Check in to Facebook Places from your inPulse watch
blog.getinpulse.com
blog.getinpulse.com
It may not look like it on the surface, but this application, in a small way, is the sort of thing that seriously puts nails in the iPhone's coffin.
When I first heard about the InPulse I wondered how it could possibly work with the iPhone and as it turns out it can't, at least not without jailbreaking it, therefore rendering this sort of application "naughty" if not impossible.
As the novelty of the phone itself wears out the ability to integrate with other devices and use the hardware in new and innovative ways will be severely crippled on Apple's platforms due to the severe limits put on legitimate developers.
I'm excited to see that there is room for this sort of thing on other platforms and I can't wait to see other projects which exploit it.
But to your point perhaps, someday Apple will allow iPhone users to interact with another Apple device in this way but my point is that Android users don't have to wait, and I see this as an emerging trend in mobile software/hardware design that will increase the functionality gap between open and closed systems.
As for hardware hacks on the iphone, square is doing a pretty impressive job with just a headphone jack: https://squareup.com/
And innovation doesn't necessarily require hardware hacks, so I seriously doubt that the lack of add-on hardware is a "nail in the iphone coffin". Chase has a new feature that lets you deposit checks by taking a picture of them. That's pretty innovative, IMO. No extra hardware required: http://www.maclife.com/article/news/chase_mobile_update_brin...
Yes there have been several creative ways to work around the limitations imposed by Apple and I imagine these will continue but would you agree that this "handicap" discourages innovation on the platform, and provides a "leg-up" to developers on other platforms?
Any hardware manufacturer that wants to integrate with the iPhone needs a special $1 chip and a licensing agreement with apple. Mostly because you are going to use their product names and Made For iPhone graphics. From those I have talked to in this program, its very painless and simple, and gets you extra functionality in terms of backgrounding since the user expects it and obviously trusts the hardware device they purchased. The problem is that this chip makes it incompatible with other phones. (see wakemate as an example).
Apple is not against innovation, and it bothers me when people say that. The correct statement is that they are about control. I use a hackintosh and many apple products. I like that i can do anything with my mac, but my iphone has some limits in place that make sure (if it wasn't on at&t) it will always work as a phone. I had many windows mobile phones and even an android that were buggy or had too much cool extra software that prevented the phone software from working reliably. Consumers get a choice. When it comes to my pocket, I choose apple's infrastructure.
I can understand (and appreciate) the desire to control the platform, and for the first two years I even defended it; all I am saying now is that the cost of this control is growing as competing devices close-in on providing similar levels of functionality without such restrictions.
You're saying that this simple 5 dollar chip (not 1 as you claim, by the way) doesn't hurt innovation, but it does. For instance, what if you wanted to connect your arduino to your iphone? Is it really worth paying 5 dollars to connect a 7 dollar chip?
Now suppose it is still worth it. Could a programmable microcomputer get by Apple's "Works with iPhone" standards? Not a chance.
I can think of a hundred cool things to do with an iPhone connected to an arduino, but those are all dead. I can think of a hundred more pieces of hardware I'd love to connect to my portable phone, but those can't work either.
Innovation can't get out of Apple's box.