Why MFI certification?

From Apple's perspective, in order to better consolidate Apple's ecosystem, only MFI chips are integrated to connect and communicate with iPhone, iPod and iPad. Only MFI certified enterprises can buy MFI chips in batches, and the supply and marketing chain of MFI chips is under strict supervision and management, so apple can strictly control that only peripherals that meet Apple's specifications and requirements can join the apple ecosystem.

From the manufacturer's point of view, after Apple's official authorization, the accessory products can be perfectly compatible with Apple's intelligent devices; In the process of submitting MFI certification, the hardware equipment needs to pass the ATS self-test required by apple and the strict test required by apple, so the product quality is more guaranteed; Consumers also have more trust in MFI certified and authorized accessories; Finally, it successfully obtained MFI authorization, which has also become a sign of technical and quality strength, because the passing rate of MFI certification is only 2%, and most enterprises are directly rejected because their application qualifications are not qualified.

From the perspective of IOS developers, MFI certification is mainly applied by hardware manufacturers. It is a kind of certification and authorization of Apple's external accessories. However, many peripherals are connected to apple, not only with IOS device hardware or IOS system to complete corresponding functions (such as charging, Carplay, playing iPod music (A2DP), answering Bluetooth phone (HPF) or providing GPS input source). Many times, in order to meet specific requirements, IOS app needs to cooperate, connect and communicate with corresponding peripherals, transmit relevant control commands to control peripherals, or transmit relevant peripheral data for display. The connection methods between IOS app and peripherals include network, EAP and ble (please refer to several ways of IOS app connecting peripherals I wrote earlier), among which EAP is the way to connect peripherals officially recommended by apple. Only MFI certified peripherals can communicate with the app using EAP.

How to do MFI certification?

The MFI certification process is complex and can be summarized into three parts, as shown in the figure below,

MFI certification process

The part marked with yellow background may be related to IOS app developers, which I will focus on. Other parts are led by hardware manufacturers. As an IOS developer, I don't need to participate, but I will also share some information I know with you. If there is anything wrong, please correct and communicate with relevant old drivers.