A new patent (number 20120023199) at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office shows that Apple is considering a software development kit (SDK) for iAP [in-application programming] accessories. It relates generally to communication between an accessory and a mobile computing device and in particular to using accessory and/or application specific protocols for such communications.

Embodiments of the present invention provide various communication techniques for communication between a mobile computing device and an accessory. An accessory protocol that is generic to the mobile computing device can be used for some communication. An application executing at the mobile computing device can communicate with the accessory using an application communication protocol. In some embodiments, the application communication protocol can be different from the accessory communication protocol.

In other embodiments the application protocol may only be recognized by the application and the accessory. In some embodiments, messages conforming to an application protocol can be communicated between the application and the accessory by packaging the messages inside a message conforming to the accessory communication protocol. The inventors are Paul Holden, Lawrence Bolton, Nitin Ganatra, Mitchell Adler, Emily Clark Schubert and Jesse Lee Dorogusker.