I want to be able to send files from an iPhone app to a computer. What would be the easiest way of doing this?
I've made simple server client programs before, but in those, the client has always needed to connect to the server before being able to receive messages from it. There is an app for the iPhone called iSimulate, where you put a server on a Mac (the iPhone simulator), and then you use the iSimulate app of an iTouch or iPhone to send touch events to the server. This app does not require you to type in an ip-address. Instead it presents a list of available computers that have this server up and running.
How exactly is this being done? Can a server broadcast a message over a network, w/o anyone being connected to the server? How does that work? How does a client listen for that broadcast?
Here's a video of the app I'm talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3Qpd1ycZh4
alt text http://a1.phobos.apple.com/us/r1000/051/Purple/7b/07/70/mzl.mvwjifyc.320x480-75.jpg
That app may be using Bonjour.
I've seen similar apps use a peer-to-peer Bluetooth connection to exchange files between a iPhone and a desktop.
Related
I have a client - server IOS application. In addition, I need to write an application for it on WatchOS. So I have 2 questions:
When I send a command from Apple Watch, do I need to connect to the server from the watch or transfer information to the IOS application and connect to the server from the phone?
If I have to connect to the server with an IOS application, then how can I connect in background mode?
As an example, you can take any messenger, for example Telegram
If I reply to a message with AppleWatch, how is the message being sent to the server (Via iPhone or directly via AppleWatch)
For connection to the server, I use the "Starscream" framework
Maybe I don't understand something, but Apple made it impossible to establish a connection in background mode
I would be grateful if you tell me or provide examples and articles, so that I could understand what to do.
Apple Watch apps can connect directly to servers using URLSession ... no need to go via the phone.
Here is an example on using URLSession in Combine, which is the "latest and greatest" way of doing things.
Otherwise this example shows using it in a more conventional way, with the bonus of SwiftUI.
Otherwise
Im developing an app where one iOS device act as "server", and other devices are acting like clients.
Im getting hard time with understanding if I can make this using Bonjour
If I make an example:
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All devices have same app installed. All users are connected to the same WIFI.
User must login into app, and when it does, chat rooms are populated from CMS (web server) from internet.
All of them see e.g. all "chat rooms". But at the beginning chat rooms are all read only. Anyone can browse these, but nobody can write into them.
When administrator (user with admin privileges) opens one of the chat rooms; all clients are now able to write into "open" chat rooms.
Of course when one user writes something down, the other users see the newest comment from him.
Administrator should see all clients in chat room but clients cannot see each other.
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All samples which I have found (WiTap, videos from WWDC,...) are using two devices only. I've installed WiTap on 4 devices. And I can establish connection and working "sample" game with two devices.
Can Bonjour service be used in such way that multiple cients are connected to one "server"?
Any hints are very welcome!
Yes, Bonjour can be used like that: for example Apache on Mac OS X has mod_bonjour so that web browsers can find a web server on the local network. That can mean having one server but multiple browsers: exactly the situation you describe.
One limitation is that the way Bonjour is configured in iOS means that the server and clients need to be on the same local network. It doesn't sound like the situation you describe is compatible with using Bonjour in that way, but then I also don't think you need to. You can use the DNS name of your chat server in the app, so any app can discover the server. The server can also be responsible for discovering which clients are connected and allowing people to find each other (indeed, I guess that's what the chat rooms are for).
This is a good place to start. http://mobileorchard.com/tutorial-networking-and-bonjour-on-iphone/ I have build the same Server and client with the help of chatty. But you will face one problem in iOS5 only, when the iphone will go to sleep mode, the socket connection lost. I am not able to solve this problem. So, looking for help. :)
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/
Background
There are a lot of App Store released iPhone apps that require an IP based server on the desktop so that the iPhone can connect to the desktop as a client. For example, there are many programs that emulate a keyboard, touchpad, or Apple remote on the iPhone so that a desktop computer can be controlled over wifi. However, many of these applications get around writing their own server by requiring the user to install some VNC server variant.
Question
What is the best way to implement a secure (encrypted) IP server on a desktop (Mac and Windows platforms) that allows for simple two way message passing between itself and an iPhone client on a wifi network?
Sample Use Case
An event on the desktop causes the desktop to push a small image or text to the iPhone. An event on the iPhone causes a short text message to be pushed to the desktop. Any single event can happen at any time (doesn't appear synchronized to the user).
1st Follow-Up Question
Would this type of project be best handled using something like XML or JSON over HTTP? Or is there a better protocol, like BEEP or Bonjour(XMPP)?
What is the best way to implement a secure (encrypted) IP server on a desktop (Mac and Windows platforms) that allows for simple two way message passing between itself and an iPhone client on a wifi network?
Not sure if there is a "best" way, but much code is already available to do xyz-over-HTTPS (TLS/SSL). In that case, the "xyz" can be any web-based message exchange protocol, such as XML, JSON, etc. via REST or SOAP, etc.
If you want to be able to push events to a non-jailbroken iPhone you can't do it other than via Apple's Push Server which causes a notification to the client program if it is running or otherwise displays an alert of some kind to the user.
Typical architecture has those notifications handled by the client program as an indication it should go and get some data from the server - Apple insist we do not regard the notifications as trusted delivery.
I suggest a read of this article on using Bonjour and local networking, whilst it's iPhone to iPhone it should apply to desktop OS/X also.
I know since the 3.0 SDK we can use accessories, so my question is simple, what is the process to make an iPhone app and PC (or Mac) app interact, using the USB ?
I don't ask you any code, but just the paths and the keys for making that work.
Have I to access the iPhone disk through SSH and work with files ?
Or can I send data from the iPhone app and intercept (get) it on the PC app (and send data from PC to iPhone) ?
Thanks, and if this question is stupid, just tell me, I didn't find on Dev Center (I don't really know what I have to looking for...) !
Edit : I read some news from Microids, they will synchronize PC and iPhone games (i.g here), and somewhere (I can't find it again) they say connecting the iPhone on the USB, so I think this is possible
USB access on the phone is only supported via the External Accessory Framework. You cannot hook the iPhone up to arbitrary USB devices, the devices actually have to support the EA protocol. You can get more details about it via the Made for iPhone program.
Other than that there is no USB access available on to applications.
You want the External Accessory Framework. Having said that, I'm not sure that Apple's intention was for you to communicate with an application on a PC/Mac. It's really for talking to accessories such as iPod docks, remote controls, etc. Apple may not allow an application that talks to a PC in this manner in the App Store.
You might be interested in ssh_relay (earlier called iphone_tunnel).
There is a /System/Library/Lockdown/Services.plist on your iPhone and you can start any such services via AMDeviceStartService and then communicate with it.
The ssh_relay demonstrates how to do that by having a simple port forwarder as a service on the iPhone site and the client application on your PC, so you can forward any local iPhone port to your PC. This is not exactly what you wants here (it is handy in the case you have already another service running on the iPhone which communicates via simple TCP and you want to access that; for example SSH) but based on this example, it should be straight-forward to have any communication between the service (in Services.plist) and your PC.