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After searching on Google, I found that people say it's only possible to connect an iOS device with a non iOS device with the 'MFi program'. Is that true?

My project is mainly focused on sending and receiving information with the Arduino device via Bluetooth directly.

Is communication between iOS and non iOS devices without jailbreak possible? If yes, is there a reference?

(I viewed Stack Overflow question How can an iPhone access another non-iPhone device over wireless or Bluetooth?.)

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antonio081014
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    I am unfamiliar with iOS. Does the MFI lockdown situation prevent bluetooth HID devices from being used also? i.e. would a standard bluetooth keyboard work with an iOS device? If so you could use something like this http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10938 It is a bluetooth chip pre-loaded with HID firmware. It can be used with an arduino to programatically send data to the host device in the form of key presses. – FoamyGuy May 15 '12 at 23:47
  • Does a standard bluetooth keyboard work with an iOS device? – ManuelSchneid3r Feb 25 '13 at 13:06
  • I am using TI CC2540, ref – antonio081014 Feb 28 '13 at 05:00

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As I stated in the above-linked question, general Bluetooth communication to external devices on non-jailbroken iOS devices is restricted to MFi-compliant Bluetooth hardware.

However, newer iOS devices (iPhone 4S, new iPad) are capable of Bluetooth 4.0 LE communication with external devices without the need for those devices to be MFi-compliant. This interaction is done through the new Core Bluetooth framework, which lets you send and receive arbitrary data to and from Bluetooth LE devices. This only works with those listed newer iOS devices, though.

Tim points out an interesting hack that you might be able to get away with in making your device appear like a Bluetooth HID keyboard. Devices like this barcode scanner have special modes to appear as HID devices to iOS. You might be able to pull something together based on this, but all data transfer will be one-way from your device, and it looks like this will require entering that data into text fields as if you had a keyboard connected.

Brad Larson
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  • Is BT LE good for transferring big amount of data? if I need a pipeline between iPhone and a peripheral, I need SPP. right? – Gal Mar 07 '13 at 14:10
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    @Gal - That depends on how you define "big". Theoretically, Bluetooth LE supports up to 50 kbps as a data rate, compared to traditional Bluetooth's 1200 kbps. That's more than enough for sensor and control scenarios, but not so much for audio or video streaming. – Brad Larson Mar 07 '13 at 15:32
  • @Brad Larson♦, thanks for prompt response! Let's say I want to transfer my entire address book, will coreBT suffice? – Gal Mar 08 '13 at 07:49
  • @Gal - Again, the speed of this will depend on the size of the address book, but that should be small enough that transferring at 50 kbps wouldn't be too bad. – Brad Larson Mar 08 '13 at 15:52
  • can external keyboard which are not MFi-compliant connect to iOS devices ? – Javal Nanda Sep 08 '14 at 04:45
  • @JavalNanda - If they appear as standard keyboards, yes. – Brad Larson Sep 08 '14 at 18:58
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Alasdair Alan's "iOS Sensor Apps with Arduino" is a good resource to look at. I've used Wifi with another microprocessor (mbed) but not sure about bluetooth. Alasdair is active on Twitter and he usually is kind enough to answer questions.

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