What accessories do you wish you could program for on the iPhone / iPod Touch

Question

The new iPhone O/S 3.0 added support for programming for accessories - but what accessories would you like to program for?

--UPDATE--

How would you use accessories like blood sugar monitors, car engine system monitors, credit card readers etc?

Answer 1

A laser tag type gun that you would mount the iPhone on, the wireless mode, GPS, compass and gun could combine into a pretty cool game.

A heart rate monitor for use while riding my bike, for accumulating ride statistics (Might already be available via bluetooth).

A KEYBOARD. One of those where you can plug the iPhone in the top--folds up, etc.

You know, it would be nice if there was a case that you put "around" the ipod (like the existing hard plastic cases) that contained extra rechargeable batteries and a memory expansion pack to hold extra music (let's say a 64-128gb card).

Update: Although I understand a blood glucose monitor is actually in the works, I'm not sure how it would be extra helpful. The presentation I was watching claimed it could track info and send it instantly to your doctor.

I could easily see it monitoring car performance. I'd build a iPhone-style mount into the dash and just slide it in when I got into the car. It could control and monitor fuel efficiency, engine performance, timing, emissions, etc. It could give graphics and other displays that would update as performance changed.

On high-performance cars it could even shift for you (Newer manual shifts can be controlled electronically, I believe)

This is probably being done as well. A friend and I were discussing doing it with a DS.

The CC reader is also being done. I'm not sure if it's hardware or photo or manual entry though. They discussed it in the same keynote speech in which they discussed the glucose monitor.

I could see this being amazingly useful. A couple weeks ago I went to a movie in a "Livingroom" style theater. Each row had unlimited leg room with ottomans set up in front. They served meals from a full-service restaurant. When taking orders, the waiters carried around these big things that seemed kind of like the things UPS drivers use to get your signature. After the meal they took your card away to process it. Both tasks could have been done at the same time (and much more elegantly) with an iPhone.

(On the bummer side, my wife and I paid over $70 to see "The Hangover"--a good show but a bit pricey at that)

Answer 2

I'm looking forward to car diagnostic interfaces myself.

Answer 3

credit card reader, RFID reader/writer, external wifi adapter, IR emitter

EDIT: compact flash/SD card reader

ANOTHER EDIT: printer!

Answer 4

geiger counter

Answer 5

Maybe a larger video screen attachment of some kind.

Answer 6

A video / remote control radio for controlling radio controlled planes and stuff w/ first-person video.

Answer 7

An IR remote attachment?

How about a video game controller that has open standards so all games could use it?

Answer 8

• home automation
• car automation
• freaking keyboard
• any HDTV
• my washing machine

Answer 9

It would be cool to make a map view of buildings. It would work similar to google maps street view or Google Earth. Rather than using it for roads it would display hallways and rooms of various buildings. Allowing the user to navigate malls, libraries, and other public buildings to locate destinations.

Answer 10

I think the car market is itching for something like this. Currently, the only option is something along the lines of Rev, which uses a wifi enabled OBD-II to connect to the iPhone. Once you get a hard attachment, diagnostics and tuning will be incredibly easy and should be much cheaper than the wifi attachment. Plus, I feel like a big portion of the car-tuner market already has iPhones, so adding an attachment and application isn't a big leap. I already have a solid mount in my car for my phone. If I could information about my car while driving, that would just make things better!

Next, I think it would be cool for someone to program a universal remote control (universal meaning for home automation/electronics/anything rf like remote extenders, garage door, etc) for the iPhone. It would pretty much need to be Logitech doing this (for the electronics side). They've already got the Harmony remotes, so it wouldn't be much stretch to use that knowledge and database of remote control codes to add it to the iPhone; they would only need a small attachment that allows the iPhone to send IR & RF, obviously wifi and bluetooth are already covered.

As for the keyboard, I don't think it should be something that should be plugged into the iPhone, I think it should be something that you just set your iPhone next to and you get a bluetooth keyboard. I know they already make products like this, I'm just not sure if they work with the iPhone yet.