Oh I do agree about the connector being nicer and all, but locking it down to the point where you cant pick up a cheap 3rd party connector is utter greed.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Keeping Tight Control Over Lightning Connector, Requiring Approval of Third-Party Factories
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Oh I do agree about the connector being nicer and all, but locking it down to the point where you cant pick up a cheap 3rd party connector is utter greed.
So what does this cable do, in reality, that a normal microusb cable can't except for beig able to insert it any way.
- For charging, microusb works just as well. And the cable is much cheaper.
- For playing music/video the whole concept of using a dock is outdated. In the future (and present) music and video is streamed wirelessly over airplay (or dlna or bluetooth or whatever).
- For peripherals such as game controllers then usb works just fine. No problem there. And bluetooth is preferred anyways. Works for the PS3.
- For in car handsfree use you are better off with bluetooth. Think pairing is troublesome? Well other manufacturers use nfc for that.
Hmm...what else? Can't think of a single thing, because the future doesn't need a cable for anything other than charging while travelling when you rather bring a cable than use your stationary wireless charging pad at home/office/coffeshop/airport/whatever the future brings. So that is a very narrow use case. And when all phones use wireless charging you don't even need to bring your cable. There will be pads all over.
So why an expensive cable that only really needs to do charging? My guess is the money.
- For charging, microusb works just as well. And the cable is much cheaper.
- For playing music/video the whole concept of using a dock is outdated. In the future (and present) music and video is streamed wirelessly over airplay (or dlna or bluetooth or whatever).
- For peripherals such as game controllers then usb works just fine. No problem there. And bluetooth is preferred anyways. Works for the PS3.
- For in car handsfree use you are better off with bluetooth. Think pairing is troublesome? Well other manufacturers use nfc for that.
Hmm...what else? Can't think of a single thing, because the future doesn't need a cable for anything other than charging while travelling when you rather bring a cable than use your stationary wireless charging pad at home/office/coffeshop/airport/whatever the future brings. So that is a very narrow use case. And when all phones use wireless charging you don't even need to bring your cable. There will be pads all over.
So why an expensive cable that only really needs to do charging? My guess is the money.
Online says they are available in store after October xx but I walked into my local
store and they had a whole wall (well exaggerated) of them. I bought 2.For one...it is my understanding microUSB can not handle the 2Amps+ of charging for the new iPad battery.
I'm glad they didn't use micro USB. It's flimsy, breaks easily in my experience and cannot be reversed.
Customer buys iPhone 5. Customer uses a knockoff cable. Customer fries iPhone5. Customer takes iPhone 5 back the the genius bar. Genius cannot prove that customer fried iPhone with knockoff cable.and replaces the phone. Apple basically eats it. Can you see why they might want to control the accessory market?
Firstly, I've used micro-USB and it doesn't really go in as well. It isn't omnidirectional, and also we are talking about a style-driven company. Those sharp edges of a micro USB port don't really look stylish. And with less pins, smaller form factor. Also, a adapter will come eventually.
I don't like the royal we here... I can use my iPhone 5 in my car just fine, because I had the foresight to buy an iOS compatible stereo that simply uses a USB input. With Apple TV for my living room and bluetooth speakers for the backyard, the only extra purchase I had to make was a second lightning cable so I can keep one in my car and one beside my bed.
----------
How much did you spend on the old ones? $19 each? Or did you pick up third party ones?
If you would like an extra for the car and office, you'll have to pay for the technology that Apple offers in the current lightning cable or get a knockoff. I remember hearing about them being offered on ebay for cheaper, and they would probably work for charging.
My cables haven't failed since 2008, except when one of my cats got to it.
----------
Wow, you must be bored. Other option: save time and buy $1 USB extension cable.
It doesn't take that long if you know how to do it. I don't know what I'm doing, but he obviously does, so it wouldn't have taken much time.
USB supports many connected devices using a network protocol and doesn't get them confused. USB2 also runs at up to 450Mbit. I'm not saying USB is a panacea, but I think apple is just plain being ridiculous for not using micro USB. I could see you arguing that SIMPLE devices don't want to have to integrate a USB chip, but as the article is saying, simple devices can't connect to the lightning adapter because it's so complicated.
This is a case where the perfect may be the enemy of the good. One other reason I believe this is that Apple is not touting any specific features of the connector other than it's tiny and can connect in any direction. I'd love for micro usb to have a better plug, but I'd rather not have to deal with apple's proprietary connector either.
i don't agree with people making the argument:
you paid this much for the phone, why can't you pay for cables from apple?! what are you, POOR? you can't manage your money? blah blah bal blah.
it just like such a ignorant blanket thing to say. how does one know about everyone's financial situation and circumstance?
$20 for a cable is a lot, at least for me. it's not like i just use one cable. i use a lot of cables. also the apple branded cables fall apart on me.
i wish people didn't always try to insert the "OH YOU ARE PAYING FOR APPLE AWESOME INNOVATION TECHNOLOGY FEE OH YEAH OH YEAH" argument.
hell, you charged me on the front end with phone and through your contracts. stop trying to throw your apple tax into a friggin' cable.
you paid this much for the phone, why can't you pay for cables from apple?! what are you, POOR? you can't manage your money? blah blah bal blah.
it just like such a ignorant blanket thing to say. how does one know about everyone's financial situation and circumstance?
$20 for a cable is a lot, at least for me. it's not like i just use one cable. i use a lot of cables. also the apple branded cables fall apart on me.
i wish people didn't always try to insert the "OH YOU ARE PAYING FOR APPLE AWESOME INNOVATION TECHNOLOGY FEE OH YEAH OH YEAH" argument.
hell, you charged me on the front end with phone and through your contracts. stop trying to throw your apple tax into a friggin' cable.
Last edited:
A. Are you asserting that Apple's quality is worse than the cheap knockoff cables at the dollar store? If so, then don't bother replying. You're talking nonsense. Fact is, you were hard on your cables. And remember, this whole article is not saying third party cables can't be made, just that they have to be certified. If you want premium quality cables, you'll get them.
B. The jack in the device was too thick for the design of phone they wanted to make. Just because you wanted a thick phone doesn't mean they're obligated to make one. For the record, yeah, I'd have liked them to retain the thickness and give me more battery, but they wanted a thinner phone - and it requires a thinner jack, and thus, a thinner plug.
C. And what if they wanted to add USB3, thunderbolt, eSATA, and Firewire, or some "futureport" standard? There aren't enough pins for all that. With the 30-pin connector, the pins have fixed purposes and can't be adapted. By giving the cable smarts, they can adapt the pins to do whatever they want. They could make a thunderbolt, firewire, USB 3, eSATA, "futureport," or whatever kind of cable that all worked with the same iOS device and it could adapt based on the cable that plugged into it. Each cable can have an identifier chip saying what signal to send on what pins.
With the current connector, the pin assignments are fixed. The device has no way of knowing what is plugged into it, so there's no room to support multiple protocols because the device has no way of detecting if you just connected a firewire, USB3, eSATA, or "futureport" connector. i.e. it can't reassign the pins to do the right thing.
D. Agreed. Just offering some perspective that it could be worse.
I'm sure they'll come. The phone hasn't even been out for a month.
I agree that specific factories seems a bit extreme, but I can also see them not wanting to take chances with cheap, flimsy accessories that may not be up to par, and thereby ruining APPLE's reputation with respect to the LIGHTNING standard.
Good value for money spent, is a relative concept. Some would say that APPLE has never been about 'good value for money', but more about innovative, class-leading products, and that ALWAYS comes at a premium!
As of right now, the only connectors available from Apple for MFi partners to design into their accessories/cables have two pins for data as well. Understand that.
Are you kidding? Not everyone has a computer with Thunderbolt, and not everyone has the money to buy a computer with Thunderbolt. That would be a sure fire way to piss off people even more and deter sales. People want a new phone that's backwards compatible and EVERY COMPUTER has at least one USB port.
Well aren't you the shrewd one. Instead of buying a simple accessory to hook up your iPhone, you bought a whole new stereo. Makes sense to me.
The 'lockout' chip (actually a chip required as part of the dynamic pin-out process) is in the Lightning connector at the end of the cable. Just cut the cable in the middle, and splice in a section from another USB cable and you've got longer charging cable, complete with the original chip.
It's not particularly hard if you can do some basic soldering. Personally, I'd go the simpler route, and use a USB extension cable, but I've accumulated a few of them over the years.
I don't understand this. I've been using the *same* iPhone cable for 3 years now, and it still looks and works just like when it came out of the box of my 3Gs.
My wife, on the other hand, insists that she doesn't do anything unusual to/with her cables, but she's been through 5 of them in the last year and a half. (3 Apple cables, 1 Belkin, 1 generic) She's currently using a 6 year-old generic, extendible travel iPod cable I got her for her first iPod Nano (white 4GB).
The 30-pin cable *didn't* have enough spare pins to support USB 3. (IIRC, it was 2 pins short.)
I agree that Samsung is irrelevant to this discussion.
As for the claim of "Only $30 cables", I'll just make two points:
1) The cables themselves (from Apple) are only $20. The included charger makes up the other $10. Exactly like the old 30-pin dock cables. These prices *aren't* out of the norm for 30-pin cables purchased in stores. (Typically $15-$25, depending on the brand.)
2) Estimates have put the cable costs at about $8-12 wholesale currently, leaving plenty of room for accessory makers (and manufacturers who sell direct) to offer cables cheaper than Apple's $20. Also, that cost will only get cheaper as other manufacturers reverse engineer the chip and offer it to the cheap cable makers.
----------
Nope. It's another step toward being sure that no official or approved Apple accessories are built in sweatshops. That's a good thing. It'll invariably bump the cost of creation up a few percentage points, which is a bad thing. I think the good outweighs the bad here, and if someone doesn't, they can grab one of the inevitable, unlicensed clones when they show up.
----------
Correct. Any tablets using micro USB as their charging cable are either:
A) using lower charging amperage (and thus taking longer to recharge), or
B) using the same charging amperage and hoping nothing overheats, melts, and causes a fire
(IIRC, the micro USB connector is only rated to 1.1A, but some tablets have been spotted using up to 1.8A over the connection, which is a *thoroughly* bad idea from an electrical stand point.)
Non standard Hasn't stopped Samsung before.
Source = http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_tab_2_70_review-review-781p2.php
Not saying that they will copy Apple here, just that they have the same practice of making something that works for their needs.
REALLY?!?!?
Some of the posters on this board are sooooooo freakin' myopic I wonder if they don't bump into things walking down the street.
This is a massive change in a standard that Apple has had for almost a decade. They didn't do this as a cash-grab. Or as a lock-in. They did it for the same reason they've done everything since Steve came back. To solve an engineering/design need. This connector is smaller, smarter and theoretically faster. It also has room to grow and adapt as needs change. They aren't thinking only of a user-segments immediate needs, but are planning long into their product pipeline.
That said the launch of this standard has been handled VERY poorly.
As far as third-party providers having to wait. That is an unfortunate side-effect of Apple's secrecy. There was no way to bring everyone up to speed on the new standard without tipping their hat. (Not that there weren't enough leaks as it was.)
And finally as far as needing a cheap charge only cable, there are plenty available even for the new iPhone.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref...82&h=a84a39fd862a53efb6022b52fb4d19bcba20bc56
These knock-offs will charge fine. The chips in the "official" cables are used to extend the abilities of the cables and shouldn't effect basic charging (not sure about sync
This is 100% a cash grab. Had the included an adapter with the phone and priced these items in the $5 range I would say differently.
I respect the engineering but this is a cash grab pure and simple.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.