IOBluetooth and IOBluetoothUI libraries detect different peripherals, Is there any difference between them?

Question

I hope to make my first question right, please correct me if I make any mistakes.

I want to create a program in Mac OS X that allows me to connect to a bluetooth device. I'm starting with the basics, detect all available Bluetooth peripherals.

I made two test codes, the first uses the IOBluetooth library and the second one the IOBluetoothUI with the facilities of apple for making an user interface.

With the first I can barely detect a device (AppleTV) and the second detected an iPhone 5, an iPad 2 and a HC-05 but not the AppleTV. With the first code I should also be able to detect at least the HC-05.

Is there any difference (except that one is the library with UI facilities) or am I doing something wrong? I have reviewed several questions but I have not found anything about it.

I read that the iPhone can only be detected by other apple products, is it true?

Thank you in advanced.

---

Example with IOBluetooth

Header:

#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>
#import <IOBluetooth/IOBluetooth.h>

@interface AppDelegate : NSObject <NSApplicationDelegate, CBCentralManagerDelegate, CBPeripheralDelegate>
{
    CBCentralManager *myCentralManager;
    CBPeripheral *myPeripheral;
    NSMutableArray *Peripherals;
}
@property (assign) IBOutlet NSWindow *window;

@end

Body:

#import "AppDelegate.h"

@implementation AppDelegate

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)aNotification
{

    //We initialize the Central Manager
    myCentralManager = [[CBCentralManager alloc] initWithDelegate:self queue:nil];

}
- (void)centralManager:(CBCentralManager *)central didDiscoverPeripheral:(CBPeripheral *)peripheral advertisementData:(NSDictionary *)advertisementData RSSI:(NSNumber *)RSSI
{
    NSLog(@"Discovered %@ %@", peripheral, advertisementData);
    if (!Peripherals){
        Peripherals =[[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithObjects:peripheral, nil];
    }else{
        [Peripherals addObject:peripheral];
    }

    NSLog(@"List of devices: %@",Peripherals);

}

- (void)centralManagerDidUpdateState:(CBCentralManager *)central
{
    //CBCentralManagerStatePoweredOn = 5;
    NSLog(@"Bluetooth state %ld", myCentralManager.state);
    if (myCentralManager.state == CBCentralManagerStatePoweredOn){
        NSLog(@"Scanning");
        [myCentralManager scanForPeripheralsWithServices:nil options:nil];
    }
}

@end

---

Example with IOBluetoothUI

Header:

#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>
#import <IOBluetoothUI/IOBluetoothUI.h>

@interface AppDelegate : NSObject <NSApplicationDelegate>{
    IBOutlet NSButton *button;
}

@property (assign) IBOutlet NSWindow *window;

- (IBAction)showBrowser:(id)sender;

@end

Body:

#import "AppDelegate.h"

@implementation AppDelegate

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)aNotification
{

}

- (IBAction)showBrowser:(id)sender{
   // Creating and initializing the window
   IOBluetoothServiceBrowserController *browser = [IOBluetoothServiceBrowserController serviceBrowserController:0];
   // launching the window
   [browser runModal];

}
@end

Answer 1

I've recently been doing some tests with those frameworks. If you look in IOBluetooth.h, you can see that it imports the CoreBluetooth framework, which is only for Bluetooth Low Energy. It looks to me like the IOBluetooth and IOBluetoothUI frameworks should be used together. The IOBluetoothUI framework to present UI to the user, and the IOBluetooth framework to do queries and so forth from the device. The IOBluetooth and IOBluetoothUI frameworks are only used for Bluetooth Classic, but imports CoreBluetooth for convenience. Your first example (with the CBCentralManager and so forth) is using the CoreBluetooth framework.

That's the reason you can only see your Apple TV. It's only capable of Bluetooth LE, not Bluetooth Classic. The reason you can't see your iOS devices using CoreBluetooth (even though they have a BLE chip) is because iOS only advertises itself as a Bluetooth Classic device. If you want to find them using the CoreBluetooth framework, you first have to write an app using CoreBluetooth that advertises the device as BLE device. See the CoreBluetooth Programming Guide: Performing Common Peripheral Role Tasks to see how you can do that.

iOS devices can definitely be discovered as a Bluetooth Classic device by devices other than Apple products. Think about car radios. As far as BLE goes, I'm not quite sure, but I can't see why not. If it does, it needs an app to advertise it as a BLE device. iOS does not do that on its own.