Cordova trying to dial telephone number - ios

Question

I am trying to dial a phone number in iOS, however I only have the simulator and an iPod Touch to test on.
The code uses something along the lines of:
window.location.href = 'tel:[phone]';
Working fine with Android, but in iOS it dies with:
Failed to load webpage with error: The URL can't be shown
Now, I do realise this has been asked before, but the general consensus from some time ago was "It doesn't work, you'll need to use a plugin". There haven't been many questions on this for some time though, and what questions there are seem to suggest it works when doing it programmatically (as above with window.location.href). I have tried the iOS PhoneDialer and the newer version of the same plugin, but both have errors in XCode (ARC forbids explicit message send of 'release') - a bit of faffing and I can get this running, but then PhoneGap doesn't find the plugin - it really feels like I'm hitting a brick wall with this method, and I can't believe something as simple as this requires something so over the top.
I know you cannot auto-dial/auto-call a number for security reasons, but all I need to do is open the dialer with number pre-populated, which is surely no different to a mailto:info#example.com link opening your email client with the sender pre-populated?
So, my questions are:
Has this changed with a recent update to PhoneGap, iOS or XCode?
Or, is it a case that I cannot do this on an iPod or Simulator, and it will work fine on an iPhone?
How can I fix it? :)

Answer 1

You didn't specify which version of Cordova you are using so I'm going to assume version > 3.
Make sure that InAppBrowser, a plugin since version 3, is installed and then open the link by calling it through Javascript like this:
window.open('tel:[phone]', '_system')
_system will open it with the systems own browser which in turn will open the call dialog, if you use it against http://maps.apple.com/ it will open in the maps app and similar for other apps which opens for special urls.
Remarks:
As described in the docs of the InAppBrowser plugin the window.open function won't be set automatically. You have to do it your self: window.open = cordova.InAppBrowser.open;. Instead you can directly use cordova.InAppBrowser.open('tel:[phone]', '_system');
Make sure your number doesn't have any blankspaces in it (the +
prefix is okay). For example you could use a function like the following,
assuming num is a string.
Function:
function placeCall(num) {
if (window.cordova) {
cordova.InAppBrowser.open('tel:' + num.replace(/\s/g,''), '_system');
}
}

Answer 2

Below Code works perfectly fine for iphone:-
window.open('tel:123456', '_system');
Simulator doesn't support dialer. No need to waste time.

Answer 3

Make sure that the phone number in your href also doesn't have any formatting in it, as on iOS it causes the link not to work in a PhoneGap App. So for example, use tel:[phone], and not tel:[phone].

Answer 4

I don't believe this is a Cordova issue. I know in native iOS you cannot bring up the dialer on the simulator or on an iPod touch. You will need to test this on an actual iPhone.

Answer 5

I know this is a late answer time.
Try by adding // to the url. Like this tel://xxxxxxxxx and see if it works.
Worked for me in IOS 8.4, iPhone 6, 6+ as of today.