Transfer data between iOS and Android via Bluetooth?

android ios bluetooth gamekit bonjour
Shadowman picture Shadowman · Sep 19, 2013 · Viewed 318.2k times · Source

I've been reading up on how to transfer data between iOS devices over Bluetooth using GameKit. I'm not writing a game, per se, but do have a need to transfer a small amount of binary data between two devices. Between two iOS devices, this is easy enough. However, I was wondering if it is possible to transfer data between an iOS device and an Android device via the same mechanism.

Has anyone come across documentation/tutorial that would explain how to do this? Is it even technically possible? Or has Apple put in some sort of restriction that would prevent this?

The other option I discovered was Bonjour over Bluetooth. Would this be a more suitable option for this type of operation?

Answer

allprog picture allprog · Sep 24, 2013

This question has been asked many times on this site and the definitive answer is: NO, you can't connect an Android phone to an iPhone over Bluetooth, and YES Apple has restrictions that prevent this.

Some possible alternatives:

  1. Bonjour over WiFi, as you mentioned. However, I couldn't find a comprehensive tutorial for it.
  2. Some internet based sync service, like Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3. These usually have libraries for several platforms.
  3. Direct TCP/IP communication over sockets. (How to write a small (socket) server in iOS)
  4. Bluetooth Low Energy will be possible once the issues on the Android side are solved (Communicating between iOS and Android with Bluetooth LE)

Coolest alternative: use the Bump API. It has iOS and Android support and really easy to integrate. For small payloads this can be the most convenient solution.

Details on why you can't connect an arbitrary device to the iPhone. iOS allows only some bluetooth profiles to be used without the Made For iPhone (MFi) certification (HPF, A2DP, MAP...). The Serial Port Profile that you would require to implement the communication is bound to MFi membership. Membership to this program provides you to the MFi authentication module that has to be added to your hardware and takes care of authenticating the device towards the iPhone. Android phones don't have this module, so even though the physical connection may be possible to build up, the authentication step will fail. iPhone to iPhone communication is possible as both ends are able to authenticate themselves.

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