Why does Ethernet.begin() require a MAC address when WiFi.begin() doesn't?

Question

I am working on an Arduino application which is dependant on a certain library. This library uses the Ethernet class for network communications, but ideally, I would like it to be wireless (I have both an Ethernet and WiFi shield available for testing).

When working on replacing the Ethernet functionality of the library with the corresponding WiFi functionality, I noticed that the Ethernet.begin() function requires a MAC address while the WiFi.begin() doesn't (it instead accepts SSID and password, among a couple of other things).

As both come shipped with a MAC address sticker on them, I couldn't really figure out why this is the case (and if I need to supply the MAC address found on the WiFi shield in some other fashion).

Why is this the case?

Answer 1

The flip answer would be "because it doesn't need it…"

I think what is going on is that older Ethernet shields did not have a MAC address and it was necessary for the code to set one (and I would guess that on at least some of them you can still set the MAC address, overriding the one that is on the sticker).

WiFi cards, I would guess, are newer and the MAC address is always there, so there is no need to require you to assign it.