This app which does processing for cancer and drug research,

https://www.vodafone.com.au/foundation/dreamlab

works on iphones/ipad. It works at night, when the app is the foreground app and only on power.

It's also APPROVED on the App store.

The BOINC developers should take a hard look at how Dreamlab is doing this because it provides a path to getting BOINC on IOS.

This app which does processing for cancer and drug research,



works on iphones/ipad. It works at night, when the app is the foreground app and only on power.

It's also APPROVED on the App store.

The BOINC developers should take a hard look at how Dreamlab is doing this because it provides a path to getting BOINC on IOS.

How do numbers of IOS machines compare with those of Android? Are there currently any dev's with experience of writing apps for IOS?

It could be a lot of work for the amount gained.

This app which does processing for cancer and drug research,



works on iphones/ipad. It works at night, when the app is the foreground app and only on power.

It's also APPROVED on the App store.

The BOINC developers should take a hard look at how Dreamlab is doing this because it provides a path to getting BOINC on IOS.

How do numbers of IOS machines compare with those of Android? Are there currently any dev's with experience of writing apps for IOS?

It could be a lot of work for the amount gained.

Well, couple of things. Apple's implementation of ARM is pretty much the fastest there is, so IOS devices tend (not always) to be at the top of he CPU heap in mobile.

Also, there are millions and millions and millions of IOS devices out there. The effort vs/reward for developing this is WAY skewed toward reward (in my opinion of course).

The trouble with the BOINC developers having to look real hard at this app is that Vodafone doesn't have source code available for anyone to look at. They're using proprietary code.
Also, as far as I can see, the app is doing the calculations directly. This differs from BOINC which is a managing app, but has to download the science applications from the project(s) before they can be used for calculations. This is where it's difficult to get into the Apple Store as it doesn't allow apps to download further apps for anything. Then BOINC would have to make a version with all possible project apps included, which makes it difficult as each time the project(s) release a new app it means that a new BOINC has to be released. It would also make the BOINC download gigantic because it needs to incorporate all those applications.

In other words, Dreamlab and BOINC can't really be compared, other than that they may do some of the same calculations. But so do Prime95 and Folding@Home.

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Also, as far as I can see, the app is doing the calculations directly. This differs from BOINC which is a managing app, but has to download the science applications from the project(s) before they can be used for calculations.

Well I don't know if this completely correct. You have to select which project you want to use in the Dreamlab as well. Probably the executables are included in the Dreamlab app and not in Boinc (but as you said we don't know for sure because there is no source code). That is the problem that Apple has with the Boinc approach. But it would be very helpful if Boinc uses the Dreamlab approach and bundles the iOS executables with iOS Boinc app. The disadvantage is when an project executable is updated the Boinc App needs to be updated. But the advantage is that you have the potential of lots of new devices.

Sjmielh

There's a possible glimmer of hope in this area. A new volunteer developer, Angelo Koutsogiannis, participated in the contributor call this week, and from what he said has significant practical experience of negotiating with Apple to overcome problems in gaining access to the IOS app store, on behalf of an employer with significant activity in this field.

Angelo spoke at the July 2019 BOINC workshop: there's a link to a video recording of his talk under 'Volunteers' on that page.

It'll take time for him to get up to speed with the specific BOINC requirements, but he should be able to piggyback on the renewed Android development activity recently.