Access to the ANT Wireless and GPS receiver modules in iPhone/iPod Touch

Question

I'm an iPhone/iPod-touch newbie, and would like to write an iPhone application utilizing the built-in ANT wireless radio. As I found out both the iPhone and iPod Touch have an ANT wireless module, that is used in the Nike+iPod Sport Kit to connect the Nike sensor with the iPhone/iPod.

After some googleing, I didn't find much (one article was interesting, but not what I'm looking for).

So my questions:

• Is it possible to access the built-in ANT Wireless device in iPhone/iPod Touch?
• Is it possible to access the built-in GPS module in iPhone?
• Are there some APIs or SDKs that provide access to the ANT or the GPS module?

I can imagine that Apple is not eager opening the access to all of the iPhone features. But at least the GPS module should be accessible.

Answer 1

There are no APIs to take advantage of the ANT protocol. However, there is an API to exploit the integrated GPS, called Core Location and fairly easy to use.

The upcoming SDK 3.0 provides support for connecting to external devices through both cable and Bluetooth connections.

Answer 2

The GPS radio is only accessible through the Core Location API, which will give you a latitude and longitude fix to your desired level of accuracy, but does not provide any low-level access to the radio. The ANT radio is not available using public APIs, although it may be possible to talk to it on a jailbroken phone. Any such application could not be distributed through the App Store, however.