April 10, 2011
iphone extarnal accessory [bad] experience
Yesterday we spent some 8 hrs with Daniil Safonov trying to connect microcontroller-based circuit, no luck at all.
If you want not just connect to audio in/out, but to send/receive bits, you just cannot do that without being reviewed by apple as an applicant of MFI program.
So you even wanna send or receive several bits over connector, you have no simple way to do that! The protocol of accessory identification is closed by Apple (with NDA and so on), fast hacks did not give us any luck.
From my point of view if you need catch some small data from external accessory, the most simple way is to use camera as input device (using some error-correction code), although there's no output device that useful. Funny thing: when applying for MFI, second step after entering your email, is entering name/address of your lawer.
Apple does its business from the trenches, and the war is against standalone developers-innovators. Does Apple just fear of loosing initiative?
Upd: same thoughts here in 1st comment.
Upd: Photo of our research process by Alexey Papulovskiy who joined us for discussing that accessory idea:
Update: my art. Feel free to download and use it anyway you like.
If you want not just connect to audio in/out, but to send/receive bits, you just cannot do that without being reviewed by apple as an applicant of MFI program.
So you even wanna send or receive several bits over connector, you have no simple way to do that! The protocol of accessory identification is closed by Apple (with NDA and so on), fast hacks did not give us any luck.
From my point of view if you need catch some small data from external accessory, the most simple way is to use camera as input device (using some error-correction code), although there's no output device that useful. Funny thing: when applying for MFI, second step after entering your email, is entering name/address of your lawer.
Apple does its business from the trenches, and the war is against standalone developers-innovators. Does Apple just fear of loosing initiative?
Upd: same thoughts here in 1st comment.
Upd: Photo of our research process by Alexey Papulovskiy who joined us for discussing that accessory idea:
Update: my art. Feel free to download and use it anyway you like.
