Apple do provide two APIs for peer-to-peer Wi-Fi access — one of them is the Multipeer Connection Framework and the other is the NetService API with the “includesPeerToPeer” parameter. This only really helps us when talking to other Apple devices though as the AWDL protocol is proprietary.
The Wi-Fi Alliance have been trying to standardise something not dissimilar to AWDL under the name “Wi-Fi Aware” (NAN/Neighbour Awareness Networking), but it is not widely implemented and will probably never be supported by Apple either, limiting cross-platform potential.
The Wi-Fi Alliance have been trying to standardise something not dissimilar to AWDL under the name “Wi-Fi Aware” (NAN/Neighbour Awareness Networking), but it is not widely implemented and will probably never be supported by Apple either, limiting cross-platform potential.