Apple Meeting With Accessory Makers to Promote Lightning Integration

[anonymouslurker]

But there wasn't a hardware device embedded to prevent duplicating the cable, was there?

No, there was not an off-the-shelf IC embedded in the original connector, which I'm fairly certain will be properly implemented in unauthorized connectors in short order.

Probably about the same amount of time it took to model/replicate the more physically-complex 30-pin connector.

But my point is that there are absolutely no new licensing or purchasing restrictions for this connector, or any additionally "strict control", as you stated in your comment.

 

[brdeveloper]

The more I see these depressing post-Steve Jobs announcements from Apple products it makes me sad and happy. Sad that Apple now seem to be losing the impetus it once had in being one step ahead of the competition - and happy I got a 4S instead and saved myself £££s in pointless connector 'upgrades', duff Maps, scratchy cases and one issue after another .... lets hope 2013 is Apple's year again and quality comes before the quantity of 'major announcements'

The iPhone 4S connector was presumably faster, better, cooler, thinner, lighter and so on than microUSB connectors. Now we have an even better connector in the iPhone 5. But what exactly the older connector did MORE than microUSB in truth?

 

[hoon2999]

The iPhone 4S connector was presumably faster, better, cooler, thinner, lighter and so on than microUSB connectors. Now we have an even better connector in the iPhone 5. But what exactly the older connector did MORE than microUSB in truth?

Nothing

 

[314631]

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.

Thanks. This is great news for consumers.

 

[absurdamerica]

Like I said before, I did not ignore it. I told you to re-read. But I can post it again if you're too lazy to go back and read it.

It makes more sense to be the ONLY available supplier for a given product. Not in the long term, but in the interim. If Apple released the specs to several different manufacturers, they would A.) Undersell Apple & B.) Release sub-par quality products before Apple even had a chance to test the product on the market. Yeah, you can test it in a lab, but the real testing happens when 5 million connectors are shipped to 5 million customers and you have 5 million people testing your product.

Apple sells 5 million connectors = $95 million

3rd party companies sell 5 million connectors paying a 15% royalty to Apple ( LOL ) = 14.25million

3rd party companies sell 15 million connectors paying Apple a 15% royalty = 42 million

Who said they had to license for cable sales at all? I'm talking about speaker docks, an adapter for my car (which won't be available until June 2013 at the earliest) to replace my perfectly functional iPhone 4 adapter, battery packs, etc,

None of what you've talked about would have prevented Apple from making the connection chips available to a company like Bose or major auto manufacturer in such a way that they could have their products ready sooner than 10 months after the launch of the device.

 

[repoman27]

So lets, see:

It's my fault because...
1. My car isn't new or expensive enough to have all those wireless features built in, and only has an iPod cable that interfaces directly with the head unit for full control.
2. I don't want a mickey mouse solution that doesn't work as well as the last iphone and ipod. I don't want to pay for an extra USB cable that I don't need as a temporary solution with limited functionality, and then pay for the adapter later.
3. I trusted Apple when they said that the adapters would be available in early October. They might be "available" but they certainly aren't AVAILABLE in that I can't buy one, even from a high volume, high profile Apple store. Online they claim "5-7 days" but that's not reassuring compared to what my past experiences have been with that guesstimate, and then I have to pay shipping on top of it.

And yes, I have an old iHome radio, and I can't use that with the iPhone, but waiting on that wasn't bugging me. Waiting on car charging and use IS bugging me, because I'm running out of battery late in the day. If only the battery were 1 mm thicker (and the phone), who knows how my perception would have changed, but right now, we have a phone that's thin for no reason, with limited battery life, and without adapters to allow me to charge it, despite claims by Apple that the battery life is better, the cables would already be ubiquitous, etc.

The new connector was NOT ready for the market. Again, there was no reason for Apple to hide the specs of the connector other than that it wasn't ready in time (including for their own factories), and that is really unforgivable for the world's most valuable company. They screwed over their most loyal customers, and so far haven't fixed ANYTHING.

Maps? Not fixed. I live in LA, and the mapping itself is okay, but the traffic info is a joke (and difficult to read), dropped pin function is broken (won't forget the first dropped pin when getting directions no matter how many others I try to place), satellite/hybrid view is broken (only half the streets overlay).

WiFi? Slow and stalls out so often, can't use it. Have to constantly turn WiFi off and on again to get it to work for more than 5 minutes at best. Staying on LTE is simpler (and FASTER), and so far I've not gone over my monthly limit, but can't take advantage of home networking this way. And App updates stall constantly when I go onto WiFi for them, but don't want to waste quota on apps. Must be my router... oh wait, it's a Time Capsule.

Purple Haze? I stacked my wife's iPhone 4S on top of my phone and moved it around. Hers has no haze, mine does in many situations where there is no flare, not even CLOSE to a flare, just the wrong angle of attack from ambient light. If I put my hand out to shade it like a lens hood, there's a about an inch between not being effective or having my hand in the picture.

You have 30 days to return a mobile phone if you aren't satisfied with it. Those 30 days have not yet elapsed, and it sounds like you're not satisfied, so why not just return it? What's the big deal here?

I asked about the car connection because I was curious about how it attached to the head unit. And how would using a Lightning to USB cable, if possible, be limited in functionality in any way? And you don't have to pay for an additional anything if you can manage the inconvenience of actually carrying the cable you have with you for a few weeks until other solutions become available. If battery life is a concern for you, you should consider something like a RAZR MAXX instead of the "thinnest and lightest iPhone ever."

Maps currently has issues, but it is also a fledgling app based on crowd-sourced data going up against some very mature competitors. Give it time. 6 years ago, Google maps was far from the product it is now. It will get better, but it will take years, not weeks for this to happen.

If your WiFi does not work properly, check your settings or swap out your phone. The iPhone 5 does not have "broken" WiFi as a feature. As I said, mine is much improved compared to my 4S.

The "purple haze" is not a problem with the phone. Turn the camera so that you don't have a strong light source just outside the shot. You can see when it's happening in the preview, just tilt the phone a couple degrees until it looks the way you want it to.

Most of the things you are complaining about are problems with your attitude and not with how Apple have conducted business. It is astonishing how self entitled some people seem to get concerning Apple products.

 

[marine0816]

Of course at a much decent price Apple is offering.... I will consider $10 for cable or an adaptor...... I need to carry my ipad on the road most of time, so an old charger, with a 30-pin cable plus the adaptor will totally serve me perfect.

It is strange that Apple doesn't have a stock of those adaptor when they ship iPhone5. I don't dare to take my iphone5 cable off my iMac, because I can afford to loose it now...and $30 an adaptor....that's ridiculous.

But they make coolest adapters

 

[XtraSmiley]

iMore reported this in their review-

Jump to the part about the Lightning connector

Actually, you need to go and read this again.

"It's possible Lightning may support USB 3, though the read/write speeds of current NAND Flash memory will at some point become a bottleneck"

Is not the same as the current NAND Flash memory is slower than USB 2.0.

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.

See? This post still doesn't have a source to back it up. It's clearly possible that USB 3 support on the current iPhone 5 would have greatly enhanced synching and transfers.

 

[repoman27]

Actually, you need to go and read this again.

"It's possible Lightning may support USB 3, though the read/write speeds of current NAND Flash memory will at some point become a bottleneck"

Is not the same as the current NAND Flash memory is slower than USB 2.0.

See? This post still doesn't have a source to back it up. It's clearly possible that USB 3 support on the current iPhone 5 would have greatly enhanced synching and transfers.

The NAND in the iPhone 5 appears to be bound by the NAND controller to less than 25 MB/s, or sub USB 2.0 speeds. I tested this myself and measured 23.84 MB/s avg. sequential read and 20.05 MB/s avg sequential write. For syncing and transfer to the user storage area of NAND, the iPhone 5 is not limited by USB 2.0.

The DRAM interface of the iPhone 5, however, has a theoretical peak bandwidth of 8.528 Gbit/s and in practice could completely soak even a USB 3.0 connection. While it would be of minimal benefit for syncing/transfer with NAND, a SuperSpeed USB interface would have allowed much greater headroom for accessories utilizing, for instance, USB video devices. Furthermore, both Samsung and SanDisk recently began volume production of e•MMC modules that are considerably faster than USB 2.0 would allow. At the moment though, it is very difficult to justify the additional expense and power requirement of including a SuperSpeed USB controller in a smartphone SoC.

Furthermore, the Apple Lightning to USB cable is strictly USB 2.0, so it is fairly safe to assume that Apple didn't push 20 million of these things out the door if they had any intention of releasing a USB 3.0 enabled Lightning device any time in the near future. I would imagine it will be at least 2 years before we see any inkling of USB 3.0 over Lightning.