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Comment by automach | Hacker News Reader

Using the Dock connector involved paying Apple a licensing fee. This circumvents that, and it's similar (although more involved) to how Square's card readers work.

There is already an iOS serial cable though, which I would think would be a better option for many projects:

http://redpark.com/c2db9.html

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" Under current Apple policy this cable may not be used with apps sold on the App Store."

That's an odd condition of Apple's terms. Why is this so? If I go through the process of designing and approving a hardware device, I can't sell an app to go with it? Or do I have to provide the app in tandem with the device?

"may not be used with apps sold on the App Store" probably just means "Apple will not approve an application which uses this cable for sale on the App Store".

But Apple approved the cable. Get the paradox?

Where does it say that Apple approved the cable? It seems to me like they're deliberately avoiding any step that requires Apple approval.

It's right on the front page.

You can't use the "Made for iPod" label on your product unless it's Apple approved and has an Apple-supplied chip in the dock connector.

I wrote an app that uses this cable. You CAN distribute an app using serial communications, but ONLY with a custom cable variant created by Redpark. This custom cable will ONLY work with your app, and your app will only work with this custom cable. Apple will approve this app because Redpark has done the legwork of MFI compatibility. What the web page points to is only a "evaluation" system, not production ready.

Thanks for that information. It's hard to get any understanding of what the whole Apple developer program is regarding the dock connector. Obviously the keynote dream of "look at all the things we'll be hooking up to iPhone/iPad!" is never gonna happen.

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