iOS 18 Brings AirPods Setup Experience To Third-Party Accessories

Filipe Esposito reports via 9to5Mac: When Apple introduced AirPods in 2016, the company also unveiled a new, easy and intuitive way to pair wireless accessories to iPhone and iPad. Rather than having to go to Bluetooth settings and press buttons, the system identifies the accessory nearby and prompts the user to pair it. With iOS 18, this quick pairing process will be available for the first time to accessory makers.

Called AccessorySetupKit, the new API gives third-party accessories the same setup experience as Apple accessories such as AirPods and AirTag. As soon as the iPhone or iPad running iOS 18 with the right app detects a compatible accessory, it will show the user a popup to confirm pairing with that device. With just a tap, the system will automatically handle all the Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connectivity required by the accessory. This also means that users will no longer have to manually give Bluetooth and Wi-Fi permissions individually to that accessory's app.

If the accessory requires a more complex pairing process, such as confirming a PIN code, the iOS 18 API can also ask the user for this information without the need to open an app. Once the accessory has been paired, more information about it can be found in a new Accessories menu within the Privacy settings.

As long as

[vlad30]

Some random stranger can't pair with my device just by being near it. That was a problem in the early days of bluetooth and a number of devices had their pins set to and easy combination

Re:

[CrankyFool]

I don't know about random strangers, but we ended up being incredibly frustrated by this feature at home, when basically it started feeling impossible to make sure that the Apple Airpod Max headphones my spouse got would connect to my spouse's iPad, instead of either of the kids' iPads when they were nearby. One of the reasons that headset is no longer in meaningful rotation is because it was hard to make it stick to connecting to one specific device. So now we're not using Apple headphones. I really don

Re: As long as

[guruevi]

Donâ(TM)t use the same iCloud account across those devices. You can make individual accounts for your kids, also helps with the time limit features. The device is paired to your iCloud account which makes it very convenient, once paired it can now connect to your BT accessories, regardless the device you are currently on.

"permissions individually to that accessory's app"

[Seclusion]

Needing an app to use hardware is the modern day winmodem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Softmodems are also sometimes called winmodems due to limited support for platforms other than Windows.

Re:

[newcastlejon]

Sorry, but what point are you trying to make?

They ended up being called winmodems because no-one bothered to make non-Windows software for them, since nearly everyone using a modem in a home computer was using Windows. Very nearly everyone. For the few people who weren't running Windows (or who were running Windows and needed a less shitty excuse for a modem) there were the more expensive hardware modems that had already been around for years.

Skip forward a few years to the beginnings of 802.11, where even

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but what point are you trying to make?

The same point people made about why winmodems sucked. You are at the mercy of the manufacturer to support the OS you want to use. And that's the least of your problems. Who knows what permissions, personal information data harvesting, etc..., they'll also want. Information that may be subject to what ever terms of service they decide on any given week.

since nearly everyone using a modem in a home computer was using Windows

Were you a gamer when these came out? Did you play multiplayer games on DOS? Just because you had Windows didn't mean you didn't also want to pay games

Re:

[drinkypoo]

By the time winmodems came out, few people were still going back to DOS in general, and there was little reason to use a modem with DOS. They did suck, though. To me, the biggest reason they were bad for the average person is that when they were introduced they actually used a significant amount of CPU. By the time they were phased out (not because modems went away, but because real modems became cheap enough that there was no reason for winmodems to exist) this wasn't really a factor any more, and there wa

Re: "permissions individually to that accessory's

[guruevi]

Winmodems were not real modems, they were sound cards where software (your CPU) emulated the tones to speak on the wire.

They were universally crappy and had massive overhead although a real modem speaking the standards were available.

There were some people writing algorithms for some of them but it was universally accepted not worth the $5-10 extra investment in a real modem. Even a second hand 33k modem, especially if it offloaded more than just the signals was often faster and more reliable than a 56k win

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Winmodems were not real modems, they were sound cards where software (your CPU) emulated the tones to speak on the wire.

This not entirely true and nothing that wasn't in the wikipedia article I linked. Here's a quote.

In 1996, two types of modem began to reach the market: host-based modems, which offloaded some work onto the host CPU, and software-only modems which transferred all work onto the host system's CPU. In 1997, the AC'97 standard for computer audio would introduce channels for modem use, making software modem technology common in PCs.

I would not care to speculate how many winmodems sold were glorified sound cards with a POTS jack.

Even a second hand 33k modem, especially if it offloaded more than just the signals was often faster and more reliable than a 56k winmodem.

I don't know that there's value in debating the performance of winmodems because there were other factors in modem performance at speeds above 28.8k. The quality of your POTS line was probably the most common issue. I had read stories about modems working better with their own brand. I remember many times having

Re:

[thegarbz]

Nearly all hardware works generally on devices. Apps are optional extras for enhanced functionality not supported by standards. This is *nothing* like winmodems.

Apple

[tessaevans]

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