Reports Say Apple Is Shrinking Its Docking Connector With iPhone 5 427
jones_supa writes "Two sources have told Reuters that Apple's new iPhone will drop the classic wide dock connector used in the company's gadgets for the best part of a decade in favor of a smaller one. The refresh will be a 19-pin connector port at the bottom instead of the previous 30-pin port 'to make room for the earphone moving to the bottom.' That would mean the new phone would not connect with the myriad of accessories playing a part in the current ecosystem of iPods, iPads and iPhones, at least without an adapter. On the upside, a smaller connector will allow for more compact product designs. Some enterprising vendors in China have already begun offering cases for the new phone, complete with earphone socket on the bottom and a 'guarantee' that the dimensions are correct." Gizmodo writer Adrian Covert says it's for your own good.
Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure MicroUSB and other industry-standard connectors weren't considered. For how many years now has Apple been the last holdout with proprietary connectors?
Even if they did they'd still find a way to make it proprietary with something like the charger resistor trick [engadget.com] or the headphone recess. [engadget.com]
Just switch to USB (Score:2, Insightful)
Every other phone manufacturer seems okay with USB and a headphone socket. Same accessories, standard connector and charger.
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just switch to USB (Score:5, Insightful)
To Apple that isn't a feature, it's a bug.
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple going through the trouble of abandoning their old proprietary connector and MAKING A NEW PROPRIETARY ONE instead of going to a standard one like every other phone has had for years sounds at least a bit nefarious to me.
Re:Just switch to USB (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:2, Insightful)
This way they can charge $30 for an extra power adapter. I guess if you decide that you really like being a part of the iOS ecosystem, the extra cost will be worth it to you. Judging by the sheer number of iPhone sales, plenty of people think that it is.
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:1, Insightful)
'For years' is a bit of an exaggeration. It is only very recent that most phone manufacturers started using micro-USB consistently. It's still possible, though, to find phones not using micro-USB that aren't from Apple.
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we know there won't be any adapters available? They have produced adapters for their products in the past, such as the numerous display adapters.
It's kind of "heads I win, tails you lose".
If Apple moves to a slimmer profile device, people say they are just trying to make people buy new cables. If they stay on an old one, people say they won't give up on their proprietary cables.
If they produce an adapter, people will say they just want to cash in by selling the adapters. If they don't produce adapters, people say they just want to make you buy new cables.
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is Apple phones are kind-of a primadonna about how peripherals can interact with them.
If Apple put a standard port on their phone users would expect anything that will fit to work with the phone. That includes devices that use protocalles iOS does not support.
Now there is an argument to be made that Apple could simply start supporting more protocalles. However that's never been how Apple rolls. They'd rather say "No it doesn't do that." than have something that "sort of works".
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's really sad that you're a fucking piece of shit moron. But we don't really care.
I can appreciate that people get crazy-sensitive about their mobile phones, but "you're a fucking piece of shit" might be a tad over-the-top.
Why does it matter to you in the slightest that Apple is using space and components efficiently, instead of creating huge devices with half-a-dozen ports?
I don't know of anyone advocating half a dozen ports. What I do see is people saying it'd be nice if they used micro-usb like everyone else instead of a proprietary connector.
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that stupid people hate Apple? Is there something about being stupid that I just don't get?
And yet many of us prefer the company of the decent and stupid to the condescending and average.
Propriatary connectors are proprietary (Score:4, Insightful)
New standards are always rough on the early adopter
Standards? What standards? Maybe if you stuck to the standards this would not have happened to you.
All electronics stores everywhere overstocked on Apple peripherals to the point that speakers connecting to non-Apple device are hard to come by. This is the payback time! My turn to walk with a gleeful grin, as millions $ worth of equipment finds its way to the dumpsters worldwide.
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:5, Insightful)
OK then clearly they should have gone with the other industry standard cable that supports power, usb, video, remote volume and play selection, etc. Oh wait, that's right, there isn't another one!
Your argument is only valid when there are other non-proprietary options. It works well when talking about say, Sony's "i-link" proprietary firewire connector, or any of those proprietary USB connectors on cameras, where they're using a special connector to force you to buy cables and other accessories directly from them at some absurd mark-up. But that's not the case with Apple's dock connector.
This is the only connector that does it all in discrete pins, vastly simplifying construction of accessories. Even cars are coming with Apple's dock connector in them nowadays. Apple's not being an ass and forcing you to use their connector to do what they could have done with another standard connector. They just happen to have pioneered the market and have been using this one connector for the last decade, with a crapton of accessories being made by other vendors. You don't have to buy your dock from Apple. Try getting an iLink cable from someone besides Sony. (for $35 or so) That's how you abuse proprietary connectors
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:3, Insightful)
Mouse? Not innovative, just applied to a home desktop.
FireWire? Good for its niche, too expensive for mass adoption on the scale of USB.
PowerPC? Sure, it's in the consoles, but it's not because it's good - it's cheap enough for them to get custom processors and actually own the design.
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a simple life, eh?
I have a charger at home, one at work, and a 12V one in each of my family's cars. Still pretty simple, but causes an issue if I change phones. Of course, I picked up a wife too, and if her phone didn't have the same charger as mine, I'd have to divorce her. Then, through mechanisms still somewhat mysterious, we ended up with two children. They have Nintendo DS's, and a portable DVD player for the car (all seperate proprietary chargers). My wife bought an iPad (30-pin), and the kids are getting old enough that we're considering getting them iPods (which, if we wait for the new ones, will have the 19 pin).
Have you kept count of how many charging cords I need to have yet? Wouldn't it be nice to have one or two identical chargers in each car and in the house, and anyone could charge anything, as opposed to having 5 or 6 different chargers?
This is a situation where Apple has their head firmly inserted into their rectum. An innovative, customer-oriented company would have put a micro-USB connector with standard USB charging protocols. If you want Audio out, or Video out, or whatever else comes out their dock, have it come out digitally and convert it in the dock.
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's USB on the other end...
Re:Standard connectors? LOL you wish! (Score:4, Insightful)
All the ones I found for Android used the headphone port for audio (not line out, which is much higher quality), couldn't control volume and/or playback, or was very expensive because it had to do everything over USB (and required a special app) or Bluetooth. If you can find one, please share.
Some Android devices can do analog video out via their headphone jacks. Which means if you want to charge at the same time you need two cables. And again, if you want to have off-device controls you need a full USB implementation.
I found a couple of Android speaker docks. Like this one: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-gadgeteer/finally-a-universal-speaker-dock-for-android/5506 [zdnet.com]. It requires connecting a couple of cables, and using a special app for playback control.
From the review:
Perhaps you should try again? Or not....