RE: iOS13 Compatibility

David Ormand — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 01:31:11 GMT

Our client loaned us an iPhone8, and I put nRF Connect on it. I got a nRF52-DK and built and loaded the ANCS example. I _do_ see the ANCS advertising, and can get through all the steps of the example. I will poke our US field engineer with what I did.

I also tried to follow the example instructions using another nRF52-DK talking to nRF Connect running on the desktop. The docs state that after loading the ANCS_central.ncs setup file, I should be able to set some characteristics to send to the example. I don't see these characteristics. In fact, looking at this file, I should see a ANCS service with several characteristics. I don't see any effect in nRF Connect from loading this server setup file.

Further, when I'm looking at the devices scanned by nRF Connect on either iPhone or desktop, I see several devices. Some report a "Services" with a 16-bit or 128-bit number, and some of those report a "Service Data" with another 16-bit number and a series of bytes. I can see in the ANCS project that the service UUID is being included in the advertising packet, but nRF Connect isn't reporting any info.

RE: iOS13 Compatibility

Kenneth — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 12:58:37 GMT

This was weird yes. Looks like even the default examples fails in his case.

Are we sure that the peripheral examples are advertising? I am thinking his hardware might have been previously used with central devices that have bonded and paired with the hardware he is using, typically if these central devices are still in the area they would immediately connect since they believe they are still in a "relationship" with the hardware. Also, if you support bonding in the peripheral device, then the peripheral device may also enable whitelisting (this would prevent other peers to connect even if advertisement was visible).

In general you may find chapter 36 useful for iOS in specific:
https://developer.apple.com/accessories/Accessory-Design-Guidelines.pdf

To comment on your questions:

1. This will only influence discovery time, not that it's not visible or not able to connect.

2. For proprietary you need the entire 128-bit UUID yes.

3. This would not explain why it is not visible in nRF Connect app, since this only affect what happens while in a connection.

4. I am not aware of any issue, but trying Lightblue is worth a try in any case.