Don’t Claim Every Network

When given the Evaluate command, do not blindly return kHotspotHelperConfidenceHigh without knowing that the network is one your app can handle.

Be Efficient

The helper contributes to the overall user experience of connecting to Wi-Fi networks. Handling commands efficiently means that there is CPU left over for other processing to take place.

Be Responsive

Respond to commands with low latency. The state machine relies on input from the helpers to make progress. The obvious exception to this is the PresentUI command, which relies on user input and is therefore not bounded in time.

Keep Display Name Short

The display name kNEHotspotHelperOptionDisplayName should be no longer than 15 characters. This restriction allows the user interface to more easily show multiple helpers that have claimed a given network.

Provide UI to Disable

When multiple helpers are installed, it’s possible that more than one helper is able to authenticate to the same Wi-Fi network. When such a Wi-Fi network is joined, there is no guarantee that a particular helper will perform the authentication. In most cases, it doesn’t matter which helper does the authentication, but in some cases cost or other factors make it desirable to select a particular helper.

To help resolve this issue, the helper application should provide configuration UI to disable the helper globally and/or by SSID. That way, the user can influence which helper performs the authentication.