iPhone / iOS Beta discussion

[cobraPA]

There was some discussion in another thread, but here's more of a news and try it out thread...

I've submitted to Apple for initial review for testing of a sample app for iPhone / iPad running Sideband. We'll see how initial review goes. I don't expect any major problems, but there might be some cleanup needed before they approve. Once approved, I can share a public link here that people can use to install the app using Apple's TestFlight for Beta testing.

Initially you will need iOS 12 for this first build. Let me know if people want to run lower versions, it maybe to possible to support as far back as iOS 9.

Initially, you will find the user interface looks like Android in most cases, but on the connectivity page, only local interface and TCP is expected to work. I have not setup bluetooth or serial yet. I was able to get Apple approval for multi-cast UDP, so local discovery should be working, although I am seeing that sometimes it does not seem to bi-directionally announce right away.

This initial build runs Reticulum in the foreground only, so the network layer will sleep when you switch away from the app. Wakeup seems to work ok though.

Previous initial discussion was here

[cobraPA]

Beta is live and can be installed from this link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/ftgW9n0Z . We'll see how listing it here goes. You can give feedback in the TestFlight app or here in the issue.

[cobraPA]

Sorry, I missed this embedded reply...
You can run any of the Sideband clients to do some testing to send/receive with the iOS version. So windows, linux, Mac, Android.

[markqvist]

Nomadn Network also speaks to it, of course :)

[oztechguy]

Tried installing on my iPhone 14 today and TestFlight says not accepting any new beta testers - can I please test the app also?

[cobraPA]

Hi @oztechguy... sorry, I'm sure we are outside the 90 day lifetime of the TestFlight build, I'll post a rebuild to get it live again. Thanks for the heads up!

[cobraPA]

Ok. @oztechguy , new build is available. It might take a little bit to propagate, depending on where you are. You should get notified by testflight also.

[cobraPA]

Follow up here on the initial Beta, I can see from TestFlight we have a few people using the first Beta. It reports no crashes, which is encouraging. Does anyone have feedback negative or positive?

[faragher]

Mostly that I'm saddened Test Flight won't work on my ridiculously outdated iPhone. :D

I'm glad things appear to be working. Adding iOS to the ecosystem is a big gain.

[Tokotte]

Hello, I've just installed the application on my iPad.

[cobraPA]

Great! Feel free to post up here or in testflight if you have any good/bad experiences. I will probably see testflight comments quickly... (although Apple may limit what they share for the anonymous link to make absolutely...positively...sure I can't track you down :) )
If anyone does do more extensive testing, I can share a non-anonymous link if you want to be sure I can get to any crash reports (and you are willing to share them.)
As of today I can see the number of anonymous installs is 12. And there are no crashes reported, which is a little encouraging.

[plongk]

Downloaded last week using the testflight URL ... it was working fine on my iPhone 7. But when I tried using it today (16-Aug-2023) I get "sidebandos" Beta Has Expired ... does apple only let testflight apps live for 3 months?

[cobraPA]

Yes, the test apps are time limited. Thanks for the heads up, I'll posted a new build.

[cobraPA]

@plongk Ok, Apple says it's available again. You should be notified by TestFlight. Depending on where in the world you are, there might be a small delay before it appears, but I would expect it to be available within 24 hrs max.

[plongk]

Thank-you ... I am back up! But I did have to remove the app and re-install (... or maybe I'm just too impatient and didn't wait long enough :).
Thanks again.

[cobraPA]

I've started some investigation/prototyping on RNode firmware for support of iOS also. If anyone wants to have a look, you can find an early version here. No support in SideBand yet, but this can be flashed to the Heltec devices and you can do initial connect/disconnect using the LightBlue test app. Comments or feedback welcome, next will be Sideband attachment now that iOS devices can see the RNode. (And more work to complete support in the RNode firmware. This initial version does not have Android Classic Bluetooth turned on, but it has the possibility to run either Classic Bluetooth or BLE, as setup.)

[trosel]

Bumping this thread: is there something in particular we should be doing on the app to test it?

Or is there any help in terms of what to do after you download the app? Maybe we can all join a Reticulum chat group?

[cobraPA]

Hi trosel, thanks for checking it out! Well, it should be usable for basic network use now. I am currently focused on the bluetooth stack on iOS between Python and swift and making compatible changes in the RNode BLE firmware. Once that is working I will get back to more work on the iOS Sideband app itself.
You should be able to use the app now for basic messaging, assuming you attach to wifi with an iPhone or iPad. Adding one of the test transport nodes should get you going with sending messages on the test network. Or you can do they same on a private network as well.
I am interested in reports of things that do or don't work. And feel free to post questions here also. If it looks like there is too much discussion in Mark's pages, I can setup discussion on my GitHub account also. (But this hasn't been super busy so far, so I would continue here for the near future.)
If anything I said about testing is over anyone's head, feel free to ask setup questions and I'll try to give some examples.

[trosel]

You should be able to use the app now for basic messaging, assuming you attach to wifi with an iPhone or iPad.

If I only have one device with this app (I only have one iPhone), who do I talk to? lol

Adding one of the test transport nodes should get you going with sending messages on the test network

Ok this is good info.

If anything I said about testing is over anyone's head, feel free to ask setup questions and I'll try to give some examples.

Overall, I think there should be very basic instructions for how to get started on the app. We can't assume that someone has already used Sideband before (if they use iOS, then they haven't)

[faragher]

If I only have one device with this app (I only have one iPhone), who do I talk to? lol

EchoBot will get you an immediate response for testing purposes. You can also just try to strike up conversations with familiar names or join the Beleth Distribution Group.

[trosel]

How do i connect to the echo bot?

how do i find “familiar names”? I only have the option to enter an address, not browse a list of names.

how do i join the Beleth Distribution Group? This sounds like what I want to do (test communication with you all on here.)

[faragher]

Simply send the EchoBot a message. If you don't know how to do that, check your announces, find EchoBot and select them to start a conversation.

Re: familiar names, it sounds like you aren't checking the announce stream or aren't connected to a node.

You can join the group by finding the group in the announce stream and starting a conversation. You should get instructions to join, IIRC.

Have you connected to a node on the network? Can you see announces?

[trosel]

check your announces

What does this mean exactly? I announced myself in the app

it sounds like you aren't checking the announce stream or aren't connected to a node.

I see two propagation nodes in the Announce Stream tab

Am I supposed to see a list of users in the same propagation nodes somewhere?

[faragher]

That list should propagate as people announce. You should see EchoBot within an hour, and every node (and most active peers) within a day. @cobraPA does the iOS version pick up announces when running in the background?

Those propagation nodes don't look familiar. Are you connected to the test net or your own network? Are other peers announcing on your network?

[cobraPA]

The current beta on iPhone does not run in the background, so you would need to keep it alive manually for a while. I would instead setup an instance on a local PC to catch the echobot signature... or the echobot owner could post it so you can add it manually.

[cobraPA]

If anything I said about testing is over anyone's head, feel free to ask setup questions and I'll try to give some examples.

Overall, I think there should be very basic instructions for how to get started on the app. We can't assume that someone has already used Sideband before (if they use iOS, then they haven't)

Not a bad idea. The current version is a subset of the Android version, so the usage docs you find on Mark's site all apply (minus things that don't work yet.) I'll see what else I can put together, but it won't be right away.

[trosel]

Ideally, there can be at least one group chat listed where we can talk about reticulum on reticulum itself (LXMF)

[cobraPA]

Just a little teaser... I've been working through getting kivy / iOS and bluetooth/BLE all setup for development and finally am back to making some progress on the RNode integration:

[2023-10-23 17:33:51] [Debug] Adding RNode Interface...
[2023-10-23 17:33:51] [Notice] Getting platform RNode interfaces...
[2023-10-23 17:33:51] [Notice] RNode iOS setup...
[2023-10-23 17:33:51] [Notice] Error while adding RNode Interface. The contained exception was: module 'RNS.Interfaces.iOS' has no attribute 'RNodeInterface'
[2023-10-23 17:33:51] [Notice] Reticulum started, activating LXMF...

[cobraPA]

A small milestone today (well, maybe big for me!). First RNode startup with the BLE changes and the radio reports online. I have a lot of cleanup to do and need to setup a second one to verify it can really transmit/receive, but a good step!

[cobraPA]

For people testing, you'll get a notice of a new version of SidebandOS today. RNode Lora support is live but you will need custom RNode firmware. There is firmware in https://github.com/cobraPA/RNode_Firmware_iOS/commits/kb_ble_test1 that supports Bluetooth for iPhone/iPad.

[oztechguy]

Can confirm I am getting Dissolving/Substantiating messages and all network and Bluetooth permissions messages are occurring on first run of the app (double checked all enabled in iOS settings for Sideband).
I did get 'connect' messages printed via the Serial Monitor - but even after double checking all settings are correct I cant get the "waterfall" on the display to react when the app starts showing data transmission like I do when I connect one of my T-beams running 1.70 via serial to my MacBook and use sbapp(MacOS).

The boards I am running are the Heltec Wireless Stick V2.1 AU915 (SX1276 lora version not V3 with USB C) and have been able to get the sketch to compile without any errors and upload. Here's a PDF about them: (https://resource.heltec.cn/download/Wireless_Stick/Wireless%20Stick%20V2.1.pdf)

Im a bit stuck as I have two TTGO Lora32 T-Beam v0.7 also - but as we mentioned stopped at that weird out of space error when compiling, so I cant test against those at the moment either as I cant get them connected via bluetooth on iOS.

I tried removing everything and restarting from scratch - but could only get messages to send/receive via WIFI and the app seems to ignore the Lora interface altogether.

If you have any other ideas let me know and I will keep trying :)

[cobraPA]

Sounds like it should be working (connect on the serial console says the phone attached over bluetooth.) If there is nothing bad after that, especially what looks like a crash, then the RNode should be up.
Try this:
On phone, in connectivity menu, turn off local Wifi/Ethernet and TCP choices, make sure RNode is turned on (slider blue and right). Perform shutdown
Power cycle the RNode and restart it
Start Sideband
Do you see both sections of the display on your RNode, one with info and another with the waterfall and connection boxes? Does the info section change to an 'airtime section' after a few seconds (the bluetooth icon should change to indicate the connection as well?)
If so, airtime should be about 0%.
Now on the phone, go out to the main screen (close any submenus with the top right 'x') and do an announce (the icon to the right of the 'Conversation label, kind of like ((.)) )
Does the airtime change? It jumps to about 3% here, but the waterfall shows almost nothing (maybe one extra dot.) It should drop back to about 0% when the waterfall scrolls off again.

[oztechguy]

Ok - so I followed your above instructions carefully and did more testing and found a part of my issue was probably my own fault.
I was using the LightBlue app to connect the Heltec sticks and I should have just let the Sideband app manage the bluetooth connection.
I now get the pair request on first app startup and can see the Rnode as "Connected" under Enable Pairing in the RNode settings in the app.
This now gives me an active waterfall and the channel statistics on the screen with things changing as announce icon is tapped.

But still no messages or changes in the Announce Stream in the iOS app which is weird - I feel like I am getting closer but just not quite there yet getting it working :)

edit: - Have also added address manually of other devices to see if I can just send a direct message (there needs to be a "copy address to clipboard" button and a "paste from clipboard" button in the interface under this field as holding down to copy/paste this doesn't work well/at all and the input fields jump around - resulting in needing to manually type an address in).
When I manually add another device and start a conversation there is a button to request Public Key information from the network for that device, and this makes waterfall jump right up momentarily on the receiving/nearby RNodes - but still no acknowledgement or evidence this worked in the app.
I can confirm adding a device manually works when communicating in Sideband via WIFI over the internet and the Public Key request is received and Conversation then works normally - just not for me over Lora at the moment for some reason...

[cobraPA]

That all sounds good. I'll have to try LightBlue again. I think it will connect with the RNode which will prevent Sideband from using it until it releases (the RNode BLE firmware does not support multiple connections at once.)
You should now be able to talk to it with your Mac and Rnode or even run LoraMon on the mac to capture packets from the iPhone RNode as well.

[cobraPA]

Not ready for iOS yet, but I have extracted some testing code for the Heltec Lora32 V3 devices and made initial pull request for it for Mark to review. I think @oztechguy, you said you had these as well. I hope to get them working with iOS also. PR is here: markqvist/RNode_Firmware#73

[cobraPA]

I've posted an updated SidebandOS app just now and recently updated the RNode firmware for iOS/BLE. Background processing is enabled for the BLE stack, such that you can switch away from the app and the RNode will continue to receive in the background. I have not tested for how long this will continue in background yet. There is still some work to do to restore the app state if it is evicted from running by the OS. I've been able to run the Heltec V2, Heltec V3 and TBeam devices using that firmware and iPhone/iPad. I'll need to write up some flashing details, as signing the firmware isn't fully possible without rnodeconf changes, I think. If you want to flash, the easiest way is to use the Makefile settings for your target you are running (example 'make firmware-tbeam', then edit the target for your serial port in the Makefile, for 'make upload-tbeam' and run it.) I have overridden some of the firmware checks and device checks to make it possible to run in the current state for testing.

[BitDownMod]

Trying to pair this board over BT, no luck. LilyGO LoRa32 v2.1 T3 1.6.1

[cobraPA]

You would need to use the beta iPhone BLE firmware on a your RNode, otherwise it will not talk to the iPhone at all. If you do install it from GitHub, it will pair automatically with SidebandOS on iPhone. The BLE RNode firmware will not connect to Android though.

[BitDownMod]

Thanks! How to properly flash console_image.bin? I tried ./esptool.py -p /dev/cu.wchusbserial583A0151721 write_flash 0x00000 console_image.bin, but it seems it doesn't work and I need some help. Also I now think console_image.bin is not the beta iPhone BLE firmware :)) Sorry for the noob questions!

[cobraPA]

Did you pull a copy of the git for the BLE firmware yet? At https://github.com/cobraPA/RNode_Firmware_iOS/tree/kb_ble_test1 . Then easiest way is probably to use make to install it. You already have esptool, and if you have make there are build targets for compile and install. First build the version you need with 'make firmware-lora32_v21' (for example, that looks closest to your board, but I might have the wrong variant.) Then edit the Makefile to add your serial port in place of 'COM3' or '/dev/tty...' in the upload target labelled 'upload-lora32_v21' (or other variant.)
Maybe @markqvist has an easier way? Is there a better way to install test firmware?

[BitDownMod]

Thank you! That's unbelievable, but I made it! I still need to test the connection between two iPhones.

arduino-cli core install esp32:esp32

make prep-esp32
make firmware-lora32_v21

make upload-lora32_v21

[cobraPA]

Great! It will work between two iPhones and also iPhone <-> Android/Mac/Win. The over the air protocol is the same. (Or it should!) I tested on a TBeam (lora32 variant) with iPhone and it was working, but post up if you see any trouble.

[cobraPA]

New experimental support for the Heltec Capsule Sensor V3 and Heltec Wireless Paper devices is available at https://github.com/cobraPA/RNode_Firmware_iOS/tree/kb_ble_test1 . The capsule sensor is an interesting device, as it includes case and battery as purchased. It's BLE and WiFi only though, so no serial port for Android connection. Also has an interesting new surface mount LoRa antenna, so will be interesting to see if/how much LoRa range is compromised.

[markqvist]

Also, the BLE support will need to be added to directly to the relevant Reticulum interfaces, but I'm waiting to do that until we're fairly certain there's a universal/stable way of doing it across RNode types. I'm not sure where the discussion on that really went, but I'm sure you can come up with something sensible :) It's probably worth specifying a custom BLE GATT for this, but I'll let you all be the judge of that.

[jacobeva]

Here because Mark pinged me. Nice job bro! If you're in the matrix channel, please contact me on there. I have already written an e-ink display driver you can probably use for that device, and I would be happy to merge your support to the CE firmware :)

An aside, does your iOS fork use the same python container Mark uses for regular Sideband? Would that mean the BLE support could be (at least partially) reused for android?

[jacobeva]

To be honest I've been using RNS with BLE by just bridging it to a serial port using ble-serial. I think it's written in Python Mark, may be worth looking at the module on pip...

Edit: I should observe that the RNodeInterface interface needed some extra sleep() calls to make sure it received all the data when doing this. BLE is slower than a straight serial line, obvious I guess.

[cobraPA]

News to me on the 'new community fork'. Where can I find out what that is about? Is there a repo and description of what it covers?

[markqvist]

I posted some info in this blog post under the RNode section, and @jacobeva is taking over the maintenance of the continued development of the community edition of the firmware, so I can focus more on the core of Reticulum.

The new repo is here: https://github.com/liberatedsystems/RNode_Firmware_CE

[cobraPA]

Build 6 of SidebandOS is live, in case anyone noticed the TestFlight build expired recently. It should be available shortly.

[grevemes]

Love to try it out…

[cobraPA]

Link is still https://testflight.apple.com/join/ftgW9n0Z, using the TestFlight app on iPhone/ipad (and MacOS with iPad compatibility app or VisionOS.)

[cobraPA]

SidebandOS for iOS has been rebuilt. There is a minor addition to the BLE connections recognized to support in-progress work on the Seeed T1000-E Tracker device for RNode use. This might also recognize RNodes with BLE from the CE repo, but I have not tested that yet. (supports the BLE iDs for nRF52 devices.)

[markqvist]

Nice! Then it should work with ESP32 BLE devices from the main repo as well, as those use the same IDs as the nRF version!

[cobraPA]

Yes, it may. I have not tried a recent build, but should pull some newer firmware from you. It can talk to both bluefruit and ArduinoBLE stacks on the RNode side, and I think it actually complies with the serial protocol already, but I have not tested all of that yet. I wanted to rebuild it though since I noticed it was over the 90 day window on the old build and was auto-expired.