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Where do you get this idea your going to brick your phone??! About as stupid as bricking your mac cause you used a non apple usb cable?!!!! News flash , all those of hundreds and hundreds of docks out there..... Do not use apple cables.... It's just connecting a phone, not flashing a device !

So what happens when you have an improperly-constructed cable that doesn't properly detect the orientation of the cable and sends a voltage up through a wire that's not supposed to receive one?

You may not have noticed, but these aren't just USB cables.
 
From what I've read, USB 3 would not have affected any performance in the iPhone. The bottleneck in the iPhone is the memory chip, which is slower than USB 2. So you wouldn't see any benefit from 3.0.

Once Apple gets faster chips, they update Lightning to USB 3.0 (probably in a couple years).

That makes no sense whatsoever. If that is the case, then there was no need to update from the previous connector.
 
I don't think you understand what superficial means. No rational engineer would do something superficial.

Many have pointed out that the write speeds of the iPhone's flash memory doesn't even saturate USB 2.0's maximum speed. They have also pointed out that the "Lightning" connector itself is likely USB 3.0 compatible; all it needs is the right chips in the iPhone — which would be silly to put in when the speed is unusable at this point.

This kind of superficiality you advocate is what leads to Android phones with specs to make your head spin but which don't perform anywhere near as smoothly as the iPhone. So why don't you go buy a Samsung Galaxy SXVI 5G LTE-X running Android 6.7 'Every-Flavour Jelly Bean' with Olive Oil Smoothness Enhancement, which, of course, pointlessly supports USB 3.0 via its fragile Micro-USB port.

wow just wow. Chill out mate, he just saying his opinion, and not only him thinks this way. there are so many people frustrated buy super slow data transfers. and you don't have to give him an advice to buy an Android phone. If android has fragile micro-usb, so what, we have to use what ever Apple delivered?

Think as a consumer not as a Apple solicitor

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Speaker dock... or $1200 iMac...

Merry Christmas!

Speaker dock or iMac or 3rd option thunderbolt storage :D
 
Since there is a smart chip there, what's to stop Apple from releasing a firmware update that disables or refuses to work with these knockoff chips.

It would suck to buy something like a speaker dock and then have apple release a firmware update that kills it.

Of course Apple will say that it's unauthorized, but the end user still gets screwed

It depends on how the chip is constructed. In order to do a firmware update there has to me some level of writable memory baked into the cable.

Then Apple would need to have some method that would let them electronically distinguish between their chips and knock off chips. Which is kinda defeated by the fact that the knock off is already being successfully recogninzed as 'legit'... assuming theirs that level of "official" checking going on to being with. If they can't then the knock offs get a nice new firmware update as well.

Unless each Lighting 'chip' has a unique manufacture code that gets double check as part of the firmware update (and consequently no offline firmware update) then I don't see how Apple could make a positive ID on fakes. Even then this assumes these hypothetical IDs don't get cracked and replicated. Which leads us into a circle of active online updates where there is a master list of cable of IDs that get check off as they get updated and duplicate IDs get a big red X. Take that to its logical outcome, a knock-off supplier cracks a few dozen or a few hundred IDs and replicates them out, one of the knock-offs the update and the legit user who ownes a cable with that ID gets locked out of the update.

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As an aside if there is writable memory in the Lighting chip that just makes it another vector for Mal-Ware. We've already seen this done with USB and Bluetooth keyboards. Next up we'd need to keep an eye one every single cable and wire.

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That makes no sense whatsoever. If that is the case, then there was no need to update from the previous connector.

There is if you want to start transitioning the peripherals market. Keep in mind that it will likely take 1, maybe 2 years to make the switch over. They can slim down/redesign the iPhone on this round and start the ball rolling in anticipation of next year or the year after.

Remember what Tim Cook is know for, being the master of the supply chain. I'd put good money on him eyeing flash memory production and looking five or more years down the line.

Also a factoid. Do we remember the little flash memory designe company from Isreal they baught? What have they been up to? Also is the A7 or A8 or whatever the only chips Apple will be getting TWC to make for them.
 
PPhhpppt, based on tear down, the chips just reassign pins and do CRC checks. Those are not security functions. They are just smart routing and regular bit checking (in case the vendors screw up pin assignment).

If Apple were to build a security mechanism into the cable, it won't be that easy to crack.
 
Apple wants more AirPlay

Our family has both 30-pin devices and now one iPhone 5 so we are frustrated by the lack of cheap cable options.

But I'm wondering if one effect of the delay which makes it acceptable in Apple's mind is that it shows device makers that the handshake with Bluetooth and AirPlay is the future. Those are protocols that work with both the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4s no changes needed.

Still need power . . .
 
sorry i didnt read all comments but this looks like apple realise they mucked up on the new cable realise that people want docks and other means of connecting iphone 5s and possilbe mini ipads and re vamped ipads get in while the market adjusts to the new format connection ???
 
It's actually true. The flash memory used in iPhones is not of the "quality" in terms of speed compared to that of the type used in SSDs. It doesn't have those exceptionally rapid read/write speeds, even compared to burst speeds in mechanical hard drives for computers. That's why even when you download a song over LTE, you could be very well bottlenecked by the flash memory and not network bandwidth. Speed has been improving, but USB 2.0 speeds haven't even been completely saturated yet, as the bottleneck is still the flash memory.

Almost correct.

The speed has almost nothing to do with the quality of the flash, and everything to do with how many flash chips are integrated in. Higher quality flash chips at these densities arn't faster. Cramming more flash chips is.

It's the same thing when comparing USB keychain flash drives to laptop SSDs.

Laptop SSDs are faster because they talk to about 8x-32x more chips at the same time as phones and keychains do.
 
Tighter control translation: We want to make money off of every accessory that connects to the iPhone.

That may be true. What worries me about this whole thing is (apart from price) if there is maybe something about the assignment of the pins by the chip that if not done correctly can damage the iPhone
 
That may be true. What worries me about this whole thing is (apart from price) if there is maybe something about the assignment of the pins by the chip that if not done correctly can damage the iPhone

That's why Apple wants a tighter control of the peripheral makers.

I wonder if they are hiding some features until the 23rd event.
 
It depends on how the chip is constructed. In order to do a firmware update there has to me some level of writable memory baked into the cable...

...As an aside if there is writable memory in the Lighting chip that just makes it another vector for Mal-Ware. We've already seen this done with USB and Bluetooth keyboards. Next up we'd need to keep an eye one every single cable and wire.

PPhhpppt, based on tear down, the chips just reassign pins and do CRC checks. Those are not security functions. They are just smart routing and regular bit checking (in case the vendors screw up pin assignment).

If Apple were to build a security mechanism into the cable, it won't be that easy to crack.

I'm gonna do a full 180 on my stance from previous posts after looking at the die photos from the Chipworks teardown of the Apple Lightning to USB cable. There is without a doubt a serial EPROM in that cable. It is housed in one of the three smaller chips on the PCB in the Lightning connector, not in the largest one, which looks to be 80% one big transistor and 20% logic. The two smallest chips look to be simple transistors. I'm pretty sure the function of the large chip is to perform digital negotiation of voltage and current on the VBUS and switch that power to pin 4. I don't see any other type of signal switching or pin reassignment happening on the cable end.

I'm guessing that Apple uses that EPROM to store manufacturer and device ID strings as well as a digitally signed certificate. I also believe that this has been par for the course for licensed Apple 30-pin connectors capable of video output since 2007. I'll again link to this article from way back then that describes the same sort of situation as what is happening with Lightning now: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/news/4272628

I'll also point out to the people that are complaining about Apple being way late with this meeting, that you are most likely owners of a shiny new iPhone 5, but not hardware developers in the MFi program. Did you really think Apple was going to hand out production iPhones and iPods with Lightning connectors to the MFi boys before the official announcement? Aside from a chosen few, they first received info about Lightning on September 12 and only got their hands on devices to test with the same time we all did. So they'll have had 8 weeks with documentation and less than 7 with test devices available, in which to design, engineer and test a new hardware accessory (and any software to go along with it) before that meeting. Do you really all want devices that were engineered by one guy on his coffee break? You just can't wait a few more weeks to accessorize your latest toy?

You don't need to read anything.

USB 2.0 on a 2010 MBP can read and write just over 34 MB / second (per USB port, measured with two external hard drives). Therefore anything that is slower than 34 MB / second is not limited by USB 2.0, but by something else.

I just tested my iPhone 5's NAND performance and measured 23.84 MB/s avg. sequential read and 20.05 MB/s avg sequential write. So it would appear that the flash dedicated to user storage is limited by the NAND controller to around 25 MB/s and not by USB 2.0 transfer speeds.

However, there are plenty of reasons to have an I/O interface on a device that is faster than the primary non-volatile storage. The DRAM interface on the A6 is more than capable of saturating USB 2.0 (or even USB 3.0 for that matter), and a faster interface is of course required for common use cases such as digital display output.
 
Where do you get this idea your going to brick your phone??! About as stupid as bricking your mac cause you used a non apple usb cable?!!!! News flash , all those of hundreds and hundreds of docks out there..... Do not use apple cables.... It's just connecting a phone, not flashing a device !

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How is ones user experience ruined by connecting a phone to a connector?!?! Geez

A few members on here pre-ordered 3rd party cables from ebay. Those sellers then contacted them saying that the cables they tested did not switch the pins properly so some of the iPhone 5 units they tested with were damaged by the cables. Those sellers refunded the pre-orders.
 
I feel orphaned...

As an iPhone 5 owner, I'm pretty pissed that Apple has not even started to talk to iHome and others about accessories.

But I'm really pissed that I walk into the Apple Store (one near me is high volume and gets products first) today to get an adaptor, as they are finally available (so Apple says), only to be told that "we don't have them yet, haven't had them yet, and don't know when we are getting them." Unacceptable. After 1 month of ownership, I still can't plug my phone into my car's 30-pin.

Apple should have had MILLIONS of these available on day one. Why the secrecy with a cable? Why not release the spec 6 months ago? Who is "copying" the adapter? The rest of the market is going to micro-USB anyway, so why treat this as such a secret? And considering the smaller adapter size was leaked months earlier, and it was obvious that 30-pin was out, why wait?

This is old Apple. This is Gil Amelio and Sculley Apple. This the kind of stuff we lived through in the 90s. This is the Apple that was so poor that they released Quadra AV models where the AV features didn't work, where I was duped into buying one and then ended up selling it within a month because it was crap. This is the Apple that dropped like a stone in market share, that was being outdone by clone manufacturers not just on price but on speed and features, and was once valued as a company based on their investment portfolio, and their product portfolio was basically valued at ZERO.

It's obvious from how the iPhone 5 release has been handled that Tim Cook is NOT the right man for this job because he isn't willing to make the tough decisions, like delaying the iPhone 5 until it's ready.

When Jobs was healthy and on the Job, he made a point of making sure that accessories were available day and date, that things worked, and that if things were broken heads rolled. Are heads rolling at Apple? Not that I've heard.

TC has apologized for maps, but what about for the lack of accessories? The fact that I have to use LTE 100% of the time because WiFi is broken? I loved my iPhone 4 when I first got it. I am starting to hate my iPhone 5, not because of what it does, but because of what doesn't work out of the box with now 1 month of nothing to address it.

Gazelle anyone?
 
isnt this something Apple should have done in secret a couple months ago?

just saying companies like Speck, Mophie and more need early lead to do battery cases and more.
 
As an iPhone 5 owner, I'm pretty pissed that Apple has not even started to talk to iHome and others about accessories.

...Unacceptable. After 1 month of ownership, I still can't plug my phone into my car's 30-pin.

...The fact that I have to use LTE 100% of the time because WiFi is broken? I loved my iPhone 4 when I first got it. I am starting to hate my iPhone 5, not because of what it does, but because of what doesn't work out of the box with now 1 month of nothing to address it.

Apple has been sharing information about Lightning with the MFi program members since September 12. They are not remaining silent about the situation.

Did your car come with the 30-pin cable, or did you purchase it separately? Do you not have any of the devices that you used to use with that 30-pin cable anymore? Does your car also lack analog line-in, USB-in and Bluetooth / A2DP? Did you think about the possibility of this being an issue before you ran out and bought a $649-$849 phone with a brand new charge/sync interface on the day it was released?

If your WiFi isn't working properly, check your router settings or swap out the phone. Mine is fantastic. 5 GHz works an absolute treat.

Oh, and you haven't even had your iPhone 5 for a month yet.
 
I normally hate Chinese knockoff companies, but these guys are great:
That said, Chinese companies are said to have cracked the security protocols already, and are in the process of ramping up Lightning component production. The meeting, reportedly scheduled for November 7 and 8, is a first step towards development of new Lightning-compatible products.
I am very grateful for Cables Unlimited (which is dead now, ironically). They made an HDCP removal box. HDCP is the DRM on HDMI/DVI signals that is infamous because it frequently prevents law-abiding citizens from watching movies.

Down with cable security!

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Have u used ios? As much as i love apple, they are about a year(0r more?) behind not just a month

What's old about iOS? I've used it, and I haven't noticed anything old about it.
 
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