I am looking to develop an iPhone application that will require point-to-point WiFi communications on an iPhone. I would like to use the WiFi interface and have the application stream between the phone and a WiFi device. Does anyone have some experience with this? Is it even possible? I know there is a discovery application but I am looking for something a little more robust.
As far as I know (as the SDK stands now), the only thing available is communication over the existing network connection. The SDK doesn't allow for setting up wireless network connections, or creating ad-hoc networks. I believe the only way to join or create wifi networks is through the settings app.
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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
I'm developing an iPhone/iPad app that requires it communicate with another device. I'm actually more interested in receiving input from another device that the iPhone is connected to through USB. The solution needs to work with any iOS device and cannot require it to be jailbroken.
I've heard of apps that communicate with a piece of hardware that can be plugged to the iOS' serial connection, which is similar to what I'm going to develop except that the other device I'll be connecting to is a standalone music keyboard.
best regards,
fbr
If you are developing accessories that need to connect to iOS devices and want to use your own communication mechanism then you need to join the Apple MFi program.
Several options:
Forget MFi unless you have 1000s of $ backing up your product development. Apple won't even talk to you. I've tried.
Take a look at the Serial Cable from Redpark (http://redpark.com/c2db9.html)
I've got one of those and it's ideal for apps that you can deliver on your own, but you might also be able to get them into the App Store.
Another option is to use Wifi with a Wifi-to-Serial adapter on the other end. I've used the RN-174 and RN-134 from Roving Networks successfully.
However, these solutions only get you Serial connections, but can be quite fast, especially with the RN modules. There are also Serial-to-USB converters you can use on the device's end, but that would require the device to work as a USB host, usually. If you have a USB device that wants to act as a client, these common adapters won't do the trick.
So, unless you can actually afford the MFi program, and if you really need USB connectivity, you'll have to let someone create a small box containing a USB host adapter with a Wifi chip. I don't know of a ready-made solution for this yet, although I've seen quite a few area where people would like to have such a unit.
(I am not interested in pure theory, but as a practical near or mid-term possibility, say within 12-24 months.)
As a developer familiar with (but not specializing in) two major smartphone platforms, should I expect an Android library to come out which can spoof itself onto an iPhone app's GameKit-based network. It seems reasonable that a Bluetooth interface between platforms might square the opportunity to make useful applications, in the same way that modems benefited PC/Mac platforms via Metcalfe's Law.
I am looking for one of two answers:
Is this obviously not likely (e.g. because of encryption)? If so, what is the reason? Is it possible in principle, but requiring years of reverse-engineering (like SMB/CIFS/Samba)? Or is it a no-brainer and just a matter of time? Please give evidence supporting your reason.
Is there an alternative way to have direct peer-to-peer networking besides GameKit? For example, a hand-rolled network using Bluetooth or ad-hoc WiFi? It would be nice to spoof an Android device into an existing iPhone app but my main question is, can the devices speak with each other at all!
Yes, it is possible. GameKit is a protocol using TCP and/or UDP over a BNEP Bluetooth connection. It also uses a trick to identify other iOS devices using the Extended Inquiry mechanism in Bluetooth 2.1+.
I was able to simulate the EIR responses, now, someone needs to reverse engineer the GameKit protocol. This doesn't need Bluetooth, as it is also used for GameKit connections over WLAN.
If anybody can re-implment GameKit for WLAN connections, I can finish the Bluetooth version.
No, and it wont come soon or even at all... Apple pride themselves with their security features, and bluetooth connections can access private data. There will probably not be any cross platform bluetooth framework until something is agreed upon by both companies.
Bump as said by a previous answerer uses a remote server, and the data transferred is not via BT.
GameKit is Bonjour so a Bonjour (which is on IP) over Bluetooth on Android should work.
That should be possible as Bluetooth is capable of setting up tcp/ip networks. Though I have no knowledge of the IPhone SDK whatsoever, but Android does have a BluetoothSocket and BluetoothServerSocket for TCP connections.
This article, http://blog.moritzhaarmann.de/blog/2014/04/27/sorry-state-of-p2p/ written in 2014, suggest it is possible via Bluetooth LE. Available in Android 4.3+ and iOS6+
Two issues:
According to the Android Dashboard only around 30 percent of Android devices support Bluetooth LE https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html?utm_source=ausdroid.net
Communication between Android-to-Android must be done using some other method (which is not a big problem) because Android devices cannot act as server for B LE connections.
Bounjour on the iPhone gives you full access to all of the Bluetooth protocols, so you don't have to use GameKit. As for when someone will provide an easy to use iPhone to Android GameKit like framework - hard to tell.
An iPhone can already talk to any other Bluetooth device using Bonjour today.
-t
It is absolutely possible! In fact I am amazed that more people haven't done it!
Theory:
Bluetooth is just a wireless socket that you push data across and it comes across the other side, just like tcp/ip.
Practice:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/11/bump-goes-cross-platform-with-new-android-app-upgrades-iphone-version-too/
Better yet, Bump is cross-platform, which means that you can bump an Android phone with an iPhone and it should work seamlessly.
I was just wondering if it is possible to set up a data transfer tunnel between an iPhone and a Mac using the Wifi hardware present on both devices? My main objective is to transfer data from my iPhone to my Mac through an app along an ad hoc wifi connection. If there are any other methods you would like to suggest, then please do.
Looking forward to your replies.
Thanks!
A.K.
You can make use of Bonjour, via NSNetServices and CFNetServices APIs.
Basically:
Create a server on the Mac
Announce the server via Bonjour
Browse Bonjour on the phone and resolve the bonjour service.
Establish connection
Exchange data via socket streams
You cannot automagically do this, yet. That is, you must manually create the ad hoc wireless network (a "computer-to-computer network" in Apple parlance) first on the Mac, then join the iPhone to it just like any other WiFi network. After this, the methods suggested above will work just fine.
What I think you are suggesting, also known as WiFi Direct, is a very new specification that is not yet supported by the iPhone or OS X (as of this writing).
You'd probably want to look at NSNetServices/CFNetServices (Bonjour) for a common API to accomplish that sort of connection.
I am looking for a way to establish a wireless connection between an iPhone and a desktop client. Gamekit looks promising but all the examples / documentation only explain iPhone to iPhone.
Are there examples / documentation for an Gamekit peer on the desktop (cocoa or java)?
What are the alternatives without doing to much low level socket programming?
The iPhone emulator does not run these bluetooth p2p connections. Hence, it can only be tested with real hardware.
It is a little confusing because the GKSession reference talks only about being a way to connect peers over bluetooth, while the GKPeerPickerController states "can be configured to select between Bluetooth and Internet connections." However there's a clear note there that they're not really going to help you with internet based connections.
This is unfortunately a non-answer, but...
GameKit is an abstraction of the bluetooth and wifi networking layers, allowing a specific set of protocols for communication between two devices -- to communicate with a desktop client, you would need to replicate all of the GameKit functionality on the desktop, since there is no comparable API on the desktop. This would not be a simple undertaking.
I would highly suggest developing something over bonjour, as #Jordan suggested. Bill Dudney's project (blog article). It's a great place to start.
Citing Game Kit Framework Reference's Features paragraph:
Peer-to-peer connectivity allows your game to create an ad hoc Bluetooth or wireless network between multiple iPhones in the same local area. Although designed with games in mind, this network is useful for any type of data exchange among users of your app. For example, an app could use peer-to-peer connectivity to share electronic business cards or other data. This functionality is only available on iOS. You can also get the same functionality using Game Center.