accessing iPhone compass with JavaScript

Question

Know if it's possible to access the iPhone compass in Safari using JavaScript? I see how the GPS can be accessed, but I can't figure out the compass.

Thanks, as always!

Answer 1

On iOS, you can retrieve the compass value like this.

window.addEventListener('deviceorientation', function(e) {
    console.log( e.webkitCompassHeading );
}, false);

For more informations, read the Apple DeviceOrientationEvent documentation.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

You cannot access that information via javascript, unless you're using something like iPhoneGap

At the time this was true, in iOS 5 you can use the compass heading in JS. https://developer.apple.com/library/safari/#documentation/SafariDOMAdditions/Reference/DeviceOrientationEventClassRef/DeviceOrientationEvent/DeviceOrientationEvent.html#//apple_ref/javascript/instp/DeviceOrientationEvent/webkitCompassHeading

Answer 3

I advise you to use LeafletJS with this plugin
https://github.com/stefanocudini/leaflet-compass

very simple to use with events and methods.

You can try a demo here:
http://labs.easyblog.it/maps/leaflet-compass/