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Unofficial Lightning USB Cables and Adapters Launching Soon at Significant Discounts

S

scott911

macrumors 6502a
Aug 24, 2009
758
456
I really just need extra cables for charging only - power and ground - I'm wondering if those two pins are hardwired?

I'd buy a couple charging only cables - one for each car, one for office, one for lake, etc... syncing can be done wirelessly.

bet monoprice could sell a six pack for ten bucks.
 
iGrip

iGrip

macrumors 68000
Jul 1, 2010
1,626
0
Pirates!

These guys should be hung, just like any pirate!

If they think that they are going to get away with this travesty, they got another thing coming to them. Apple is going to go to the ends of the earth to hunt them down and eradicate them and their cheap knockoff stolen crappy cables!

How dare they take Apple's IP, which took untold millions to develop, and to blatantly steal it? I mean really. Apple spends years and years, millions and millions of dollars, countless man-hours of the most talented engineers in the world to bring consumers the best connector ever conceived, and these guys steal all of it for a few bucks?

They should be ashamed. But theives have no shame. They are probably laughing at Apple. And by extension, they are laughing at the entire Apple community.

They need to be taught a lesson. And I am confident that they will be.
 
Agent OrangeZ

Agent OrangeZ

macrumors 68040
Mar 17, 2010
3,014
3,015
Planet Earth
ChrisA said:
Did you read the text you quoted?
Click to expand...

Yes. Even with the chips present in the current lightning cables... I doubt cost is more than $1.

----------
iGrip said:
These guys should be hung, just like any pirate!

If they think that they are going to get away with this travesty, they got another thing coming to them. Apple is going to go to the ends of the earth to hunt them down and eradicate them and their cheap knockoff stolen crappy cables!

How dare they take Apple's IP, which took untold millions to develop, and to blatantly steal it? I mean really. Apple spends years and years, millions and millions of dollars, countless man-hours of the most talented engineers in the world to bring consumers the best connector ever conceived, and these guys steal all of it for a few bucks?

They should be ashamed. But theives have no shame. They are probably laughing at Apple. And by extension, they are laughing at the entire Apple community.

They need to be taught a lesson. And I am confident that they will be.
Click to expand...

notsure.jpg
 
ncaissie

ncaissie

macrumors 6502a
Dec 1, 2011
665
6
Want300 said:
LOL.

This is good news though... Cuz it means its only a matter of time before we see $3 dollar cables on sites like Monoprice.com :D
Click to expand...

Yeah but I have had nothing but bad luck with cheap cables. I had to replace my iphone 3GS and my daughters iPod Nano 4G quit working.
I want quality but at a decent price.
 
A

avanpelt

macrumors 68030
Jun 2, 2010
2,956
3,877
iGrip said:
These guys should be hung, just like any pirate!

If they think that they are going to get away with this travesty, they got another thing coming to them. Apple is going to go to the ends of the earth to hunt them down and eradicate them and their cheap knockoff stolen crappy cables!

How dare they take Apple's IP, which took untold millions to develop, and to blatantly steal it? I mean really. Apple spends years and years, millions and millions of dollars, countless man-hours of the most talented engineers in the world to bring consumers the best connector ever conceived, and these guys steal all of it for a few bucks?

They should be ashamed. But theives have no shame. They are probably laughing at Apple. And by extension, they are laughing at the entire Apple community.

They need to be taught a lesson. And I am confident that they will be.
Click to expand...

In my opinion, Apple should get out of the cable manufacturing business altogether and just license their technology at a reasonable price to companies that only make cables for a living -- not unlike how they handle displays currently.

Apple should focus on making great devices -- something they really know how to do -- and leave the cable manufacturing to third-party companies that can produce quality cables en masse like MediaBridge.
 
bwhli

bwhli

macrumors 6502a
Jan 9, 2012
557
210
Boston, MA
The price including shipping for the unofficial one is only $5 less than a genuine one from Apple. Not worth it, in my opinion.
 
P

picciano

macrumors member
Aug 17, 2011
67
70
Thanks, but no thanks

I will wait for the gold-plated lightning cables from Monster. I want to transfer bits with nice square waveforms, thankyouverymuch. :D
 
dugbug

dugbug

macrumors 68000
Aug 23, 2008
1,865
1,926
Somewhere in Florida
milo said:
Not true, it's also reversible. Not a huge thing, but it is nice.
Click to expand...

Im not sure if iEvolution was just trying to be coy. The real advantage to the cable apart from size and significantly improved ease of use (why o why didn't micro usb look like this) is that the pins can be assigned functions that don't yet exist.

The old analog cable had fixed predefined uses for each pin. The new one can put analog signals of some yet to be determined meaning on any of the 8 pins based on some future pin assignment definition.

As long as you can name that tune in 9 pins (the stub is the ground I believe) and the iphone can produce the appropriate signals, then you could make a lightning cable for it.

otherwise you have to use usb as a carrier with an interpreter on both ends to accomplish the transfer.

Take the VGA cable for example, its likely just identifying the pin definitions to the iphone for a certain set of signals, and it is obliging. Your monitor does not need to have a USB port and field video packets off of them to drive video. It gets standard anallog VGA video directly.
 
SgtPepper12

SgtPepper12

macrumors 6502a
Feb 1, 2011
697
673
Germany
dugbug said:
Im not sure if iEvolution was just trying to be coy. The real advantage to the cable apart from size and significantly improved ease of use (why o why didn't micro usb look like this) is that the pins can be assigned functions that don't yet exist.

The old analog cable had fixed predefined uses for each pin. The new one can put analog signals of some yet to be determined meaning on any of the 8 pins based on some future pin assignment definition.

As long as you can name that tune in 9 pins (the stub is the ground I believe) and the iphone can produce the appropriate signals, then you could make a lightning cable for it.

otherwise you have to use usb as a carrier with an interpreter on both ends to accomplish the transfer.

Take the VGA cable for example, its likely just identifying the pin definitions to the iphone for a certain set of signals, and it is obliging. Your monitor does not need to have a USB port and field video packets off of them to drive video. It gets standard anallog VGA video directly.
Click to expand...
No, not true I'm afraid.
The lightning port can NOT be used for analog signals at all. It's exclusively digital, so it can theoretically port any kind of digital signal, but no analog. So if you have a Lightning to VGA adapter, the adapter does not tell the iPhone to give him some VGA signals, the adapter probably tells the iPhone to give him some HDMI data (or whatever standard is used natively) and transforms it to a VGA signal (which is rather complicated).
 
dugbug

dugbug

macrumors 68000
Aug 23, 2008
1,865
1,926
Somewhere in Florida
SgtPepper12 said:
No, not true I'm afraid.
The lightning port can NOT be used for analog signals at all. It's exclusively digital, so it can theoretically port any kind of digital signal, but no analog. So if you have a Lightning to VGA adapter, the adapter does not tell the iPhone to give him some VGA signals, the adapter probably tells the iPhone to give him some HDMI data (or whatever standard is used natively) and transforms it to a VGA signal (which is rather complicated).
Click to expand...

Yeah you may be right. Anyway the gist is the dynamic pin assignment.
 
J

jwsmiths

macrumors member
Jul 5, 2006
85
1
chrisbru said:
Except that they do... The pins are dynamically assignable. Just because you don't see any added benefit RIGHT NOW doesn't mean you won't later. I imagine most of the value of the change to Lightning will be down the road with accessories and then the eventual change to USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt when the iPhone's storage can support those speeds.

It also future-proofs the connector, assuring that future technologies that Apple doesn't know about yet (maybe different video out connectors, whatever) will be able to be supported by the lightning connector.
Click to expand...

Exactly. And calling "Lightning" not high-speed is ridiculous. 1080p HDMI is up to 10.2Gb/s and the $50 adapter has to be able to take a 1080p movie coming from an iDevice's 9 pin Lightning connector and convert that to a 19 pin HDMI signal - that's why it costs so much. It combines great space efficiency with extremely future proof design and (as Apple's 3rd party partners are probably very happy about) makes a great market for 3rd party adapters for any number of things.

----------
avanpelt said:
In my opinion, Apple should get out of the cable manufacturing business altogether and just license their technology at a reasonable price to companies that only make cables for a living -- not unlike how they handle displays currently.

Apple should focus on making great devices -- something they really know how to do -- and leave the cable manufacturing to third-party companies that can produce quality cables en masse like MediaBridge.
Click to expand...

You've never heard of the Apple Thunderbolt display I take it?
 
iSee

iSee

macrumors 68040
Oct 25, 2004
3,539
272
Excellent!
The barriers to me owning anything with a lightning connector are coming down.

MacRumors said:
At best, a Texas Instruments chip found in the connector provides only basic security in the form of a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) to ensure data integrity.
Click to expand...

CRC isn't security in any sense. This should just say: the connector has no security features.
 
C

cwesch

macrumors newbie
Oct 24, 2012
1
0
The dock would be a million times better if it took the 30 pin cable as well!

What am I supposed to do with all my 30 pins cables? I don't even know how I have so many!
 
Lark.Landon

Lark.Landon

macrumors 6502
Aug 15, 2012
275
0
So Cal
All I seem to be hearing from this thread is, " Apple is making too much profit! Oh no! It's overpriced! It's expensive! "

Cry about it more.

Companies exist to make profit.

If you don't like it, go be a hippy.

OR… here's a thought…

BOYCOTT THE PRODUCT AND STOP WHINING SO MUCH!
 
Rocko1

Rocko1

macrumors 68020
Nov 3, 2011
2,070
4
Lark.Landon said:
All I seem to be hearing from this thread is, " Apple is making too much profit! Oh no! It's overpriced! It's expensive! "

Cry about it more.

Companies exist to make profit.

If you don't like it, go be a hippy.

OR… here's a thought…

BOYCOTT THE PRODUCT AND STOP WHINING SO MUCH!
Click to expand...

But that is what sniveling little self absorbed D-bags do. What else are they going to waste their time on? Contribute to society? Ha!
 
T

tbrinkma

macrumors 68000
Apr 24, 2006
1,651
93
iGrip said:
These guys should be hung, just like any pirate!

If they think that they are going to get away with this travesty, they got another thing coming to them. Apple is going to go to the ends of the earth to hunt them down and eradicate them and their cheap knockoff stolen crappy cables!

How dare they take Apple's IP, which took untold millions to develop, and to blatantly steal it? I mean really. Apple spends years and years, millions and millions of dollars, countless man-hours of the most talented engineers in the world to bring consumers the best connector ever conceived, and these guys steal all of it for a few bucks?

They should be ashamed. But theives have no shame. They are probably laughing at Apple. And by extension, they are laughing at the entire Apple community.

They need to be taught a lesson. And I am confident that they will be.
Click to expand...

I'm going to call a Poe on this.

----------
avanpelt said:
In my opinion, Apple should get out of the cable manufacturing business altogether and just license their technology at a reasonable price to companies that only make cables for a living -- not unlike how they handle displays currently.

Apple should focus on making great devices -- something they really know how to do -- and leave the cable manufacturing to third-party companies that can produce quality cables en masse like MediaBridge.
Click to expand...

Umm.... They already *do*. Just like they contract out assembly. :confused:
 
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