Specifications

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2. Research and Requirements
2.1 Platform
The chosen platform for development is a reflection of the design team’s interest
in new avenues of work-study. Upon conception of this project, it was necessary
to identify a target platform upon which the design could be implemented. One
option here is to design an add-on hardware sensing unit that can be attached to
a pre-existing hardware and software platform, limiting the design to the available
resources offered by the particularly hardware/software vendor. The other option
involves a completely custom hardware and software design from the ground up,
allowing for the greatest level of flexibility in the process of planning and product
realization, while increasing both the quantity and cost of hardware acquisition,
as well as requiring additional time to design a complete interface for the product.
2.1.1 iPhone
The iPhone is an internet enabled smartphone made by Apple Inc. Due to its
elegant design and multimillion dollar advertising campaign, the iPhone is one of
the most widely owned, and as such, most widely developed for mobile hardware
and software platforms in the world. Up to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, Apple
has shipped almost 34 million hardware units across the globe, and their
percentage of the smartphone market has been rapidly increasing since
inception. Part of this success is due to the software development community
Apple has cultured around its flagship device. Providing a stable operating
system, robust development tools for the Objective-C programming language, as
well as limiting the ability and quantity of erroneous software routines on the
device, software development for the iPhone has evolved into a lucrative
consumer business, driven by users demand for convenient applications and
games.
In 2009, Apple released a set of hardware interface specifications and a
programming interface to allow iPhone software to run with third-party hardware,
thus opening up opportunities for custom hardware applications to use the
iPhone as their complete development platform. Using the interface connector at
the bottom of the iPhone, the hardware can be powered directly from the iPhone
battery, and can use additional lines on the connector for application
communications using a USB interface. This would reduce the hardware
development requirements down to nothing more than a simple communications
and power interface that has been pre-defined by Apple, connecting with
software written for the iPhone operating system using Objective-C. Utilizing the
iPhone as a development platform would also offer the advantage of being able
to use hardware integrated into the phone’s design, such as the built in digital