Its not like two weeks ago, before this product, you wouldn't hook an iPhone up to an RS-232 port! You could always do that if you wanted to hack together a solution.
Apple just made it official.
And really, $60? Seems a bit high, but there's the fact that this is a specialty product for a specialty market, and realy, if you're hardware hacking the time savings of buying a working product is well worth the $60.
I truly do not understand the idea that "geeks" wouldn't love Apple. To me, geeks are either people who really love technology, or people who have very strong engineering skills. I have both. And because of both, I really appreciate Apple doesn't waste my time , money or energy with crap. Apple makes first rate products, and that means I get to spend more time geeking.
People also seem to think that Apple has everything locked down. I don't see that at all-- you can work with nonstandard hardware if you're a developer by using the Apple supplied accessory SDK. Sure, consumers-- that is to say, non-geeks,-- are kept from hurting themselves to some extent by Apple, but that's a good thing. Means I can recommend their products to my mom.