BSD Sockets don't behave in a iPhone 3G environment

Question

I noticed that many times while developing for an iPhone 3G, BSD socket functions will simply fail. I also noticed at the time, the 3G antenna wasn't even ON, nor was there WIFI Access to back up the network call (So it seems ridiculous that it doesn't turn on to support the network request).. This information was verified with an app from Apple in the SDK called Connectivity Test, or something of the sort.

Basically if you load Safari or something, then quickly load up the App it would be fine.. Of course that's not ideal. Apparently, to apple, gethostbyname() or something of the sort is by no means a reason to turn on the Antenna.

I contacted Apple about this, and they said that the BSD functions do not switch the Antenna on, but calling all of the Objective-C CFNetwork functions do. I want portable code, so is there a way to keep my existing BSD setup? I really dislike coding in Objective-C, so if anyone knows a work around, that would be awesome.

Answer 1

The CFStream Socket Additions are what Apple recommends you use instead of the direct BSD sockets. They specifically warn about using the BSD sockets here:

Although BSD (POSIX) networking APIs are available in iPhone OS, you should avoid using them. If you communicate directly with sockets, certain networking capabilities of iPhone OS, such as VPN On Demand, do not work. Use the APIs provided in CFStream Socket Additions instead.

Note that CFNetwork and the like aren't Objective-C, but straight C for almost everything.