Whats being overlooked in most of the comments here is that Apple is killing off the only non-licensed hardware input that their iDevices had since the beginning, and the one without which a number of companies, including Square would probably not exist.<p>Im not sure about this day in age, but as someone working on hardware adapter feeding a stream of data into the iPhone in 2009 and 2010, the cost of getting into an MFI(or whatever the   licensing term for hardware&#x2F;bluetooth interoperability with iDevices was) was cost prohibitive and largely NDA-d out for smaller startups. So we went with the audio input just like Square did.<p>Unless something has changed in Apple&#x27;s attitude to licensing and interoperability, the door has just been shut close for companies trying to innovate with other hardware products interacting with iDevices.