In March of 2009, Apple previewed iPhone Software 3.0. Many of the features would be immediately useful, such as copy and paste, but other parts of the 3.0 software were there simply to lay the groundwork for developers to bring the iPhone to a whole new level. We saw some real innovations in 2009, such as Dragon Dictation’s voice recognition, amazing photo apps and a number of apps to send and receive video from the iPhone, but those were all on the software side. What about hardware? When iPhone Software 3.0 was announced, I was particularly excited to see what new hardware would be available. As I wrote back on March 18, 2009:
iPhone app interaction with accessories. This is another neat one that I am sure has ramifications that I
haven’t even begun to imagine. The iPhone will be able to talk to and
control accessories, either wirelessly (using Bluetooth) or by
connecting the accessory to the port on the bottom of the iPhone.
Apple gave an example of connecting the iPhone to a speaker and using
the iPhone to control levels on the speaker. A medical company showed
off a glucose monitor that can communicate with the iPhone wirelessly
so that a diabetic can log and monitor blood sugar using the iPhone. I
can see the iPhone communicating with document scanners, bar code
readers, printers, etc. And it would be nice to be able to connect the
iPhone to a small external keyboard to type longer e-mails, messages,
etc. (Apple was specifically asked yesterday if this would work, and
simply answered that they had nothing to announce. But I presume this
will be possible.) Like many of the other improvements announced
today, I’m sure we can’t even begin to predict what imaginative
developers will do with this feature.
I presumed that Apple was describing this feature in March so that developers would have time to get their hardware ready for introduction soon after 3.0 was released on June 17, 2009. I looked forward to a huge number of interesting third party devices that could be added to the iPhone.
But it didn’t happen. Even today, most of the external hardware for the iPhone consists of speakers and headphones, batteries, and cases. Where are all of the cool add-ons for the iPhone?
On January 1, 2010, Jenna Wortham of the New York Times predicted Five Tech Themes for 2010. Her first prediction of what might be big in 2010 is hardware attachments for the iPhone:
The third wave of mobile applications: Mobile app
stores continue to evolve from kitschy collections of games and novelty
programs into robust catalogs of applications that push the limits of
what a cellphone can do. So where can we expect to see the next big
innovation? External attachments. So far, Square, a device that plugs
into the audio jack of a mobile phone, turning it into a credit card
machine, has made the splashiest entrance
into the market, but that is just the beginning. Example: a glucose
monitor that could directly port blood sugar readings and other health
information into a program for analysis.
The glucose monitor that she mentions is, of course, the same device that Lifescan previewed a live demo of back in March of 2009 when Apple announced iPhone Software 3.0. Almost eight months later, we are still waiting for this device to appear.
The other device that she mentions, Square, was announced last month but is still in limited testing. A similar device from Mophie that will also allow you to scan credit cards with an iPhone is scheduled to be debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in a few days.
I’m glad to see Square and Mophie testing their products, and hopefully they will be available soon. Nevertheless, I am surprised that we saw so little innovation in external hardware for the iPhone in 2009. I hope that Wortham is correct and that now, in 2010, we are about to see a new wave of hardware attachments for the iPhone.
I’ve got an easy one: Where’s the freakin’ keyboard? I’ll take plug in or Bluetooth, but why can’t I choose to use a keyboard?
Developers face additional hurdles when creating new hardware. Most notably, the SDK only supports devices that are a part of the “Works with iPhone” program. I almost bought a dock connector, but decided against it when I found out I would have to jailbreak my iPhone just to interface with my custom hardware.
I felt completely jilted when, getting in touch with Lifescan, I found that the device and program demoed was not a real product, was only being considered and would have to wait several years for FDA approval.
Had I not already owned an iPhone I could easily have bought one on the strength of that demo.
iPhone is losing ground to other phones – ground that could easily be gained by helping and accelerating the hardware-support efforts.
I may have a moratorium on buying any more iPhone apps so that I can check out Android to see if they have any similar apps to my ‘dealbreaker’ iPhone ones. If they do then my next “iPhone upgrade” could be an HTC Android-based handset.