iPod/iPhone Dock Reference Design

[octal]

I just come across the iPod/iPhone dock ref design
http://www.xmos.com/products/development-kits/ipod-dock

and I wanted to know something. In the Key Features I can see listed:

- Complete USB host interface to iPod/iPhone

I want to reuse part of this design for another project, and I want to know something:

1- What's the max speed transfer of data from the DOC (XMOS) to iPhone ? (I insist on that, from XMOS TO iPhone, not the opposite direction).
2- Is the transfer lossless ?

Regards

[xsamc]

Hi octal,

The source code and details of the XMOS iPod dock reference design can only be supplied to to registered Apple® MFi licensees. If you are already an MFi licensee, please contact XMOS support directly for further details.

For more information on the MFi program, and to apply, please go to http://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi/.

Kind regards,
Sam

[jonathan]

I might be wrong but he didn't ask for the source code...

1- What's the max speed transfer of data from the DOC (XMOS) to iPhone ? (I insist on that, from XMOS TO iPhone, not the opposite direction).
2- Is the transfer lossless ?

Surely these cannot be covered by MFI?

Also, there must be a part of the USB host library that can be split from the Apple-specific stuff and released? There are probably quite a lot of people out there who would like to see USB host - even in a very limited form - and if this work were open-sourced it'd highly liked it would be further developed.

[octal]

Hi octal,

The source code and details of the XMOS iPod dock reference design can only be supplied to to registered Apple® MFi licensees. If you are already an MFi licensee, please contact XMOS support directly for further details.

Sam

Hi Sam,
I know that I have to be MFI Licensees, and I know the Apple(R) program, as I'm already a registered iPhone developper.
I'm not against the MFI license, but the problem is that the conditions are very restrictives, and I don't want to enroll their unless I'm sure I'll be able to do what I need.
From what I saw on internet, almost all users send data using UART, and only on XMOS site I can see that we can have USB transfer FROM THE DEVICE >>> TO the IPHONE !!!
If this info is true (and I don't doubt it's since your device use it), I need to know the max transfer speed for a lossless transfer, as the envisaged peripheral I want to develop is speed dependant.
What's the utility to enroll in a program if finally I'll find myself with a transfer rate of 1Mb of data ?

I don't ask you to divulgue information about all the process or all details about peripherals construction, but my enrolment will depend on the capabilities of their interface, and seriously is it possible to advertise for a device or a peripheral without giving a min of such info?
What will be the harm if users can know that peripherals can do data exchage with iphone at 10, 20 or 2000 MB/sec ?
Unless the speed is really ridiculous (and I doublt as it's used for streaming audio), I don't see why this info could be so confidential and that I have to pass ALL the MIFI procedure (and you know that it's so long ... very long ...) just to finally discover that it does not fit my needs.

In electronics, when I know that connectivity and pinouts and the way to interface hardware with software (drivers writing, APIs, ...) can be confidential, I don't see why specifications can be covered by a license.

[Joerg]

Hi Octal,

let me provide the level of info we can in a public forum without violating our contractual obligations.

The USB implementation that is part of our reference design is a full speed USB host.
Unfortunately, we can't discuss in public specifics about the data rate between the iOS device and the XMOS reference design. Hopefully this gives you an idea of of the data rates in the reference design - on the XMOS side.

Please note that the primary use case for our current reference design is iPod docking, i.e. streaming audio over USB from the iOS device to an XMOS based dock.

It appears you have a different use case in mind?

Hope this helps.

Joerg