I am working on a ble projekt which is also planned to be released for iOS and Android. To have the best functionality in my concept for both operation systems I need a common Manufacturer ID. Since this is not changable for iOS my idea was to use the Apple Manufacturer ID also for the Android devices. I tested it and it works perfect.
My question is is it legal to use the Apple Manufacturer ID for my App with a Android device or not? If its not legal I have to change my complete concept and it will be not performant as it is with that solution.
Thank you!
The company behind a manufacturer id is the only one that is allowed to specify how its manufacturer id may be used and the data format of the manufacturer data.
You may not use a manufacturer id in a way that is not approved by the corresponding company.
Apple has for example approved the use of their iBeacon format where the first byte must then start with 0x02 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBeacon). If you follow their specification you can let any device advertise using this data format.
If you are a member of Bluetooth SIG, you can request a manufacturer id at https://support.bluetooth.com/hc/en-us/articles/360062030092-Requesting-Assigned-Numbers.
If you are not a member but need your custom advertising data format, you can use a custom 128-bit GATT service UUID and use the Service Data advertising type, which however takes up more bytes.
Now, CoreBluetooth (compared to Android) does not seem to have any API for custom advertisement data except for advertising a GATT service UUID. So to make your app behave the same on both platforms, you should do the iOS app first and then mimic the advertisement data when making the Android app. Just make sure you follow whatever specification set up by Apple if you use their manufacturer id.