We're frequently asked about compatibility with Android, and we understand why. Each player needs a device to play The Card Table and not everyone has an iPhone.

The unfortunate answer to the Android question is that we do not currently see a way to make The Card Table cross-platform. The reason is that we are using a new feature in iOS 7 called the Multipeer Connectivity framework, which creates and manages connections between devices over Bluetooth or Wifi.

It is possible to connect iOS and Android devices together over wifi, and there are a couple of third-party frameworks that handle those connections. However it is entirely impossible to connect an Android device to an iOS device over Bluetooth, due to Apple security restrictions.

So for now we are waiting for a way to make cross-platform Bluetooth and Wifi connections possible. We do not think cross-platform Wifi connection support is worth losing Bluetooth and losing the ability to leverage the iOS-only framework that does exactly what we need it to do to make The Card Table work.

Here is some reading for you about the Multipeer Connectivity framework and iOS-Android peer-to-peer compatibility.

• From BGR
  
• From Cult of Mac
• For techies

In an upcoming blog post we will give a sneak peak at the technology we took advantage of to make Card Table a reality. The short answer is: Bluetooth LE.

Right now we want to quickly link to a few articles about the power of an exciting new implementation of Bluetooth LE: Apple iBeacons. An iBeacon can be any iOS device. The technology is built into iOS 7. Simply, an iBeacon is an iOS device emitting an efficient, low energy signal that basically says, "I am an iBeacon! Here I am!" along with a unique ID. Devices running apps that listen for these iBeacons will begin communication or perform some action when they find an iBeacon emitting a signal that interests them.

Card Table did not require the use of iBeacons, but it was a work project involving iBeacons that tipped us off to the power of Bluetooth LE and set us down the path of creating Card Table. Here are the articles:

From The Washington Post: How iBeacons could change the world forever
From The Guardian: Is 2014 the year of iBeacons?
From MacRumors: Apple's iBeacon brings new possibilities for location-based gaming