the highest ranking solution (currently the first response) violates the latest SDK Agreement as of Nov 5, 2009. Our application was just rejected for using it. Here's the response from Apple:

"For security reasons, iPhone OS restricts an application (including its preferences and data) to a unique location in the file system. This restriction is part of the security feature known as the application's "sandbox." The sandbox is a set of fine-grained controls limiting an application's access to files, preferences, network resources, hardware, and so on."

The device's phone number is not available within your application's container. You will need to revise your application to read only within your directory container and resubmit your binary to iTunes Connect in order for your application to be reconsidered for the App Store.

This was a real disappointment since we wanted to spare the user having to enter their own phone number.

Answer 5

AppStore will reject it, as it's reaching outside of application container.

Apps should be self-contained in their bundles, and may not read or write data outside the designated container area

Section 2.5.2 : https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#software-requirements