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Apple's Latest IoT Venture Turns Manufacturers' Heads

By Michelle Amodio, TMCnet Contributor

Hardware manufacturers should take note from Apple’s (News - Alert) latest move: the company just unveiled its latest app, HomeKit, which basically turns iPhones into remotes for your house.

This is Apple’s foray into the world of the Internet of Things (IoT), an idea of a globally interconnected continuum of devices, objects and things in general. Perhaps it only seemed like an idea of past sci-fi movies, but we’re living it. It is the connection of all machines, devices, sensors, automobiles, cameras, and other "things" to help us improve operations and save valuable time and even money, and Apple is getting on that bandwagon.

According to Vikram Koka of Flexera Software, if you’re in the hardware manufacturing business, then you need to make like Apple and get in on the IoT action now.

Pretty much every company will benefit from the trend, but the main beneficiaries will be the corporations providing the basic framework for the IoT. IoT is increasingly used in the industrials and manufacturing sectors, and its use has now extended to more consumer-oriented segments, too.

A Pew (News - Alert) Research study from earlier this year stated that people are optimistic about technological capabilities within the next half century. The report found that individuals think the future will contain humans controlling the weather, colonizing space, teleporting objects and transplanting lab-grown organs.

While all of those examples are bit of a stretch, the Internet is the hub of everything that people are hoping to see, however outlandish, and now manufacturers are making the (more realistic) hopes a reality.

It seems almost anything can be connected to the Internet, so savvy homeowners are now able to set up their lights, air conditioning and other appliances remotely and centrally, often right on their smartphones, and Apple is making it possible from its iPhone (News - Alert).

We are moving towards a lifestyle that saves more time, increases convenience, contributes to the economy and allows us control over our appliances.

Are hardware manufacturers getting on board?