Ad Hoc multiplayer?

Unity Engine
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1

I know that the iphone is capable of using adhoc mode to interface with a computer, but can it be done to interface with a second iphone? If so, is this something that is or will be supported by Unity?

I’m thinking up some ideas for some games that would be really cool multiplayer.

2

I’m not sure if I have heard of using Ad Hoc for interfacing with a computer. However, it should be possible to do iPhone and Computer by sending information over a network, which I believe is supported in Unity, not sure if it is in Unity iPhone yet though…

3

You can not do Ad Hoc multiplayer with iphones only.
Apple does not support that.

You must have at least an access point inbetween that plays the central node.

I would guess that has to do with two things:

  1. Playing access point is cpu intense → even less power for gaming
  2. It would require that the iphone has a DHCP so others who connect get a dynamic IP. You won’t see a common user hardware from apple offering something that requires complex setup and advanced knowledge to be used, at least not before pigs can fly and the hell freezes ^^
4

iPhone SDK supports Bonjour/zeroconf network discovery [edit- service discovery], but Unity engine does not expose that part of the networking API. Is that what you mean by Ad Hoc, or something else?

5

Basically I’m trying to find a way to send data between two iphones without having to involve either 3G or a wireless network. I’m not particularly attached to any method, as long as it works.

6

Ad Hoc means iPhone → iPhone
Which means that 1 iPhone must work as Access Point to request IPs from and handshake

thats not supported by the iPhone

Bonjour etc require that you already have a working network connection → stand alone access point needed.

I agree thought that this is a serious drawback and the major drawback of iPhone / iTouch as gaming device actually , not beeing able to work as local multiplayer gaming device out in the train etc.
Even the original NDS was already capable to do that and that was a trashy Buffolo 11mbit 802.11b wifi (ok the NDS Lite still has that trashy thing in)
So I hope that Apple will adress this over the time as the game aspect seems to be a major aspect to Apple.

7

If you want to see this supported and your are a certified developer or ADC member you can file a bug report with apple as a feature request.