Meteor - Detect Sim Phone Number

Question

Is there a way to detect the SIM phone number on a mobile device while using Meteor? Moreover, what is the correct behavior to have and precautions to make to log users using their phone number (like in Whatsapp or Viber for example)?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Getting the phone number from a visitor using a mobile device via a website or webapp is currently not possible.

I'd guesstimate that it very unlikly to ever be possible. Imagine if visiting websites on your phone allowed site owners to get your mobile number without permission??

Native and hybrid apps are different because they run on the device, allowing them access to the api's and hardware of that device.

But just because native/hybrid apps can access the phone number, it's not that simple, take a look at this SO question and the answer concerning breaking ios t&c and having the app rejected from the app store for using that functionality.

So the answer to your question is No, you can't do that right now, and very likley not ever.

Answer 2

It depends if it's a web app or a hybrid application

First case, web app

If you're talking about a Meteor application on the web which you will access with your phone's browser, then the answer is NO (see atmd's answer)

Second case, hybrid app

If you're talking about a hybrid app built with Cordova i.e. meteor run android, then YES it's possible

If you want to go quicker, I coded an example Meteor app: https://github.com/Erdou/meteor-cordova-phonenumber-example

1. Add Android platform (if not done yet)

$ meteor add-platform android   

2. Add a phone number plugin for Cordova

There is no plugin ready for Meteor, so you need to it manually. We will use this one here: https://github.com/rotorgames/phonegap-telephonenumber-plugin

• Get the .git path (near Github's Clone button): https://github.com/rotorgames/phonegap-telephonenumber-plugin.git
• Get the latest commit hash. In Github, click on the Latest commit number, and this number will fully show: ca0f55481fe8ea61e7857e96c1324591596271ee
• The command will be: $ meteor add cordova:[a plugin name]@[.git path]#[commit hash]

In our case:

$ meteor add cordova:cordova-plugin-phonenumber@https://github.com/rotorgames/phonegap-telephonenumber-plugin.git#ca0f55481fe8ea61e7857e96c1324591596271ee

3. Use it in your app

if (Meteor.isCordova) {
    TelephoneNumber.get(function(result) {
        console.log('Phone number: ' + result.line1Number);
      }, function() {
        console.log('Error. Do the phone have this feature? (Settings > About Phone > SIM > Number)');
      });
  }

4. Run the hybrid app

$ meteor run android

It should work! :)

A final case as a suggestion

As atmd said, using this feature is not recommended. If you want to know user's phone number, the best will be the implement the classical SMS sending / confirmation used by Viber or WhatsApp as you kind of guessed it.

I didn't test it, but there is even a Meteor package for that: https://github.com/DispatchMe/meteor-accounts-sms