MFi Certification

Why do MFi certification?

From Apple's point of view, in order to better consolidate Apple's ecosystem, it is only possible to connect and communicate with the iPhone, iPod, and iPad if the MFi chip is integrated.

Only MFi-certified companies can purchase MFi chips in bulk, and the supply and marketing chain of all MFi chips has strict supervision and management, so Apple can strictly control only those peripherals that meet Apple's specifications and requirements to join the Apple ecosystem lock up.

From the manufacturer's point of view, after being officially authorized by Apple, accessories can be perfectly compatible with Apple's smart devices; in the process of submitting MFi certification, hardware devices need to pass the ATS self-test required by Apple and strict testing by Apple, and the product quality is more guaranteed; consumers They also trust the accessories that have been authorized by MFi certification. Finally, the successful acquisition of MFI authorization has also become a symbol of technical and quality strength, because the MFi certification pass rate is only 2%, and most of them are directly rejected because the application qualifications are not met.

From the perspective of iOS developers, MFi certification is applied by hardware manufacturers, and it is a kind of certification and authorization for peripheral accessories by Apple. However, many peripherals are connected to Apple, not just with the iOS device hardware or the iOS system to complete the corresponding functions (such as charging, CarPlay, playing iPod music (A2DP), answering Bluetooth calls (HPF) or providing GPS input sources Wait). In many cases, in order to achieve specific requirements, it is necessary to cooperate with the iOS App. The iOS App connects and communicates with the corresponding peripherals, transmits relevant control commands to control the peripherals, or transmits related peripheral data for display. The connection methods between iOS App and peripherals include network, EAP and BLE (please refer to "Several Ways for iOS App to Connect to Peripherals" that I wrote before), of which EAP is the officially recommended method by Apple to connect to peripherals. Only MFi-certified peripherals can use EAP to communicate with the app.

How to do MFi certification?

The process of MFi certification is relatively complex and can be summarized into three parts, as shown in the following figure.

MFi Certification Process

The parts marked with yellow background may be related to iOS App developers, and I will focus on them. The rest is driven by hardware manufacturers, and I don't need to be involved as an iOS developer, but I'll share some of what I know. If there is anything wrong, please correct and exchange the relevant old drivers.

1. The applicant submits application materials

First, collect company information, which mainly includes the contact information of the person in charge of certification, the introduction of the company, the company's organizational structure, the company's website, material quality control, and ISO system certificates. Then, register on the Apple MFi official website (mfi.apple.com), submit the company information collected in the first step, and apply for an account.

Next, Apple will conduct an MFi system audit. This is a very crucial step. It mainly inspects the company's management system for MFi chips, and sees whether the company has standardized processes and systems to manage MFi chips, which can effectively prevent resale of chips or misappropriation of chips (using chips for projects that have not passed MFi awareness). Arrange a special person or agency to conduct random inspections.

If the MFi system has been reviewed, Apple will also examine other conditions of the company to assess whether the company meets the eligibility for MFi membership. The audit criteria mainly depends on the relevant qualifications of the company, whether it has a large production scale; whether it has its own brand; whether the brand has a high status in the industry (mainly manifested in various honors); whether it has supplied other internationally renowned companies; Whether the number of R&D personnel reaches the number required by Apple, etc., the applicant must ensure the authenticity of the application materials, and Apple will verify them one by one.

If these conditions are met, congratulations that your company has become an MFi member, is eligible to purchase sample chips, and obtained the official MFi development document provided by Apple. Each page of the document is watermarked with the applicant's name, and it is prohibited to externally Publicly, if found, MFi membership may be cancelled. It is said that most businesses will be stuck at the membership verification step.

2. Submit product plan, R&D and self-test

If your company belongs to the lucky small part (it is said to be 5%, I heard it, there is no official data support), it has passed the MFi membership review, got Apple's official MFi research and development documents, and purchased MFi sample chips. , then you can submit a product plan for product development and self-testing.

Submitting a product plan is a very critical step. It needs to be described in detail according to the form of the company's products to be developed, the technical solutions used, the iOS devices that need to be supported, and iOS-related information, among which the more important information is.

(1) Accessory Overview

Attachment overview

Technology (Technology) If you are a car device that supports CapPlay, then choose CarPlay, otherwise you should choose iAP; if your hardware needs to be connected to the iPhone and handle related services, not just charging cables or data cables, Then the Authentication coprocessor should be selected in Components.

(2) Firmware & Hardware

Firmware and Hardware Information

Now all MFi-certified hardware needs to support the iAP2 protocol, so you must choose iAP2 or support both iAP2 and iAP1. Then how the peripheral hardware communicates with Apple devices is to use USB Host mode, and USB Devices mode, Or serial port or Bluetooth, this needs to be selected according to the needs and characteristics of the product.

(3) Select the features of the iAP2 supported by the hardware

iAP2 Features

(4) Select the supported Apple device model.

According to the design of the product, select the Apple device models that need to be supported, including various models of iPad, iPhone and iPod.

(5) App-related information

App related information

This part is also the part that iOS developers need to focus on, including the version number of the App, BundleID and protocol string, and the description of the main features of the iOS App. This part of the information needs to be kept with the information of the App test package attached to the MFi review. Consistent. After submitting the product plan, you can get the PPID (Product Plan ID). This PPID is also something that iOS App developers need to pay attention to. When the App is developed and submitted to the AppStore to go online, it is necessary to bring this PPID in the version review remarks, otherwise the review will not pass.

The next step is product development. Mainly, hardware manufacturers need to develop hardware and driver certification programs according to the development documents provided by Apple. The iOS App developers mainly need to create a system frame ExternalAccessory.framework provided by the iOS system, and configure the protocol strings (Supported external accessory protocols) in the info.plist. When the iOS device is connected to the corresponding hardware through a USB cable or Bluetooth, the iOS system abstracts the peripherals that meet the MFI certification requirements into a stream object, and the App creates an instance of the EASession class through the specified protocol string to access the Stream objects can communicate with hardware through NSInputStream and NSOutputStream.

After the product development is completed, ATS (Accessory Test System) self-test is required and a self-test report is provided. ATS self-test Apple will provide test tools and software for ATS Box, mainly to test the electrical characteristics of the hardware, including whether the voltage and current values of each node meet Apple's requirements, and then whether the transmission bandwidth is stable, whether it meets Apple's requirements, etc.

After the self-test is completed, the hardware and the supporting software (the ipa installation package of the iOS App) can be sent to the testing laboratory designated by Apple for certification testing. What iOS developers need to pay attention to in this step is how to package the ipa package. Because if you package it directly with the development certificate, the iPhone of the Apple tester is not in the device list of your development certificate and cannot be installed. If it is packaged with an enterprise certificate, the bundleid corresponding to the certificate issued by the AppStore may be inconsistent with the bundleid of the enterprise certificate, so it is not feasible.

Therefore, the recommended approach is to take the PPID obtained in the product plan and submit it to the AppStore for review after the product development and self-test are completed. After the review is passed, you can directly download the corresponding ipa installation package from the AppStore, and send it to the MFi certification test together with the hardware.

This stage is also dominated by hardware manufacturers and has little to do with iOS app developers. After the MFi certification of the hardware is submitted for review, the packaging of the product also needs to be submitted for certification and review. After the review is passed, you can obtain authorization from Apple to purchase MFi chips in bulk, and then proceed to mass production and sales of hardware according to the sales plan.

The entire MFi certification cycle takes about 3 months to half a year, and each time you submit a certification test, you need to pay a test fee of $600. Apple will not send back the hardware test samples sent for testing.

The above is the relevant knowledge of how to apply for MFi certification, testing and auditing and mass production shared by Orange, the editor of Lanya The professionals below will answer your questions and hope to help everyone.

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