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Is Wi-Fi Direct connection possible within iOS devices and among Wi-Fi Direct enabled devices?

The objective is to enable communication between an iOS device and another device (not necessarily another iOS device. It could be Android, Mac, PC) without the presence of any controllers. (WAPs).

Brendan
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RK-
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    A wifi direct device has a backwards compatibility mechanism to simplify connecton with older non wifi direct devices. It can automatically create an ad hoc network that other wifi devices that support ad hoc networks can join, just like they would join any other ad hoc network. So the question becomes two questions that someone more familiar with iOS wifi than me will need to answer: 1) Can an iOS device join an ad hoc wireless network? 2) What network services can an iOS device use on an ad hoc network? – Julian Higginson Apr 11 '12 at 00:58
  • Have you found a solution? – testing Jul 15 '15 at 12:19

3 Answers3

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iOS devices can connect to an ad-hoc network, and if they do so they will have full wireless network capabilities. The limitation is with creating an ad-hoc network from the device itself, which is not allowed/not possible.

An alternative would be to use the GameKit/Game Center API which uses Bluetooth to create a network between iOS devices. This would obviously include the more limited range of Bluetooth vs Wifi, as well as the constraints of Apple's SDK.

More information on Game Center in iOS 6 is available here: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/GameKit_Guide/Introduction/Introduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008304

doublesharp
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    Connecting to Ad-Hoc networks with an iOS device is not possible as of iOS6 (At least in most cases). Source: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4327536?start=0&tstart=0 If anyone knows a good reason for this I'd love to know. – Groot Feb 13 '13 at 13:37
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I have been looking into this recently and from my research,(please see "Device to device communication with WiFi Direct: Overview and experimentation" by Daniel Camps-Mur,....) the WiFi Direct does NOT create ad-hoc network. It's actually creating a WiFi infrastructure network where one party takes the role of AP (soft-AP). Once this established, the network works much like a normal WiFi network. Do we agree on this?

Given this is the fact, Apple iPhone should be able to connect to WiFi Direct device that is already set up as AP. I haven't check this though.

Having said this, How can you get an Android phone like Samsung Galaxy S3 or S4 to act as AP? there is nothing in the settings as far as I know. If you connect two such devices, one of them will take the role of AP. Now, iPhone will detect the established network, but when trying to connect to that, will be asked for WPA password. Good luck finding it! Cus you can't get it from the phone. I read somewhere that a file in Samsung Galaxy called WPA_Suppliciant.conf has the WPA key in it but I didn't see it there.

I believe if you could find WPA password, you can get the iPhone to easily connect.

Omid Roshan
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    I can confirm that iOS Devices are able to connect to a wifi-direct network, if this is already initiated as a group. I tried this by creating a wifi direct group with my linux machine. This creates automatically a visible wifi hotspot, where other devices like iPhones,iMacs... are able to connect. – chris LB Nov 13 '14 at 07:16
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    Could you post some example of how did you implement wi-fi direct on iOS? I'm search for this too, but not yet ... – FormigaNinja Jun 16 '15 at 02:02
  • you can get the wifi name and password after connecting to a wifi direct capable device or creating a wifi direct group yourself for other non-wifi-direct devices to join. see: https://developer.android.com/training/connect-devices-wirelessly/wifi-direct#create-group and https://developer.android.com/reference/android/net/wifi/p2p/WifiP2pManager#requestGroupInfo(android.net.wifi.p2p.WifiP2pManager.Channel,%20android.net.wifi.p2p.WifiP2pManager.GroupInfoListener) – xuiqzy Mar 29 '20 at 12:51
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iOS devices do not support Wi-Fi Direct functionality, they do not have WFD (Wi-Fi Direct) group creation or role negotiation (P2P Group Owner or Group Client) support. During a normal WFD connection one of the 2 devices takes role of Group Owner (Soft-AP) allowing other device to connect as a Group Client.

iOS has support for tethering which is normally know as Personal Hotspot option in Settings. It can be used for communication between iOS and non-iOS devices. For example, Application ShareIt uses similar way to connect iOS to non-iOS devices by creating a temporary Hotspot and in the non-iOS device and promts iOS user to go to Wi-Fi screen and connect manually. This is normally recommended when a common Wi-Fi network is not present.

Nikhil Pal Singh
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