Only have to do this because the accessory kit in iOS is so locked down and Apple wraps that mess up in their "Works for iPhone" program.<p>The dock connector has full serial bus for accessories with power. It's easy to program and build accessories. No weird hacks converting to analog and then doing software signal processing and generating power with continuous tone.<p>Apple just locks it down from developers getting access unless you follow their strict guidelines. One of which is that your accessory works for iPhone and only iPhone and not multiple devices. They also have licensing fees involved. It's arbitrary.<p>The also do this same program for Bluetooth. They claimed custom protocols at WWDC a few years ago that gave me hope I could connect to common bluetooth devices (like a laptops and my Lego NXT device). Entirely not the case.
Why can't the same "hobbyist" effort that's applied to breaking the handshake and encryption on Playstations and Xboxes be applied to reverse-engineering Apple's peripheral chip?
It says Phone peripherals, not iPhone. It says audio jack, not 30-pin connector. It doesn't seem like everyone is glad we have a multi-platform smartphone connection, why? Even Micro-usb is bulkier than this.