iOS 7 ANCS: Discovering the primary ANCS Service UUID

Question

Under iOS7, is the primary ANCS Service meant to be constantly advertised, or does it need to be enabled in obfuscated settings / implemented using a custom CBPeripheralMana

Answer 1

As a belated answer to this question, now that Mavericks is out, here is what we've come up with.

Our initial efforts to implement the ANCS specification between two iOS devices, one as Peripheral one as Central, were unsuccessful. Apple responded to us after some time (hat tip to their evangelists) and told us this was impossible.

With the addition of the CBPeripheralManager class and CBPeripheralManagerDelegate protocol to the CoreBluetooth.framework embedded in the IOBluetooth.framework on OSX Mavericks (deep breath), we can now use the BLE radio on an OSX device to implement and advertise ANCS.

Thus, this snippet belongs to a CBPeripheralManager on OSX:

- (void) advertiseANCS
{
    NSLog(@"%s", __FUNCTION__);

    // define the ANCS Characteristics
    CBUUID *notificationSourceUUID = [CBUUID UUIDWithString:@"9FBF120D-6301-42D9-8C58-25E699A21DBD"];
    CBMutableCharacteristic *notificationSource = [[CBMutableCharacteristic alloc] initWithType:notificationSourceUUID properties:CBCharacteristicPropertyNotifyEncryptionRequired value:nil permissions:CBAttributePermissionsReadEncryptionRequired];
    CBUUID *controlPointUUID = [CBUUID UUIDWithString:@"69D1D8F3-45E1-49A8-9821-9BBDFDAAD9D9"];
    CBMutableCharacteristic *controlPoint = [[CBMutableCharacteristic alloc] initWithType:controlPointUUID properties:CBCharacteristicPropertyWrite value:nil permissions:CBAttributePermissionsWriteEncryptionRequired];
    CBUUID *dataSourceUUID = [CBUUID UUIDWithString:@"22EAC6E9-24D6-4BB5-BE44-B36ACE7C7BFB"];
    CBMutableCharacteristic *dataSource = [[CBMutableCharacteristic alloc] initWithType:dataSourceUUID properties:CBCharacteristicPropertyNotifyEncryptionRequired value:nil permissions:CBAttributePermissionsReadEncryptionRequired];

    // define the ANCS Service
    CBUUID *ANCSUUID = [CBUUID UUIDWithString:@"7905F431-B5CE-4E99-A40F-4B1E122D00D0"];
    CBMutableService *ANCS = [[CBMutableService alloc] initWithType:ANCSUUID primary:YES];
    ANCS.characteristics = @[notificationSource, controlPoint, dataSource];

    // define the Advertisement data
    NSMutableDictionary *advertisementData = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
    [advertisementData setValue:@"ANCS" forKey:CBAdvertisementDataLocalNameKey];
    [advertisementData setValue:@[ANCSUUID] forKey:CBAdvertisementDataServiceUUIDsKey];

    // publish the ANCS service
    [self.peripheralManager addService:ANCS];
    [self.peripheralManager startAdvertising:advertisementData];
}

Whereas this snippet belongs on a CBCentralManager on an iOS device:

- (void) discoverANCS
{
    NSLog(@"%s", __FUNCTION__);

    NSMutableArray *services = [NSMutableArray array];
    [services addObject:@"7905F431-B5CE-4E99-A40F-4B1E122D00D0"];

    NSMutableDictionary *options = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
    [options setValue:[NSNumber numberWithBool:NO] forKey:CBCentralManagerScanOptionAllowDuplicatesKey];

    [self.centralManager scanForPeripheralsWithServices:services options:options];
}

The iOS device can now see and connect to the OSX radio, which implements the ANCS specification as detailed in the Apple documentation.

  {
    kCBAdvDataChannel = 39;
    kCBAdvDataIsConnectable = 1;
    kCBAdvDataLocalName = ANCS;
} -60

Happy hunting