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NCF Mobile for iPhone

NcfMobileApp.iOS is a native .NET for iOS/UIKit client for a remotely hosted NCF site. It is intentionally separate from the Avalonia desktop application so that iOS lifecycle, audio routing, signing, and a future CarPlay scene can use Apple's native platform APIs.

Current capabilities

  • Install and run as a normal iPhone application.
  • Connect only to an HTTPS NCF site (loopback HTTP is allowed for simulator development).
  • Authenticate through the existing Admin API and verify AdminOnly access.
  • Select the latest AdminChat session or create a new session.
  • Load history and send messages through the streaming SSE endpoint.
  • Fall back to the nonstreaming endpoint when the remote site doesn't expose SSE.
  • Read the final Agent response with AVSpeechSynthesizer. iOS sends this audio to the currently selected output, including a connected car audio route when the system exposes it.
  • Use the iOS keyboard's dictation button for initial speech-to-text input.

The password is never persisted. The JWT access token is held only in memory. The site URL, user name, and automatic-read-aloud preference are stored in NSUserDefaults.

Why Senparc.Web is remote-only

The existing desktop product starts Senparc.Web as a child process and relies on a desktop .NET/ASP.NET runtime, dynamically discovered modules, local files, and an embedded desktop WebView. iOS applications cannot launch a general-purpose child process, and App Store/device builds use ahead-of-time compilation with strict trimming and code-signing constraints.

Running the full NCF host inside the iPhone application would therefore require a separate, large AOT and trimming migration across Senparc.Web and all selected XNCF modules. That path is not established by this prototype. The supported v0.1 architecture is:

iPhone NCF Mobile -> HTTPS AdminChat API -> remotely hosted Senparc.Web
                  <- SSE streaming reply <-

Prerequisites

  1. A Mac with the full Xcode application installed, not only Command Line Tools.
  2. Xcode's first-launch components and an iOS Simulator/runtime.
  3. .NET 10 SDK and the ios workload.
  4. An Apple Account signed in to Xcode. A free Personal Team is sufficient for installing a normal development build on your own iPhone, but its provisioning profile expires after seven days.
  5. A remotely reachable NCF site with a trusted HTTPS certificate and AdminChat enabled.

After installing Xcode:

sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
sudo xcodebuild -runFirstLaunch
dotnet workload install ios

Before signing, change ApplicationId in NcfMobileApp.iOS.csproj to a bundle identifier that belongs to your Personal Team, for example com.yourname.ncfmobile.

Restore and build the device target:

dotnet restore src/NcfMobileApp.iOS/NcfMobileApp.iOS.csproj
dotnet build src/NcfMobileApp.iOS/NcfMobileApp.iOS.csproj \
  -f net10.0-ios \
  -p:RuntimeIdentifier=ios-arm64

Select your development team/provisioning profile through Xcode's account and device tools. The first launch on a physical iPhone may require enabling Developer Mode and trusting the development certificate.

Server and network notes

  • Production and physical-device connections must use HTTPS.
  • A development certificate must be trusted by iOS; bypassing TLS validation is intentionally unsupported.
  • localhost on a physical iPhone is the iPhone itself, not the Mac running Senparc.Web.
  • Do not expose an NCF administrator endpoint directly to the public internet without normal firewall, authentication, rate-limit, certificate, and audit protections.

CarPlay boundary

This project does not currently declare a CarPlay entitlement. Adding one before Apple grants the managed capability causes signing/provisioning failure. After approval, add a CarPlay scene, the approved entitlement, and a template-based in-car UI to this same iOS application.

The next audio milestone should replace keyboard dictation with an explicit push-to-talk service using AVAudioSession (playAndRecord + voiceChat) and validate its input/output routes in a real vehicle. Continuous wake-word recording should remain a separate privacy, power, and review decision.