iBeacon feature parity on iOS
zpapp opened this issue · comments
Hi,
could you provide a brief summary on how you plan to provide feature parity with iBeacons on iOS? To clarify, I mean feature parity between an iOS app using iBeacons and an iOS app using AltBeacons. Sorry if I missed this but I haven't seen anything on this on your web site... In particular, I'd like to know how you plan to access the raw advertising data (or how will you do without it, if you don't plan to) and how will the restart-into-background feature work.
As a side note, you might want to clarify on your "Examples" page that the CharruaLab project is just an unfortunate name collision, not a weirdly different 3rd party implementation of your beacon spec. It took me a while to figure this out, especially since that's the only iOS related link I could find...
Thanks,
Zsombor
We have a SDK called the Android Beacon Library which provides the feature parity you mention. You can read details here: http://altbeacon.github.io/android-beacon-library. The library parses the raw advertising data and will restart into the background. Details on how restarting into background works can be found here: http://altbeacon.github.io/android-beacon-library/resume-after-terminate.html
I did see that library before I posted my question, but I thought it was for Android. Since it's called Android Beacon Library... My question is about iOS. I hate to repeat myself but I don't know how to make it any more clear: I am interested in feature parity between an iOS app using iBeacons and an iOS app using AltBeacons.
Does your response still apply?
Yes, the library is only for Android. Currently there is no separate SDK for supporting AltBeacons on iOS. The main reason is that there is less of a reason to have one because of built-in support on iOS for beacons with iBeacon technology. A recommended cross-platform approach is to use AltBeacon for Android devices and iBeacon technology compatible beacons on iOS.
In order to avoid deploying two different beacons at each location, you can use a beacon that transmits both advertisement types. Radius Networks makes RadBeacon USB which transmits interleaved advertisements.
I see, thanks for the explanation!