Does anybody here have any experience developing hardware under the "Made for iPhone" program? I have a device that broadcasts information via bluetooth, and so far the only way to make an iPhone app that displays that info is if I go through the MFi program and add an Apple provided chip to my hardware.
Is that right? Anybody has more details about it?
That is correct. MFi can be difficult to get approved for - the standards are much higher than for the App Store, and will require changes to your Bluetooth widget in order to authenticate to the iOS device.
If the product and company already exists, going through the MFi process is much easier than for startups.