Remember folks:
...
Have I summed up the insanity?
I'm guessing you don't actually know anything about Apple or Radio Shack, then.
Remember folks:
The chip in there cost Apple nothing to develop.
Then, once developed, it costs nothing to make.
And the chip only exists because Apple wants to kill third-party accessory companies. Teardowns showing dynamic pin capabilities and other future-proofing are lies.
And USB is FULLY as high-tech and future-proof and durable and easy-to-use as Lightning is. And the old 30-pin connector is just as good too. too. Lightning has no current or future benefits, so we should still be using 10-year-old tech.
And nobody wants thinner devices or easier, reversible connections anyway. Apple just likes to ram thin and light down our throats.
And nobody but Apple marks up cables and accessories. All other companies sell at cost.
And cheap unshielded bootleg accessories are just as good as Apple-certified ones.
And third-party Lightning accessories have been late to arrive, which is just as bad as never arriving. Waiting for them is simply not possible.
And a USB cable with this little thing kept permanently on the end is not portable. Only a single bare USB cable is.
And the Lightning synch/charge cable included in the box with every iPhone and iPad somehow doesnt already do what most people need from a cable.
Have I summed up the insanity?
Marks up cable prices? really u think? 20 buck for a lightning cable is similar to many micro usb cables sold by name branded companies. Sure there are many generic micro usb makers, but to say all companies sell usb cables cheap is not true. Note everyone makes money off of selling cables even the cheap ones, no one sells it at cost or it would be about 50 cents to a dollar per cable.
the adapters show that lighting is adaptive. There are HDMI, VGA, USB, and even old 30 pin adapters out. In order for a single connector to support all this is to be adaptive. It's because the connector is 100% digital, it does not require pinouts like the old analog connector does. The adpters have a chip in them that converts the digital signal into the analog signals or digital formats for the respective connector. Lightning can support many conectors of current or even in the future. Isn't that the definition of future proof.
No one wants thinner devices is just an individual opinion not a fact. many phones before iphone 5 were touting it's thiness from motorola's razor to even the samsung galaxy S3. They all got thinner. making electronics smaller reduces heat and increases battery life. It's how iphone 5 can offer more hardware in less space than iphone 4. New windows 8, phones, tablets, and ultrabooks are mimicking this trend as well.
mini usb is not dockable. there are many shelf speakers, speaker docks and every other audio accessory which has an ipod dock. This made coonecting an ipod very easy. while it will cost you 30 dollars extra to connect a new apple device to an old 30 pin dock, it's better than zero USB docks. You can argue that you can connect any android device to a speaker sytem using a standard stereo mini plug (the ear phone jack plug). But you can do that for the iphone 5 or any other lightning equipped apple device.
i know it's hard. Apple is just too good. it's hard for those other s to compete. Thus the need to spread missinformation
I already gave the exact answer earlier in this
thread, post #56.
Do you need any ketchup or mustard with that?
And then there are those, that take everything APPLE throws at them lying down.
Why are people (you're not alone) assuming this adapter has anything to do with backup, file transfer etc? The whole thread is nothing but arguments over the pros and cons of Lightning and micro-USB.
Right, well, the EU can't help that Apple chose the compliance-by-circumvention path...)
You skipped over my original answer that quoted you, then made another extremely self-assured post that Apple was just screwing the customer. When you are that certain, you'd better understand the subject you are discussing.
You still don't understand what this means or why it's important. Apple contains all the logic needed to interface with ANY device available today or dreamed up in the future within their iOS devices. It's built-in. Whereas USB requires drivers and intelligence built in to any accessories. That's expensive because it requires chips in the accessories and drivers to interface with the devices, and its inconsistent because there is no way to guarantee compatibility. If you want to release a new device with new features, the old accessories will not be compatible.
This is why there is a huge aftermarket for iOS products and virtually none for Android.
Other than the change from FireWire to USB and the recent change from 30 pin to lighting, EVERY iOS accessory made in the past 10 years has remained compatible because of the above design. It's not because iOS devices are more popular, it's because Apple put together an ingenious solution for accesorizing their devices in the aftermarket that was powerful and stable.
It's better for the consumer because we have a huge selection of accessories, most of which aren't even available for Android. (Just try to buy an alarm dock for an Android phone, even though almost all of them use the 'standard' micro USB).
It became a standard in December 2010. 90% of the manufacturers signed up. The commission estimated that it would take 3-4 years for phones with microUSB to become predominant. It hasn't been 2 years just yet.
Sure, "can be", but I was talking about its main purpose, in response to the question "Seriously, what is the purpose of this?". Apple designed it in order to comply with the EU standard for phone chargers, that's why the adapter exists in the first place, and chargers is what the standard is all about... for data transfers the manufacturers can put 50-pin SCSI on the phones for all the commission cares, as long as the charging is done via microUSB, but obviously Apple also made sure that the adapter can handle data transfers, and that's... good, I guess.
