My app needs to transfer data to and from a PC/Mac, but without using Wireless or 3G.
Is it possible to use the USB cable to run a server on the device accessible by the PC/Mac?
Accessing the app's documents-directory over USB from a program would work too.
What would be the best way? I need a solution, that will work on normal device, no jailbreak allowed. If it works without special drivers on the PC/Mac, that's a bonus too.
You should enable UIFileShareEnabled. More information is available here:
iTunes Documents Directory in my app
Related
In an automated test environment, I have to use 7.5GB of test data, that consists of 170k+ files. Simply copying it with the bundle is too slow (40+ minutes), thus I would like to incrementally sync the contents of the test data folder between the iOS device and the mac. Eg. using the iOS device as a USB drive, and use rsync to sync the contents, but any ideas are welcome. No, I can't jailbreak the device. Basically I want to keep two folders synchronized between an iOS test suite and a mac. Any ideas?
There is a way to do that using USB without jailbreaking your iOS device. The whole setup works via a UNIX socket called usbmuxd that Apple uses to communicate between a USB iOS device and e.g. Xcode or iTunes on a Mac. The iOS device basically opens a TCP server and the OSX app connects to the UNIX socket from which it can obtain a TCP connection to server on the iOS device. After that you can just write and read data over USB using streams at 480MBits.
There are some frameworks under MIT license with example apps for OSX and iOS that allow you to use this mechanism in your own apps:
https://github.com/jensmeder/DarkLightning
https://github.com/rsms/peertalk
This mechanism is App Store compliant in case u need to publish your app later. One popular example is an app called Duet Display that allows you to use your iPad as a second screen via USB.
Hope that helps.
Is it possible to send an ASCII code on an external device through USB port using IOS API? I assume that it is possible through bluetooth connection, but I'm not sure through USB connector. Any thoughts?
I would appreciate if someone could put me in the right direction.
Thanking you in advance
That largely depends on the level of sophistication of this "external device". If this external device is just a bare metal embedded device without some sort of operating system you definitely need MFI.
Otherwise, you can run a usbmuxd server (e.g. on Raspberry PI with Linux) to establish a connection via USB. Usbmuxd is basically the technology that Apple uses to communicate between iOS devices and Desktop apps such as iTunes or Xcode. And yes, it is App Store compliant, e.g., Duet Display uses this approach to make an iPad a secondary display for your Desktop via USB.
There are several open source libraries that provide a high level API, e.g., PeerTalk or DarkLightning.
I am developing an iOS app, which may need to sync a large amount of data with its OSX counterpart app, and for the use case in which the app would be used there may not be an internet connection available to connect either of the devices (iOS device & Mac).
Is there an official apple api that lets one sync data between an iOS app, and its OSX counterpart, without having to use the internet or iCloud ?
As far as I can tell, short of joining the MFI program, there isn't a way.
If you don't mind the user dragging some documents around, then you can create documents which can be accessed via iTunes: http://www.raywenderlich.com/1948/itunes-tutorial-for-ios-how-to-integrate-itunes-file-sharing-with-your-ios-app
What makes you think you need an Internet connection for WiFi?
If you are close enough for a USB cable, just create a WiFi network from the Mac (WiFi icon in the menu bar, "Create connection..."). Use bonjour to discover services, and then the apps can talk to each other.
I'm looking into the iOS sdk for examples of the ExternalAccessory framework to use the iphone/ipad as an USB device that can be plugged into a PC or Mac and present as external device (like a midi controller or something else)
The App i want to create requires connecting to a host (PC or Mac) the iphone via USB or bluetooth and present to the host a functionality. How can i implement this?
You'll probably have an easier time connecting via WiFi. You need to be part of the Apple Made for iPhone program, which is not easy to get into, to use Bluetooth or the dock connector to talk to peripherals. There's no such restriction on the use of WiFi. Also, you'll find a lot more helpful examples of connecting via WiFi on the web.
CoreMIDI is the appropriate API for emulating a MIDI device, which may be possible over USB using Apples Camera Connection kit.
Is it possible to pair an iDevice to an rs232-bluetooth adapter for the purpose of sending serial commands like it would through an iDevice dock connector to rs232 (just like the Redpark Serial Cable does)? I ask because the company I work for is thinking of having an iDevice control one of our systems for demo. I know it doesn't relate to anything specific but any information would be greatly appreciated.
(See also iPhone to RS-232 via Bluetooth)
Bluetooth modules exists that support MFi (Made For iPhone) such as this one from connectBlue http://www.connectblue.com/products/bluetooth-products/bluetooth-modules/bluetooth-iphone-ios-accessory-module-obs414/ So the standard iPhone Bluetooth stack can make a SPP/RFCOMM connection to that device. That device could be added to a board along with RS232 level-conversion etc... And thus success.
I don't know whether someone sells such a device. The RS232 device that connectBlue sells seems not to support MFi, http://www.connectblue.com/products/bluetooth-products/bluetooth-devices/bluetooth-rugged-serial-port-adapter-rbs433/
Not really. The GameKit is one way to access bluetooth in iOS, but it is very limited in what that API allows you to do.
Depending on what you are building, you might be able to use the Apple Made for iPod program, but it's probably a long shot.
http://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi/
The best way to go is probably to design a device that connects via WiFi. I've gone this route, and it worked out well. If you must interface with something with an RS-232 interface, you might design an intermediary "adapter" that connects via WiFi to the iOS device, and via RS-232 to the other device.
If you don't have a need to distribute your app via the App Store, you can use Redpark's iOS serial cable: http://redpark.com/c2db9.html. (Disclaimer, I've never tried one, but according to someone at Redpark, jailbreaking is not required, you just can't distribute your app on the app store.)
You could design a small dongle that attaches via the dock connector, and broadcasts over bluetooth to your other device.
Or you could use WiFi instead of bluetooth... perhaps communicating over WiFi to something that's physically plugged into whatever you want to control.
I worked on a jailbroken app which used BTStack to communicate with a serial device. You might be able to use this for your demo.
If you're still looking to use bluetooth, this helped me out alot to facilitate the standard serial connection for prototyping without jailbreaking:
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/bleshield-based-on-bluegigas-ble112-module-p-1367.html
It works on the Bluetooth 4.0 enabled iOS devices and all of the schematic, boardfiles, firmware sources and the iOS App sources are available here:
https://github.com/michaelkroll/BLE-Shield