Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The old cable was working just fine. And micro usb works just fine, too.

I wish they had kept the old cable. I don't care about the cable being reversible or a smidgeon of extra thinness. To make everyone buy new cables/accessories and/or adapters (assuming your device still fits in the accessory with it), and to price the adapters as high as they did, and to make the switch to another proprietary connector rather than micro USB, and for Apple to give itself exclusive rights initially is a cash grab- plain and simple.

And guess what, 5 million+ people bought the phone over the first weekend anyways. Why shouldn't they make money off it? Amazing how people act like corporations shouldn't be in business to make money. Its the handout mentality of this day and age. If you don't like it, don't buy the phone. Plain and simple.
 
Well, they probably have other ways to make even more money.

But it really depends on what they want to do, where they want to go. Lightning is probably a necessary next step for them to evolve out of the aging 30-pin connector.

The high cost is just for the initial batches. Price will come down eventually.
 
Uh What can i say. I think this officially makes this little plug the smartest I/O port on the planet.
 
Wow

This means that developer's APIs will come to assign currents as you need them. power and/or controls.

----------

And guess what, 5 million+ people bought the phone over the first weekend anyways. Why shouldn't they make money off it? Amazing how people act like corporations shouldn't be in business to make money. Its the handout mentality of this day and age. If you don't like it, don't buy the phone. Plain and simple.

It's amazing to me how "the iPhone is boring" but anything they do differently is "just greedy and let me keep the micro USB. The waaa-mbulance brigade.
 
Can you tell us what killed your sense of humor? :D

Every interface in the world is incompatible with something, so I'm not sure what it is you're trying to get at. Perhaps you're one of those people that think we should be using a 30-pin connector 20 years from now?

----------



The connector on almost every mobile device out there is more than a phone charger. That statement alone shows your inability to grasp the situation.

I realize that you also use them to connect to your computer among other things, I'm not stupid. Still, the average consumer (myself included) will just look at this as a smaller phone charger. Sure, it has some little perks and advantages but it's hardly worthy of discussion imho. I didn't mean to stereotype anyone, maybe it's less to do with "Apple fans" than it is to do with techies who care way more about these things than I do. Either way, I did in fact read the article and it's just one of those things I couldn't care less about. Same with the meticulously boring threads about the leaked iPhone back panels that had been showing up on the Internet before the phone's release. Or the new iPhone ear buds. Sure they're nice to see, and perhaps they are better than before, but from the way the commercials and fans(not all, but some that I've seen) are talking about them you'd think Sony announced the Playstation 4 or something.
 
I realize that you also use them to connect to your computer among other things, I'm not stupid. Still, the average consumer (myself included) will just look at this as a smaller phone charger. Sure, it has some little perks and advantages but it's hardly worthy of discussion imho. I didn't mean to stereotype anyone, maybe it's less to do with "Apple fans" than it is to do with techies who care way more about these things than I do. Either way, I did in fact read the article and it's just one of those things I couldn't care less about. Same with the meticulously boring threads about the leaked iPhone back panels that had been showing up on the Internet before the phone's release. Or the new iPhone ear buds. Sure they're nice to see, and perhaps they are better than before, but from the way the commercials and fans(not all, but some that I've seen) are talking about them you'd think Sony announced the Playstation 4 or something.

It also means that the phone can do more (faster, longer battery life, blah) with the same form factor, since the new connector takes up much less space than the 30-pin connector.
 
I Just ordered 3 generic adapters from eBay. We will see if they work or not. I want one for home charging, one for my Audi's multimedia interface (to listen to music in the car and charge the iPhone) and one for charging at th office... :/
 
Why does Apple call it a Lightening connector?
Maybe it supports a single lane of Thunderbolt in future hardware (or even current hardware). The DP/TB connector is dual-lane... a single lane would still provide a HUGE increase in throughput; you would likely never need more than that for interfacing a mobile device.
dguisinger, thank you for the interesting reply. If this could means faster syncs between my iPhone5 and my PC, it can't happen soon enough for me.
 
My friend, if one engineer could simply do that in half a day, then why was the patent granted 2 years ago, why didn't anyone else do it, and more importantly, why didn't you think before you type?

...because Steve Jobs seemed like he wanted to hold on to the 30 pin for as long as he could and they only changed it out of necessity. I did think before I typed, and interpreted the drawing that was posted. I didn't see any real magic going on to justify how moist everyone is getting over this connector.
 
I'm not sure what kind of accessories people are talking about...

Speaker docks have been made obsolete since AirPlay has found its way into iOS the way it does now. Besides, never really understood why you want to dock your device solely to listen to music. You can't use your phone while it's docked, why on earth would you want to do that when AirPlay over wifi offers the exact same quality wireless?

I use my phone for a 1000 things and listen to music while doing so. Not being able to send a text message or e-mail when listening to music is just plain stupid (to me).

As for charging, the new iPhone wouldn't fit in your old iPhone dock anyway.
 
It seems like it would have been easier to number the pins on the top 1 to 8 and the pins on the bottom 8 to 1 (in the handwritten notes portrayed in the article). Then the mapping makes a lot more sense. Especially since it doesn't matter which way it's inserted.
 
Last edited:
I don't think you realize just how amazing this is. It's a lot harder than you might assume, and goes way beyond just "mapping it out." You also need to be able to detect what kind of device is detected, where power needs to go (don't want to be sending power over data lines), etc, and being able to do this on the fly is pretty remarkable.

This is NOT "basic evolution of the plug."

I suppose I was mildly impressed when network devices started "sensing" the port needed to swap pins 1 and 3 and 2 and 6, making network crossover cables almost obsolete. Most on this forum probably don't realize that was ever an issue when hooking up devices 'cause now it's "magic". :D
 
It seems like it would have been easier to number the pins on the top 1 to 8 and the pins on the bottom 8 to 1. Then the mapping makes a lot more sense. Especially since it doesn't matter which way it's inserted.

The problem I see is that, with as thin as the connector is, the internal wires would overlap.
 
It depends on your perspective. In a multi-connected, multi-vendor, multi-standards with proprietary extensions world, the simplest/naive/limited scoped implementation will get lost inside this tangled web of connectivity.

However, the simplest solution may be to create a clean, simple and superior implementation to avoid the connected and extended mess, and plug into them selectively.

I have dozens of mini-usb connectors which work on a multitude of devices quite well, and they are cheap, plentiful and available from multiple sources.

On the other hand, I have dozens of different 'round' A/C adapters, with at least a half dozen different power plug configurations. If any tangled web needed cleaning up, it's that one.
 
I have dozens of mini-usb connectors which work on a multitude of devices quite well, and they are cheap, plentiful and available from multiple sources.

On the other hand, I have dozens of different 'round' A/C adapters, with at least a half dozen different power plug configurations. If any tangled web needed cleaning up, it's that one.

Well... those USB connectors may be cheap and plentiful for the current use cases, but they don't solve issues when connected to HDMI, DisplayPort, USB3 and newer protocols. Samsung already showed us that their MHL extension over MicroUSB could render some devices incompatible. With more vendors and protocols coming in, it will not be a pretty sight.

As for A/C adaptors, it's an entire worldwide problem on its own. The charging brick uses adaptors to work around it like Lightning anyway.

In any case you can still continue to use your old cables as long as you have 1 iPhone 5 adaptor. On top of that, the base iPhone 5 port will allow you to interface with the newer protocols.
 
Summary
------------------------------------------------
iPhone: Smart Phone, Smart Connector
Android: Smart Phone, Dumb Connector
:)
 
This article should have come a while ago. I found this information on other sites and took it as the explanation as to why the adaptor is so expensive and can't work with some audio systems.

----------

One must admit the technology has the possibility of also being the "only" connector you will ever need in time.

That would also be FireWire and Thunderbolt. Those are really great technologies.
 
There is absolutely nothing Lightning can do that USB/MHL can't.

With your own proprietary tricks to connect to and power assorted protocols, perhaps (Samsung uses its own "techniques" for its MHL over USB implementation, and that's just one vendor). The devices will get confused over who they are plugging with when more companies and protocols join the party. It's not a case of you can do one technically. There are supportability issues in the entire ecosystem over the next 10 years with newer protocols.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.