I have application that already uses BLE. I know bluetooth 5 is supported on iPhone 8 and iPhone X. Client wants me to add support for bluetooth 5. I found that CoreBluetooth can be used only to "Communicate with Bluetooth 4.0 low-energy devices". How can I use Bluetooth 5.0 on iOS?
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4There is nothing specific in iOS accessible to developers for Bluetooth 5. Core Bluetooth will work with Bluetooth 4 and later devices. – Paulw11 Jan 29 '18 at 10:52
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BLE 5 methods and delegates are working same as BLE 4 and next versions in iOS. – Deepak Tagadiya Jan 30 '18 at 09:55
3 Answers
At the time of writing this, Apple has not provided API support for Bluetooth 5 functionality or any of its features (e.g. Long range, 2xSpeed, LE Advert Extensions, etc), so there's nothing you can do at your end. Currently only Bluetooth 4.2 features are supported (e.g. Data Packet Length Extension, LE Secure Connections, etc). Please have a look at the links below:-
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/712/
https://developer.apple.com/bluetooth/
I hope this helps.

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Ok. I watched those videos and looked everywhere on the web, but couldn't find any useful information. Thanks for help. – Axel Jan 31 '18 at 10:56
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Is this still the case? How is it possible that they bothered changing the chip and didn't get anything out of it for a whole generation of phones or 2? – Fernando Mazzon Jan 28 '19 at 20:57
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1Any updates on this? I want to use Bluetooth 5's Long range modes but seems like there is no API for this yet. – Saad Mar 13 '20 at 10:40
iOS BLE 4.0 API s are not specific for Bluetooth 4.0 low-energy devices. Whatever works with Bluetooth 4.0 low-energy devices will also work for Bluetooth 5.0 low-energy devices.

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Core Bluetooth library was working with BLE. Its means no need to write different delegates and methods for bluetooth 4.0 or bluetooth 5.0. All delegates working same for BLE(4.0, 4.1, 4.2 and 5.0 = BLE).

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