How to check iOS device chip is A9 or A10? - ios

Question

Apple announced HEVC encode support for A10 devices running iOS 11, and HEVC decode support for A9 devices running iOS 11.
Before create those hardware codec, how to check if current device is support the feature?
What is the chip? A8, A9, or A10 without hard code the model.

Answer 1

Don't check for the specific SOC, check for the feature you actually want. You'll need the VideoToolbox call VTIsHardwareDecodeSupported, passing the kCMVideoCodeType_HEVC key:
VTIsHardwareDecodeSupported(kCMVideoCodeType_HEVC)
However, iOS has software decoder fallbacks for HEVC if you need them.
Edit: Ah, sorry - I misread and thought you were talking about decoding. For encoding, you may be able to get what you want with VTCopySupportedPropertyDictionaryForEncoder, using the kCMVideoCodeType_HEVC and specifying the parameters you want to encode. I don't know if iOS has a fallback software encoder for HEVC, so this may give false positives.

Answer 2

For encoder, I could not find an official way but this seems to work in my tests:
#import <AVFoundation/AVFoundation.h>
#import <VideoToolbox/VideoToolbox.h>
- (BOOL)videoCodecTypeHevcIsSuppored {
if (#available(iOS 11, *)) {
CFMutableDictionaryRef encoderSpecification = CFDictionaryCreateMutable( NULL,0, &kCFTypeDictionaryKeyCallBacks, &kCFTypeDictionaryValueCallBacks);
CFDictionarySetValue(encoderSpecification, kVTCompressionPropertyKey_ProfileLevel, kVTProfileLevel_HEVC_Main_AutoLevel);
CFDictionarySetValue(encoderSpecification, kVTCompressionPropertyKey_RealTime, kCFBooleanTrue);
OSStatus status = VTCopySupportedPropertyDictionaryForEncoder(3840, 2160, kCMVideoCodecType_HEVC, encoderSpecification, nil, nil);
if (status == kVTCouldNotFindVideoEncoderErr) {
return NO;
}
return YES;
}
return NO;
}

Answer 3

kanso's great answer in Swift 4.
Assumes that we target only iOS11 or higher and adds an extra check:
import AVFoundation
import VideoToolbox
#available (iOS 11, *)
func isHEVCHardwareEncodingSupported() -> Bool {
let encoderSpecDict : [String : Any] =
[kVTCompressionPropertyKey_ProfileLevel as String : kVTProfileLevel_HEVC_Main_AutoLevel,
kVTCompressionPropertyKey_RealTime as String : true]
let status = VTCopySupportedPropertyDictionaryForEncoder(3840, 2160,
kCMVideoCodecType_HEVC,
encoderSpecDict as CFDictionary,
nil, nil)
if status == kVTCouldNotFindVideoEncoderErr {
return false
}
if status != noErr {
return false
}
return true
}