Control iOS device from Raspberry Pi?

Question

I am actually wondering if there are any ways to control an iDevice like the iPod Touch or the iPhone, from the Raspberry Pi. I'm not talking about controlling the whole thing, but only the Media controls, like the Play/Pause, Volume UP/Down, Forward/Previous triggers, just like an dock would do.

I've already heard about the Apple MFi program, giving access to their documentation library, but I don't know if it is required (I hope not).

If possible, the iOS device would be plugged to the Raspberry Pi via the Apple's regular 30 pin USB cable.

Answer 1

Have a look at Redpark (http://www.makershed.com/Redpark_TTL_Cable_for_iOS_p/msrp03.htm). It's aimed at Arduino and I have thought about getting one. It might be possible to hook it up to a Pi or at least to a Gertboard.

Other than that yes, you could reverse engineer the iOS 32 pin cable as the previous answerer said

Answer 2

There are ways to control a custom iOS app from a Raspberry Pi, but not the media player controls. (added: It might be possible to construct a custom headset cable, and control its up/down volume button presses from GPIO pins on the Pi.)

To connect the Pi to a custom iOS app, use the Apple Lightning Camera connection kit, an Apple USB to ethernet adapter, and a cross-over ethernet cable to connect the iOS device to the Pi. Than the iOS app can use any network socket API to connect to the same network protocol server running on the Pi (such as http, mqtt, or rtl_tcp, etc.). The Pi's local network address (for ssh, etc.) usually is "raspberrypi.local" from the connected iOS device.