iPod touches cannot find each other through GameKit

Question

I have two physical iPod touch devices. If I try running a program that uses a GKPeerPickerController to find another iPod touch running the same program, they just stay at the peer picker screen without any progress. Both have bluetooth enabled. I have tried my own program, along with Apple's GKTank sample app. Neither of the iPods seem to be able to detect bluetooth devices, such as computers in discoverable mode... could this have anything to do with it?

Answer 1

I was able to fix this problem by restoring the software on the older iPod. I wonder if jailbreak may have caused this issue?

Answer 2

A couple assumptions are throwing you off:

• The GameKit Bluetooth stuff runs its own protocol, which doesn't involve traditional Bluetooth pairing or discoverability.

• The simulator doesn't support connecting to devices via GameKit, so you need to test this with two real devices (or two computers, as the simulator will run the GK protocol over your current TCP connection [ethernet, wifi, etc]).

• The Bluetooth bring-up of TCP/IP and Bonjour is really slow, so your first connection will often take upwards of 30 seconds to do any discovery. Even then, it seems flaky to me.

• Jailbreaking your iPhone puts everything in play. You should expect stuff to not work, and be grateful if/when it does.

Answer 3

I have been getting this error throughout the development of my game. It also leads to other problems when trying to reconnect to another game as the peer picker takes ages to connect so users get impatient. Apple needs to work on getting this more reliable.

I have restored my ipods now so will be interested to see the outcome.

Answer 4

Gamekit only work on second generation iPod Touches (and iPhone 3G and 3GS). You didn't say whether what version your touches are.