We have been looking into developing an application for iOS
that will allow the phone to connect to a sensor through a serial connection.
The purpose is to change the settings of the sensor using the phone. However, I
have been made aware that we would be unable to develop such an app unless we
enroll in the MFI program.
We considered alternatives such as using Redpark’s cables
and their SDKs, but according to them publishing would not be possible. They
mentioned we could develop the app and publish through Apple Business Manager
to distribute to corporate customers, but as far as I could tell, this requires
the customer to be enrolled in the Apple Business Manager program as well.
What we wish to do is publish publicly in both iOS and
Android, but for iOS there doesn’t seem to be support for serial communication,
and I am assuming appropriate APIs/SDKs are available only through the MFI
program.
I would like to know what options we have and how we can
explore them.
Thank you very much for your time.