Allow "auto lock" while video is being played

Question

No matter whether I am using MPMoviePlayerController or AVPlayer (AVFoundation), the iOS does not allow the device to auto lock (to enter sleep mode) while the video is playing.

I have a case where an extremely slow video is constantly being played in a loop in the background. While this video is playing, the device never goes to sleep.

So far, the only option I have is to detect when a user did not make any actions for a while and then pause the video. After that, the device counts down the "auto lock" duration that is specified in iOS Settings.

I am looking for an alternative to AVPlayer that will make this possible.

Similar questions:

How to allow iPhone auto-lock while playing a video

Is it possible to set AVPlayer to allow the device to go to sleep during video playback?

How to enable iPhone auto lock during MPMoviePlayer playback?

I had an idea to use HTML5 video inside a UIWebView, but iOS does not allow autoplay on those.

Answer 1

With iOS 12 this is now possible by setting

let player = AVPlayer()
player.preventsDisplaySleepDuringVideoPlayback = false

See: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avplayer/2990522-preventsdisplaysleepduringvideop#

Answer 2

Remember this is private API, I'm not sure if you can use it for appstore release or not.

Tested on iOS 9.

AVPlayer *player = // alloc init...
if ([player respondsToSelector:NSSelectorFromString(@"_preventsSleepDuringVideoPlayback")]) {
    [player setValue:@(NO) forKey:@"preventsSleepDuringVideoPlayback"];
}