can iphone use as a receiver? - iphone

Can iphone use as a receiver ? Let's say, there will be one app which can connect with a hardware that can send RDF signal. Is that possible iphone to receive signal without any additional hardware ? Thanks.

It's not possible without any additional hardware.
In order to make peripherals work with iPhone you need to contact Apple and become a registered peripheral developer, the membership that allows manufacturers to use the "Made for iPhone" etc labels.
Once you're a member you can get access to the peripherals SDK which allows you to develop for devices that connect to the iPhone using the 30 pin dock connector.
Without developing a device that receives RDF signal that can connect to the iPhone either using the dock connector or a network connection, there's no other way to make the iPhone receive that signal.

If the RDF hardware is able to communicate using standard UDP or TCP/IP based methods then the iPhone can communicate with it using network communication classes. This could be CFNetwork or higher level classes such as NSURLConnection.

Related

Bluetooth HFP (1.5) communication on iPhone

The Bluetooth v2.1 specifies the so called "Secure Simple Pairings" methods - one of those methods is called Out of band (OOB) and according to Wikipedia This method uses an external means of communication, such as Near Field Communication (NFC) to exchange some information used in the pairing process.
Whatever is the "external means of communication" of getting the PIN, the handsfree device id, etc. - is it possible on iPhone to initiate the hands-free connection from the code? I.e. if i have all necessary information in my application can I say iPhone to connect to the handsfree using given information?
If it is not part of the public API, has Apple some process to allow some companies to get access to some additional non-public features?
If you want to connect a Bluetooth 2.1 device to your iOS device, you must do it through the Settings->General->Bluetooth screen.
However, for the iPhone4S and the New iPad, you can detect and connect Bluetooth devices that Low-Energy devices.
The Bluetooth Low-Energy specification is part of the (some-what) new Bluetooth 4.0 protocol and only these two Apple devices have the necessary components to connect with low energy devices.

What can MFI enable?

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/

Communication between iOS app in one Wi-Fi network w/o server

I need to communicate my app with 2 devices. A restriction is that I can't use a server but all iOS devices will be in one Wi-Fi network. What options do I have? How I can send a message to another copy of my app running on another device?
I dont know whether its a correct approach or not but as you cannot use server,so the approach i can think of is we can create a socket connection using TCP/IP or UDP(based on reliability) for data exchange.
I dont think you can communicate between 2 devices running the same application without having some kind of server application in-between.
Even if you could find the other device over the WIFI I dont think you can tell if the other device is running the app or not.
I think you may be referring to MultipeerConnectivity
The Multipeer Connectivity framework provides support for discovering
services provided by nearby iOS devices using infrastructure Wi-Fi
networks, peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth personal area networks and
subsequently communicating with those services by sending
message-based data, streaming data, and resources (such as files).
Source: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/MultipeerConnectivity/Reference/MultipeerConnectivityFramework/
Apple Sample:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/samplecode/MultipeerGroupChat/Introduction/Intro.html

How can I create a small Mac app that receives data over the WiFi network from an iOS app?

What I need is to have a simple screen in this Mac app that just prints a string as the iPhone is transmitting strings through the WiFi network.
This string is simply a string value from a slider being adjusted up and down by the user on the iPhone. The data will be sent to the Mac app and then the Mac app will receive this signal from the WiFi network and simply print the values.
This is a constant connection. I'm not trying to sync once. I'm trying to listen to the iPhone device from the Mac to see if the iPhone is sending any more strings as the user slides the UISlider up and down from the iPhone app.
How can I create the client side? Do I need to use Bonjour or something?
In my answer to this question, I provide a link to a sample application that has a Mac component and an iPhone one. These components communicate between one another over a WiFi network, with changes in a label on one being reflected in the other. This is done using Bonjour discovery and the standard networking APIs.
With simple modifications, this could be used to send the continuous updates you need for your particular case.
Use the CFNetwork framework, you can use bonjour for discovery and then handle a persistent connection through native sockets for passing data back and forth.
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Networking/Conceptual/CFNetwork/Introduction/Introduction.html
Here is an excellent tutorial to get started, its for iOS but CFNetwork is available in OS X too.
http://mobileorchard.com/tutorial-networking-and-bonjour-on-iphone/

How to integrate iPhone with other non iPhone devices using serial port?

Anybody knows how to integrate iPhone with other non-iPhone devices using serial port?
You can't directly. There may be some sort of serial line (i2c) on the dock connecter, but it is not exposed through the SDK, the Made for iPhone/ExternalAccessory.framework stuff is only for USB and BT.
You could conceivably use a WiFi/serial bridge (such things do exist) since you can send whatever you want over a TCP tunnel, but I doubt that is what you want.
Underlying ExternalAccessoryFramework for 30-pin connector it's the real UART handshaking (using Tx, Rx, Gnd, Vcc and some detect pins and no flow control) but not USB. Those pins of USB are only used for iTunes, Xcode and powering. The iOS app does not need to understand UART and only needs to send/receive bytes through NSOutputStream and NSInputStream.
But you need to pay Apple for MFi(Made For iPhone) Program first and buy some confidential IC to enable your accessory to communicate with iOS. They will require you to propose a product plan and expected sales and consider whether they would accept you as a MFi manufacturer.
You can get the info on using the ExternalAccessory framework from apple's developer portal.
You can't get the required serial handshake(?) info without joining the Made for iPhone program. This requires that you are developing a commercial device.
I have tried to get information on this protocol from apple through my university and have thus far failed.
I successfully received serial communication from the Arduino on the iPhone. I made a google doc explaining my process.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Yi9_hcw8XSyYNCG2OJT9oHlTG-dC-Dnuc58VIULa81Q/edit