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.