I want to develop an iOS app that uses an external hardware plug-in, kind of like Square https://squareup.com. However I was unable to find any references in Apple's documentation. Can someone point me to the right direction?
If you want to use the iPod connector to connect to your hardware, the only option is the External Accessory framework. Be advised that you must be a registered accessory developer (more expensive than the standard developer license).
I believe Square uses the audio input (others may correct me), an ingenious hack that doesn't require use of the iPod connector. If your hardware can operate over (analog) audio in/out, that might be an option to consider.
This book might help you: Building iPhone OS Accessories: Use the iPhone Accessories API to Control and Monitor Devices
In order to develop hardware accessories, you must be a member of Apple's MFi program. Despite what the user above stated, it doesn't cost anything. But it does require a lot more work than becoming an app developer.
Accessories don't necessarily need to go through the MFi process if they are NOT over 30pin connector OR bluetooth (ie, the Square connecter goes through the headphone port, or any WiFi accessories).
Related
I'm trying to determine what functionality I can add to a BT accessory by paying for the MFI authentication coprocessor. For example, could I...
A. Pass location data to the accessory?
B. Push incoming SMS messages to the accessory?
C. Launch my app on the phone from the accessory?
As Dennis mentioned, all information regarding the MFi program is covered under a VERY water tight NDA. However, what can be said is that all devices that connect to the iPad through Bluetooth or the docking connector port are accessed through the External Accessory framework. Documentation on the External Accessory framework is easily accessibly from Apple's documentation pages and can also be easily googled.
Communication with devices through the External Accessory framework is fairly simple once you've established a connection with a device. In short, the process is to find the desired connected accessory from an array of devices, establish a connection session and the session object contains a input and output stream. Data by creating a delegate that with the device and finally, monitor the associated input and output streams which you use to communicate with the device.
Again, the majority of the information associated with MFi is tightly sealed. However, as far as connecting to devices (that you have the right to connect to) is simple, well documented and is easily searchable since the framework is part of the standard, iOS library.
One other note on Bluetooth. There is also a Core Bluetooth framework that is available with iOS 5.0 and up. This is a much simpler framework that you can use to discover and auto pair with Bluetooth Low-Energy devices (which are part of the new Bluetooth 4.0 spec.)
If you are planning on making an iPad application or desire to have a fairly high level of backwards compatibility with earlier iOS devices, I wouldn't recommend using the new CoreBluetooth framework. The reason is because only the iPhone 4S and the soon to be released "New iPad" have the necessary Bluetooth chipset to connect with Bluetooth LE devices.
All Mfi information is under NDA.
It dosent cost anything to sign up and get access to the information , you can do it here.
https://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi/
I've been trying to find examples on communicating with bluetooth devices on iOS and have been coming up short. As I understand it SPP is not yet supported. At the simplest level, I'd like to send a simple 1 or 0 signal to the bluetooth device I'm creating. (It's a bluetooth switch that would turn something on and off). Is there a way to cleverly do this through the HID or HFP profiles?
The short answer to your question is that you can't connect to an arbitrary Bluetooth device you may happen to have, you can only connect to a Bluetooth device that has come through Apple's licensing program (i.e. the "Made for iPod/iPhone" label). From Apple's documentation:
Q: [The External Accessory framework allows] my application to communicate with Bluetooth devices. So why doesn't my application see the Bluetooth accessory sitting next to my iPhone?
A: The External Accessory framework is designed to allow iOS applications to communicate only with hardware accessories that are developed under Apple's MFi licensee program.
So there is no public API for accessing an arbitrary Bluetooth device from within iOS: you have to go through the External Accessory Framework to communicate via Bluetooth, and the EAF's mission is "communicate with MFi devices," not "communicate with arbitrary external devices." A sufficiently ingenious developer could probably hack something in there, but -
it's a non-trivial undertaking
you are spectacularly unlikely to get past the App Store approval process
So there's just not much percentage in it - the effort of doing so is unlikely to reward you.
If there already exists an MFi device that can be coerced into doing something that you want, that's probably your best chance - short of going through the MFi approval/licensing process yourself, of course. If you want to do so, have at it and good luck.
I'm answering this question late because Zeroxide's answer is incorrect (you can use a random Bluetooth keyboard with your iOS device because Apple implemented that connection, which is different from giving you a public API path to doing likewise) and I find Rokridi's answer to be incomplete-though-headed-in-the-right-direction.
Edit: A caveat has since been added to the linked Apple page about Bluetooth Low-Energy devices. So there's a loophole, but it's not a big one because very, very few Bluetooth LE devices have actually been produced as yet.
As far as i know, if your external device is non iOs device then you should use External Accessory Framework to communicate your application with it. Threfore, you external device should be certified by Apple through the Made for Ipod program (MFI). Hope this helps.
If you want to use classic Bluetooth (not BLE), then you have to first PAIR the iOS device to the Bluetooth device (in Settings). If you can't do that then you can't communicate with it with your app.
NO. whether device is MFi certified or not, you can connect device to iphone if bluetooth profile is HFP, or HID's (ordinary profiles. not iAP profile). Think about bluetooth headset or keyboard. does it need MFi mark on it to use? NO. Never.
I have been searching and searching, but found nothing yet. Is it really true that there isn't a straightforward way to establish a BT connection from my iPhone to another (3rd party) BT device, i.e. an audio receiver. I know this is possible through the OS (I own a Belkin BT music receiver that works this way - it appears in Settings and from there I can connect to it). Note that I am not interested in pairing to iOS-devices, but an iPhone and my custom made hardware.
I've managed to find Google's BTStack at code.google.com, iBlueNova, Celeste and more, which all must be run through Cydia or similar and also I stumbled upon Apple's MFI-program, which seems fairly complicated.
Does anyone have any experience with bluetooth and iOS, if so, how and where do I get started?
If one might be interested, the project I am developing involves a piece of hardware with a BT device attached on it. The app should be able to send simple commands via bluetooth (basically just ASCII characters) to the device, which will react depending on what it receives.
If you are developing accessories that need to connect to iOS devices and want to use your own communication mechanism then your only option is to join the Apple MFi program.
Is it possible to identify devices around me that have their bluetouth enabled?
I don't need to communicate with them, just know they are there.
I am looking for something similar to android's BluetouthDevice.startDiscovery()
Is something like this possible?
Apple turns out to be very restrictive about Bluetooth communications for iOS platform.
Focusing about a native application with Xcode (but not PhoneGap based - PhoneGap is a Xcode plugin that allows web apps to be converted into native ones; btw it gives a quite nice but limited access to underlying hardware resources) for a iOS device to communicate with bluetooth devices (even with discovery actions) the following conditions have to be met:
-) The device you're trying to discover must be equipped with Apple Bluetooth authentication chip (you can ask to Apple directly for the MFi program);
-) Internally your app must declare a protocol name (e.g.: net.yourcompany.proto0) which the devices you connect with must conform to;
-) You must use Apple's External Accessory Framework to establish communication with such devices.
In short, by this procedure Apple guarantees that the only Bluetooth communications an iOS device can establish are just with authorized and certified Bluetooth devices.
I've gone 400 Mph about this thing but I hope it can give you some pointer to start your search.
The topic is too wide to be treated here in its full length.
One thing you might want to look into is Bonjour and NSNetServiceBrowser.
You can publish a service and also search for other services around you. There are ways to run Bonjour in the background (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6345554/bonjour-in-the-background).
The only limitation with this approach is that everyone else would also need to be running the app as well. Also, by default Bonjour discovers over both WiFi and Bluetooth, something else you would probably need to look into.
I'm in the process of planning out a personal project that will be a media player and one of the things I would like to do is be able to dock my iPod touch (or any iPod or iPhone) and control it and play music off it like the speaker docs do that you can buy.
I found some information while searching around online for this but my question is can I make up a cable and use the serial protocol from any device or does Apple have this locked down so only certified/approved devices can communicate this way?
If you are looking to do this for yourself, I would recommend jailbreaking and the following resources on the web. These describe some methods of the Apple Accessory Protocol, and include some parts (at sparkfun) to execute. To get approved for the Apple method you need a corporation (or similar structure) and even legal counsel before you can get approved to even see the agreement you have to agree to in order to join.
http://nuxx.net/wiki/Apple_Accessory_Protocol
http://www.sparkfun.com/categories/101
There are even some great articles out there such as:
http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/ee476/FinalProjects/s2007/awr8_asl45/awr8_asl45/index.html
Good luck!
EDIT:
Since this is a relatively popular post, keep in mind that you can now use Bluetooth 4.0 LE for serial communication without approval from Apple (other than AppStore approval).
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/NetworkingInternetWeb/Conceptual/CoreBluetooth_concepts/AboutCoreBluetooth/Introduction.html
Only devices in the Made for iPod program which use Apple's proprietary authentication chip can communicate with the External Accessory framework on the iPhone or iPod touch. Such devices must also expose a protocol that iPhone applications can use.
It is a reasonably involved process to be approved as a Made for iPod vendor of products (similar to the App Store approval process, but for hardware), but it has become a lot easier than it used to be. With iPhone OS 3.0, Apple has opened up the program to many more third parties than just the usual large accessory providers.
In your case, I'd actually wait and use another vendor's iPhone-controllable stereo. Manufacturers are just starting to come out with hardware controllable via iPhone applications, so it's only a matter of time before one of the larger accessory providers creates something like what you want. If they expose a protocol for controlling the device, all you'll have to do is write your application to control the device via that protocol.