iOS 26 Network Framework AWDL not working

Hello,

I have an app that is using iOS 26 Network Framework APIs.

It is using QUIC, TLS 1.3 and Bonjour. For TLS I am using a PKCS#12 identity.

All works well and as expected if the devices (iPhone with no cellular, iPhone with cellular, and iPad no cellular) are all on the same wifi network.

If I turn off my router (ie no more wifi network) and leave on the wifi toggle on the iOS devices - only the non cellular iPhone and iPad are able to discovery and connect to each other. My iPhone with cellular is not able to.

By sharing my logs with Cursor AI it was determined that the connection between the two problematic peers (iPad with no cellular and iPhone with cellular) never even makes it to the TLS step because I never see the logs where I print out the certs I compare.

I tried doing "builder.requiredInterfaceType(.wifi)" but doing that blocked the two non cellular devices from working. I also tried "builder.prohibitedInterfaceTypes([.cellular])" but that also did not work.

Is AWDL on it's way out? Should I focus my energy on Wi-Fi Aware?

Regards, Captadoh

Answered by DTS Engineer in 867952022

Did you opt in to peer-to-peer on both the listener and the browser? We never enable that by default because it has a non-trivial network impact.

IIRC, this is how you’d do that on the listener:

let lp = BonjourListenerProvider(type: "_test._tcp")
let l = try NetworkListener(
    for: lp,
    using: .parameters({
        TCP()
    })
    .peerToPeerIncluded(true)
)

And a similar technique is available for the browser.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Admittedly, that was all prior to iOS 26, so it’s possible we broke something.

I’m gonna try to reproduce this here in my office, but I won’t have time to do that until after the winter break.

Thank you for taking the time to investigate this. I look forward to hearing back about what you find. Would me checking in on Jan 5th be appropriate?

reproduce this here in my office

If possible could you use TLS 1.3 and a PKCS#12 identity?

iOS 26 Network Framework AWDL not working
 
 
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