iOS Interface iPhone to unrelated 3rd party hardware via wifi - Possible?

[dcond]

I'm new to the world of iOS development but recently came up with an idea to develop an iOS application that I'm going to put together. I've got a strong background with C but obj-C syntax and the iOS are totally new to me so I'm not quite up to speed .. yet.

Just hoping someone might be able to give some general feedback so I can get a idea where I might be able to find more information, what obstacles I stand to run into.

What I'd like to do is have the iPhone connect over wifi on a peer-to-peer network with a piece of hardware and mirror its menu - pretty much just remote control..

The target hardware to be connected to is completely unaffiliated with Apple and nothing has been developed to-date between the two. Getting the SDK from the other manufacture is not an issue.

 

[chown33]

An iPhone can connect to an AD HOC wi-fi network. From there, it can connect to a server if you know its IP address on that ad hoc network. You can use UDP or TCP on the ad hoc network. Multicast (Bonjour) also works, provided the 3rd-party device has that capability.

The iPhone intrinsically supports a limited number of protocols (http, https, ftp, etc.). However, you can use low-level sockets to implement additional protocols, or even try finding those protocols implemented by others for iOS.

If the 3rd-party device can't act as a server (socket listener), then you'll have to think of a way to get the devices to:

• identify one another's IP address,
• connect to one another.

This may entail communication with a third host acting as a central server.

If you don't have some experience with networking, you'll have a lot more to study than just Objective-C. In fact, I'd guess that networking and sockets will be harder to learn than Objective-C.

Networking & Internet Starting Point.