Apple Notification Center Service (ANCS) | Hacker News Reader

Apple Notification Center Service (ANCS)

waffle.wootest.net

63 pointsingve18 comments

Yep, this could not in any way be used for something else, such as the already announced iOS in the Car [1] program.

I get the feeling that the iWatch will be the next "Apple will make a full sized television." Maybe it will happen, but only after 5 or 6+ years of analysts saying it will come out at the next Apple event.

Look at Samsung's watch. It's big, it's ugly, it requires a high end cell phone, it's battery is only good enough for about a day, and it's $300. Maybe Apple can do better, there is a long way to go for something that fancy. If you go to something simpler like a Pebble, there is less room to stand out.

Besides, does anyone think Apple can resurrect the watch industry? I'm sure they'd sell tons, but nothing compared to the tablet or phone markets.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_in_the_Car

Yep, nothing in this diagram implies that a smart watch would be the Notification Consumer.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/CoreBl...

Wow, nice catch

Well crud.

bah, its obviously a cv joint! /s

A smart watch like, say, the Pebble? It would be foolish to design something like this without acknowledging that there already exist smart watches.

Besides, does anyone think Apple can resurrect the watch industry?

No but I do think they can make a huge splash in wearable computers. The type you happen to strap on your wrist. I don't think they'll market it as a watch. They'll probably market it as a wearable iPod that gains a ton of extra functionality when paired with an iPhone. It definitely won't be as big as the iPhone/iPad and will probably be somewhat of a hobby project for the first 2-3 generations. From there I could see it being a very profitable product for Apple.

I think after a while all technology tends to get passé to people. I think that's starting to happen with SmartPhones. People who are glued to their phones are starting to look lame, rude, detached. I bet in 2-3 years people will look at a wearable wrist computer as a far more elegant way to interact with their SmartPhone for most tasks. Less intrusive, more practical than taking your phone in/out of your pocket 50 times a day, less likely to hit the pavement and crack, easier to sneak a peak at in social situations, etc.

I would move that motion processor, a heartbeat detector, a glucose detector, and the user keychain into the 'watch'.

That way users carry all information about themselves on the watch. That frees the pod/tablet/tv part from being anything more than a 'sync with cloud and display stuff' part.

The 'watch' part could show the essentials like unread email count. I would use something low-power like e-paper there so that the watch's battery lasts for a week (hm, is it coincidental that Apple went very flat with iOS 7? I think screens like the notification screen would translate reasonably well to a four-color display)

In other words: the display can easily be shared between users. If I pick up your tablet, it shows my desktop.

Maybe, I would even leave the production of displays to third parties, and keep the 'watch' and 'sync to cloud' stuff to myself (Apple would have a long way to go to get there, though)

Will that happen overnight? No. For one thing, I doubt internet connectivity is fast enough too make a device change from displaying your content to showing mine.

I never said they'd make a watch. I said it's curious that they're so obviously aiming it at a very resources-constrained device (or optimizing out the wazoo for energy efficiency) for which they don't have a client of their own or an announced third-party client. You'll note that they didn't announce "iOS in the Nebulous Theoretical Arbitrary People Transporter" and hope people take it from there.

With iOS in the Car, whatever they're using - probably AirPlay or something riding the various MFi (made-for-iWhatever) protocols - is already transmitting screen images. If they have a notification protocol like ANCS, they will probably not reinvent it, but iOS in the Car already involves several of their own protocols, so why use yet another connection - and if they do, why invent a new protocol and publicly document it for this use case?

Maybe it's about roaming notifications to OS X Mavericks, but there are no (revealed) commands for getting i.e. app icons.

Actually, whether they make a watch or not, it's very curious to see them introduce a new binary protocol in the open. If this is a turn towards being more open, I welcome it. It's far from enough, but it's a start.

I remember before the iPhone was announced there was so much frenzied but non committal speculation that I thought that if apple weren't making a phone then they would have to be complete idiots.

Then the word phone appeared in some meta data file and word got out, and still I failed to buy the stock just before the keynote.

>Now, if only we could figure out why Apple jumps through hoops to support a smart watch.

i get what you're hinting at, but it also sounds like it could be useful for ibeacon.

My impression was the beacons were passive. Even if they aren't, I'm not sure why my notifications would need to be sent to it.

I think this sounds suspiciously useful for iOS in the Car [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_in_the_Car

Oh, yeah. I was thinking "notifications" as just an arbitrary message passing mechanism, not as actual OS notifications. beacons probably don't make sense.

> Siri: Eyes Free mode – for eyes-free and hands-free operation.

HFP already works with iOS

> Satellite navigation (Satnav).

this is interesting, but is more likely built on top of an existing GATT profile, such as L&N

https://developer.bluetooth.org/gatt/profiles/Pages/ProfileV...

> Telephony instruction and control.

HFP works to some extent. PBAP is part of this.

> Music control.

AVRCP 1.4 already works (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3647)

> iMessage control and response.

MAP already works for this

Beacons are passive. They have an ID and you're supposed to know what that ID means by some other band of communication or intrinsic knowledge.

I can't find a use case for telling the Mona Lisa that you have a dentist appointment or a pending call. You will probably have to pair with the device to get ANCS to start relaying notifications; iBeacons couldn't work if they had to require pairing.

No, the whole point of iOS in the Car is that the iPhone is rendering the GUI. The car head unit is just displaying that UI, sending touch events back to the iPhone, and sending audio to/from the iPhone.

It was pretty clear from the WWDC presentation what ANCS is designed for: smartwatches and other "companion" BLE devices

This excites me very very much!

iWatch anyone?

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