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Nice Thunderbolt-in-reverse tactics!
Take something everybody buys anyway and force em to buy new connectors @ 10x the sane price instead of making them buy a device they want with a connector thats special.

At least the iPhone 5 is selling - something you cannot really say about Thunderbolt gear (the interesting parts of Thunderbolt).
 
It's a sad thing when created an enormous hassle and negative environment for the customer for profit outweighs the customer's positive experience. Of course every business is in it for money but does Apple honestly not make enough money without resorting to unnecessarily proprietary connectors at absolutely obscene markups? Little things like cables that wear out easily and cost very little to make should not be a prime source of price-gouging to Apple's customers. Every day it's like a new middle finger in my face from Apple, as it's now run by a bunch of soulless corporate jockeys with no vision. This site used to be full of juicy news about exciting new developments in the world of Apple but now there's nothing left but pathetic corporate boardroom dramas, product failures, gimmicky product updates and bad news for pro users. I think my 35-year exclusive love affair with Apple products has become an abusive relationship that perhaps needs to end.
 
What was your point? That I should go out and buy a new car stereo because I can't hook up my iPhone to my existing one via USB? I have a $29 adaptor coming to me sometime this month that tells me I shouldn't have to.

My point was that there are plenty of people who DON'T rely on dock connector integration. I don't think this lighting connector change was a blunder at all. It was time to move on to smaller and more advanced things.
 
Nice Thunderbolt-in-reverse tactics!
Take something everybody buys anyway and force em to buy new connectors @ 10x the sane price instead of making them buy a device they want with a connector thats special.

At least the iPhone 5 is selling - something you cannot really say about Thunderbolt gear (the interesting parts of Thunderbolt).

You're not making any sense. Every one of the 10 million+ iDevices with the new Lightning interface that have shipped thus far came with a free cable. Extra cables are $19, the same as the Apple 30-pin dock connector to USB cables that are still for sale. Every single person who bought one of these devices should have been aware that there were no 3rd party Lightning accessories available yet, and that they would need a $29-$39 adaptor to use them with legacy gear.

Since Thunderbolt added PCI Express capabilities to the Mac's existing MiniDP port while retaining full backwards compatibility with that port, and it was in no way necessary for the computer itself to function, I'm not really sure how there's any comparison here. I guess it's just because the marketing names are in a similar vein and it causes all commenters to want to try to associate them somehow.

Great, because making it difficult to build peripherals is really going to help sell iPhones and iPads. This just sounds stupid.

What sounds stupid is saying that Apple needs help selling iPhones and iPads... I think they might have a pretty clear understanding of what they're doing in that regard.

It's a sad thing when created an enormous hassle and negative environment for the customer for profit outweighs the customer's positive experience. Of course every business is in it for money but does Apple honestly not make enough money without resorting to unnecessarily proprietary connectors at absolutely obscene markups? Little things like cables that wear out easily and cost very little to make should not be a prime source of price-gouging to Apple's customers. Every day it's like a new middle finger in my face from Apple, as it's now run by a bunch of soulless corporate jockeys with no vision. This site used to be full of juicy news about exciting new developments in the world of Apple but now there's nothing left but pathetic corporate boardroom dramas, product failures, gimmicky product updates and bad news for pro users. I think my 35-year exclusive love affair with Apple products has become an abusive relationship that perhaps needs to end.

Even your sig indicates you're trolling. ;)

But seriously, how does Apple dedicating the resources to designing and engineering an interface that will better serve their customers needs over the next 5 or more years and then selling it for the same price as the connector they've been using for the past 9 years indicate that their markup is now obscene? The margin is higher on the $19 Apple 30-pin dock connector to USB cable than it is on the $19 Apple Lightning to USB cable. And if you haven't seen the teardown photos, the Lightning cable is built like a tank. I'm not sure I've ever seen an Apple cable that made such a serious attempt at being durable.

There is plenty of cheaper and more common in the market already. The majority of smartphones on the market are less expensive than the iPhone 5 and have a bog standard 5-pin USB Micro AB port for charge/sync. Apple is all about making things better where they think they can. Would you seriously argue that the Lightning connector is not an improvement over the 30-pin or Micro USB connector on all counts except for currently being less common and more expensive? Would anyone have complained less if Apple switched to Micro USB since none of their 30-pin gear would have worked with that either?

How do you think the people who put in the hard work at Apple to develop the Lightning interface feel about comments like yours should they happen to read them? You don't think things through, you don't take the time to understand the benefits you might derive from what they have created either now or in the future, you don't feel like they should be compensated or appreciated for their work, you feel like they have personally caused you some great offense... Unbelievable. I think the biggest problem with this site is that the news panders to the lowest common denominator and thus attracts people who leave comments like yours.
 
All this nonsense and they could have just used microusb with MHL support and had all the functions this new dock connector has.

But then they couldn't make $20 per cable and adapter.

Not charging an absurd amount for peripherals is just not the Apple way.

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Even your sig indicates you're trolling. ;)



Not praising everything that Apple does != trolling

Pointing out extremely obvious flaws != trolling
 
My cables haven't failed since 2008, except when one of my cats got to it.

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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.

I would like to know what you're doing to keep your cables in tact. I have one particular cable that's only been on my desk connected to a dock and my desktop. This particular cable was never unplugged, is only subject to incidental motion, and is sitting in a manner such that there are no sharp angles. And yet it too is starting to fray at the strain relief.

All of my other cables fail within 6 months. That's something I'd expect from an eBay special, not a $30 cable from Apple (or was the old one $20? I don't remember). At least at 50 cents a piece, I can justify replacing those knockoffs every 6 months.

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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.

A) Worse than the cheap knockoffs? Maybe not. But not 50 times more durable either (about the difference in price). Right now I'm using the AmazonBasics cable... not the prettiest thing in the world, but it's similar in quality to the cables Apple used to have before the iPhone introduction. At $7 it's still a fraction of Apple's price too

B) I'm not convinced they couldn't have worked around the thickness of the existing connector. Maybe it would've been an issue for the iPod touch - but the iPhone has enough room - the engineers probably could've come up with something. But that would've been a situation where Apple would've had to spend more money on designing the internals... instead they chose a solution that also allows them to gouge customers and manufacturers alike. Good business move, which is their right I suppose. But as an Apple customer, I have the right to complain about a solution I don't like.

C) The cable already supported firewire, they removed that support from the devices. eSata wouldn't make sense at all since these devices don't present themselves as disks. The 30-pin connector already had some degree of adaptability - they wouldn't have been able to get HDMI, VGA, USB-host, and SD support otherwise. There were a couple unused pins that they could have used for USB 3 data. And since it already supported well over 900mA, I don't think extra power pins would have been necessary.

D) Nothing to add since we agree here.
 
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I would like to know what you're doing to keep your cables in tact. I have one particular cable that's only been on my desk connected to a dock and my desktop. This particular cable was never unplugged, is only subject to incidental motion, and is sitting in a manner such that there are no sharp angles. And yet it too is starting to fray at the strain relief.

Nothing special. I just use it normally and leave it on my desk.
 
Do you know of an accessory to connect an iPhone to a very basic stock car stereo? Because I sure don't. Definitely not one that allows me to choose songs, playlists, etc via my stereo interface. It also allows me to let passengers who don't have iPhones to connect their phone/mp3 player to the stereo.
I do, and have one. It uses bluetooth (and then fm to any fm radio), and therefore voice commands to do all the selecting you want. I don't think it can link with more than one phone at a time, but it can link to other bt phones, certainly not an iPhone-only device.

Gogroove Flexsmart x2.
 
How do you think the people who put in the hard work at Apple to develop the Lightning interface feel about comments like yours should they happen to read them? You don't think things through, you don't take the time to understand the benefits you might derive from what they have created either now or in the future, you don't feel like they should be compensated or appreciated for their work, you feel like they have personally caused you some great offense... Unbelievable. I think the biggest problem with this site is that the news panders to the lowest common denominator and thus attracts people who leave comments like yours.
I think Apple Corporation is being compensated just fine, largest market cap of any company in the U.S. You might want to get off your knees at the Altar of Steve at some point and look around ... every other smartphone out there seems to be doing just fine without going to an overpriced proprietary charging cable. I agree that the Lightning connector is smaller and easier to plug in than micro-USB, but is it worth an extra $19 per cable to me? Not really.

BTW, I'm sure the engineers at Samsung also worked a lot of hours on the S3, why don't you care what they think if they read your comments on here? :rolleyes:
 
I for one am happy about this. I hate getting cheap knock offs that stop working after a month.
That being said I hate Apples prices. I want quality cables at a good price.

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Except using it both ways. Which is my biggest and only reason to like this new connector.

With micro USB you don't need it both ways. You don't need to see the cable to know which side is the top. Great for blind people. Apple wasn't thinking with the 30 pin one that's for sure.
 
I think Apple Corporation is being compensated just fine, largest market cap of any company in the U.S. You might want to get off your knees at the Altar of Steve at some point and look around ... every other smartphone out there seems to be doing just fine without going to an overpriced proprietary charging cable. I agree that the Lightning connector is smaller and easier to plug in than micro-USB, but is it worth an extra $19 per cable to me? Not really.

BTW, I'm sure the engineers at Samsung also worked a lot of hours on the S3, why don't you care what they think if they read your comments on here? :rolleyes:

The shareholders are actually being compensated just fine due to Apple's continued strong earnings, whereas Apple does not profit directly from market capitalization. I'm not at the Altar of Steve as you say, and I was not speaking directly about Apple as a company. What I was railing against is the lack of acknowledgement that actual people who care a lot about what they do designed and engineered the Lightning connector. Yes, they were most likely paid well for their efforts, but how do you think they react when people claim that this interface is just a big FU and that their work is of absolutely no value?

Why on Earth do you want the iPhone to be just like every other smartphone? The world would suck even worse if nobody tried to do better than the lowest common denominator. Maybe everyone should stop innovating and just keep making the same stuff we have now, that way you'll never have anything new to worry about buying. Did you notice that Samsung's flagship Galaxy S III went to a... proprietary connector? And the lightning cable costs $19, yet you feel that is $19 too much? You get one free with each device so they must be worthless and you should get as many as you like for free?

You should actually look a little closer at the Lightning connector; it's pretty damned cool. Have you thought about how the metal shield piece and the contact pads were manufactured? Have you really considered how it compares to other common consumer electronics interfaces? Here's a link to an article by someone who actually did stop to think about the differences, before the new interface even officially debuted: http://thetechblock.com/the-foolproof-dock-connector

Believe it or don't, but I'll rally just as hard for the engineers at Samsung. Some of their designers may have taken a few shortcuts, but I think that most of those were ultimately mandated by management. The new Samsung SSD 840 Pro completely crushes it though, and there is no shortage of innovations forthcoming from that corporation's ranks. Have I ever made derogatory comments about Samsung on this or any other forum? (AT&T I have been highly critical of; I am not a fan.)
 
I get what Apple is doing. Having had an old Video iPod, 2 3G iPhones, 2 iPhone 4' and now well you get the idea. I have used both my share of Apple stock cables and knock offs. I have never had the best of luck with the cheap ones, specially the last knock off I had worked for a long time and one day it started not charging or causing the phone to cycle charging and not charging and then have a yellow triangle that the device was not compatible. Beyond that the cheap ones never lasted very long.

Ditto on a black or dark color cable. One so it harder to see in the car and two so I dont have to notice how nasty other people cords are.
 
I do, and have one. It uses bluetooth (and then fm to any fm radio), and therefore voice commands to do all the selecting you want. I don't think it can link with more than one phone at a time, but it can link to other bt phones, certainly not an iPhone-only device.

Gogroove Flexsmart x2.

How's the quality? I've never been impressed with FM transmitters, but they may have gotten better in the last 4 years.
 
How's the quality? I've never been impressed with FM transmitters, but they may have gotten better in the last 4 years.
It's the best fm device I've had. That's not to say it's the same as wired. Depends a lot on how saturated the fm dial is in your area. I can find certain spots in town that are poor, where I can't find a frequency that's weak enough to overcome with the device. But, that's not much different than radio, anyway.

I don't really have any complaints except the usual stuff with car devices: Sometimes iffy connection to the cigarette lighter port, occasional difficulty getting bt to reconnect, and the device's mic is a little far away for the voice use. But I just speak loudly when on the phone.
 
Someone give me a decent dock stand. Not some kickstarter project that costs $90 either.

I DON'T WANT TO PLACE MY PHONE DOWN FLAT TO CHARGE. MAKE A ****ING DOCK!!!

I wouldn’t put the weight of my phone on one of those adaptors or and accessory.
The 8 pin is too small and it could get snapped of inside my phone.
Anyone else worried about that?
 
Hence why I said MHL support. Also the galaxy nexus, nexus 7, galaxy s3 also have usb otg support and can function both ways.


11-pin MHL-USB Connector
The Samsung Galaxy S III uses a connector that is similar to the original 5-pin MHL-USB connector, but it uses 11-pins in order to achieve a few functional improvements over the 5-pin design.
It supports the use of USB and MHL simultaneously. (Note that the new Samsung 11-pin MHL-HDMI adapter also has a USB On-The-Go port).
Samsung’s Galaxy S III can power the MHL-HDMI adapter. Although this can theoretically also be done with the standard 5-pin micro-USB connector, the Galaxy S III's 11-pin connector is believed to be the first smartphone that supports this functionality.

http://www.mobileburn.com/19823/new...ng-galaxy-s-iii-requires-special-mhl-adapter-

Since it's a standard, all MHL adapter cables should work with all devices that have MHL ports. However, Samsung seems to have other plans with its Galaxy S III, as UK retailer Clove has discovered that only new Samsung-branded MHL cables will work with the device. Older cables that were compatible with the Galaxy S II, Google Galaxy Nexus, and a host of other smartphones on the market won't work with the Galaxy S III thanks to a slightly different pin layout. Of course, Samsung is happy to sell Galaxy S III buyers a new MHL cable HDTV Adapter kit for about 25 GBP (US$39).
 
I wouldn’t put the weight of my phone on one of those adaptors or and accessory.
The 8 pin is too small and it could get snapped of inside my phone.
Anyone else worried about that?

No.

You've picked up your iPhone 5, right? The things don't exactly weigh much. They are quite long, though, which would provide a fair amount of leverage.

If you look closely at the male Lightning connector, it's a solid post of what looks to be injection molded metal with a PCB center. The aluminum body and tiny spring contacts of the iPhone 5 both look less rugged to me than it does. I think if anything, the PCB inside the male connector would snap off right behind where the metal bit ends, just inside the plastic housing. In which case there would't be any problem removing the broken bit from the jack.

And I'm going to refer to this again, because it explains the design way better than I can: http://thetechblock.com/the-foolproof-dock-connector
 
http://www.mobileburn.com/19823/new...ng-galaxy-s-iii-requires-special-mhl-adapter-

Since it's a standard, all MHL adapter cables should work with all devices that have MHL ports. However, Samsung seems to have other plans with its Galaxy S III, as UK retailer Clove has discovered that only new Samsung-branded MHL cables will work with the device. Older cables that were compatible with the Galaxy S II, Google Galaxy Nexus, and a host of other smartphones on the market won't work with the Galaxy S III thanks to a slightly different pin layout. Of course, Samsung is happy to sell Galaxy S III buyers a new MHL cable HDTV Adapter kit for about 25 GBP (US$39).
You don't need the $40 kit.
Samsung charges $9.99 for a 5 pin to 11 pin adapter on their website. This will allow you to use your existing MHL cables.
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones-accessories/EPL-FU10BEBSTD

They went from 5 pin to 11 pin to add simultaneous HDMI and USB host mode support.
Smart move in my opinion.

The MHL cable and adapter combo kit is $39.99
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones-accessories/ETC-EIA2BEGSTA

Amazon has the OEM kit for $26.99.
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-ETC-EIA2BEGSTA-HDTV-Universal-Adapter/dp/B0089VO85A
The 5-11 pin adapter is only $8.55 on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-EPL-FU10BEBSTA-HDTV-Adapter-Converter/dp/B0089VO86Y

These are OEM parts too, not third party knock offs.
 
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With micro USB you don't need it both ways. You don't need to see the cable to know which side is the top. Great for blind people. Apple wasn't thinking with the 30 pin one that's for sure.
Could you explain? I have many of these cables, and precisely one of them is easy to distinguish direction. It has a large hump in the connector/grip area. Maybe those packaged with a Kindle have this, too, I never happen to see those at my house, but I have a vague memory. All the rest have completely generic grips and the 2 sides of the connectors are so close you have to look carefully to see which side is slightly more rounded.

I could ask my blind friend, she has better fingers than I, no doubt. But I'm not blind and need to use my eyes on these things.
 
No.

You've picked up your iPhone 5, right? The things don't exactly weigh much. They are quite long, though, which would provide a fair amount of leverage.

If you look closely at the male Lightning connector, it's a solid post of what looks to be injection molded metal with a PCB center. The aluminum body and tiny spring contacts of the iPhone 5 both look less rugged to me than it does. I think if anything, the PCB inside the male connector would snap off right behind where the metal bit ends, just inside the plastic housing. In which case there would't be any problem removing the broken bit from the jack.

And I'm going to refer to this again, because it explains the design way better than I can: http://thetechblock.com/the-foolproof-dock-connector

I mean if you have an 8 pin dock with the connector created cheaply (say like an alarm clock) I wouldn’t trust it. I know the one provided by Apple is good and that’s why I’m glad to see them regulate them. Otherwise there will be many stupid people complaining they broke it off in their phone. LOL then they may do something stupid like use metal needle nose pliers and short out their phones.

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Could you explain? I have many of these cables, and precisely one of them is easy to distinguish direction. It has a large hump in the connector/grip area. Maybe those packaged with a Kindle have this, too, I never happen to see those at my house, but I have a vague memory. All the rest have completely generic grips and the 2 sides of the connectors are so close you have to look carefully to see which side is slightly more rounded.

I could ask my blind friend, she has better fingers than I, no doubt. But I'm not blind and need to use my eyes on these things.

None of mine do. Not even third party. The only thing I can see to tell if you have it upside down is the gray thing on the top.
 
Every single person who bought one of these devices should have been aware that there were no 3rd party Lightning accessories available yet, and that they would need a $29-$39 adaptor to use them with legacy gear.

99.9% of iPhone buyers probably didn't know the connector changed.
Only that the phone was longer/larger. This is what the media has been promoting.

Then they go looking for adapters to find there are none.
They are stuck with one for now and when Apple releases the adapter, people will crap their pants since it will cost $29.99 for each adapter, in which most people will need at least 2 more.
1 for home, 1 for the car and 1 for work.

Then what will apple charge for an adapter with power outlet?
$49.99 ? :eek:
 
I just want a cheap recharge/power only cable!
Apple and Cheap, cannot live in the same space. Apple wants ALL of our money.

It's the "Apple Way"... to which I say "Fine" then give me a scratch free premium product for my money.

See how simple that is?

Yet Apple is having such a horrible time of keeping it's quality up.
 
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