ANCS service on iOS 9 not discovered in OS X 10.11

Question

Created Oct ’15

Replies 7

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The node-ancs library used to work fluently between my Mac and iPhone 5s. Now, several months later, it seems like OS X doesn’t receive the ANCS advertisement from my iPhone. The library’s author (who is much more experienced with BLE than I am) has the same issue:

https://github.com/sandeepmistry/node-ancs/issues/9#issuecomment-151673811

I suspect this stopped working after upgrading either to iOS 9 or to OS X 10.11, because multiple people are experiencing it. Can anyone confirm this, and is there a workaround or a new way to make the Mac act as a notification consumer?

Note that I’m not trying to develop a Mac App Store app that uses ANCS (which might not make much sense), but I’m using it to iterate rapidly on the software behaviour for an embedded prototype.

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Answer 1

Engineer OP

Apple

Oct ’15

This functionality was removed from OS X and iOS.

Neither platform can be used to consume the ANCS service anymore using CoreBluetooth.

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Answer 2

Kenzbar OP

Nov ’15

Hi,

Would you inform me which version or later of Core Bluetooth on OS X does not support ANCS?

and recommend development tool/platform for ANCS?

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Answer 3

MoHung OP

Mar ’16

I doubt that the ANCS is removed on iOS9, because I still can see my Bluetooth Low Energy evalutation board consume ANCS from a iOS 9.2.1 device.

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Answer 4

Engineer OP

Apple

Mar ’16

ANCS is not removed from iOS 9, it still provides the service.

What I said was neither iOS 9 nor OS X 10.11 can CONSUME ANCS any longer

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Answer 5

MoHung OP

Mar ’16

What I understand is the Apple Notification Center Client (ANCC) profile allows a Bluetooth accessory to access notifications generated on an iOS device.

However, iOS9 devices cannot act as client to consume notifications, but still provides the serive.

I hope I get you message right.

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Answer 6

schrodinger78 OP

Mar ’16

We have a bluetooth low energey peripheral which would talk to an iOS device (phone).

Currently via ANCS, it seems you can only route notifications directly from the iOS device to the BLE peripheral and then the peripheral would have to filter/process the notifications.this would significantly increase power consumption on the device side.

Is there a way you can route the iOS notifications via your app on the iOS device where the app would filter the notifications before sending data to the BLE peripheral?

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Answer 7

Engineer OP

Apple

Mar ’16

ANCS is a system level service, and apps cannot intercept notifications, let alone make changes to the flow.

But please do file an Enhancement Request at https://bugreport.apple.com for this ability.

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