Apple's Lightning to 30-Pin Adapter Torn Apart, Reveals Several Chips and Copious Glue

[Medic311]

Only made the iphone the thinnest phone in the industry? Same with ipod..
A minor detail...lol

making the iPhone thinner and lighter had nothing to do with the Lightening connector - any smaller redesigned connector could have done that without needing complex circuitry specifically designed to prevent any other company from manufacturing the cable

do you think the Lightening connector was the only way to make a reversible cable?

----------

$19.00 at an at&t Brick and Mortar.

that's for the cable, but the adapter is $29 per the article

 

[840quadra]

As it stands, I am hoping for an eventual thunderbolt / lightning cable for iPad / iPhone synching. With larger media files trading places on these devices now, the only time I dock is when I need to transfer large videos or photo libraries over. Wireless is ok for most other situations though.

It could be the flash memory used in these devices, however large video file transfers are MUCH quicker on my 2003 iPod with FireWire, than any newer USB 2.0 iPod to date. I still am annoyed that when they finally made iPods that let you play video, FireWire was dropped.

I wanna know where people keep picking up these brittle microUSB cables, I should start selling microUSB cables since they break so often according to you guys. I will be the next Mark Cuban and make a fortune over the interwebs!

I believe they are talking about the port not the cable. I have broken a few in my lifetime too, though I fault the hardware designer of the products I am using. If the USB port housing had a more sturdy mount point (as opposed to using tiny anchor points on a circuit board) I doubt I would have had problems.

 

[BruceEBonus]

Great! This is just the news I was waiting for!

I'd been holding back from moving from the iPhone 4 to the 5 because of the scratching, bending, mapping, adaptor, UK 4G issues - but as soon as I heard how tough the Lightning cable was - that swung it for me ...

Now I KNOW I wont be upgrading til next year minimum.....

Apple's excuses for all the Iphone 5 glaring shortcomings really ARE being held together by glue and sellotape! Literally!

 

[Wild-Bill]

Meh........

$29.00 is still a ripoff for an ADAPTER.

Not like they're hurting for cash or anything..,

 

[Carouser]

Meh........

$29.00 is still a ripoff for an ADAPTER.

What? Because it's an adapter it shouldn't be priced at $29, just because? How did you come up with that? What's the maximum any adapter can be priced at? I'm very curious.

 

[Medic311]

From reading the comments in this thread, it seems apparent that...

The reason why Apple's customers are resentful towards having to pay $29 for a proprietary adapter for a proprietary port is because there are no foreseeable benefits. Disregard all of the people here blindly saying that the Lightening connector allowed for a thinner/lighter iPhone - the validity of that argument disintegrates because it is certainly possible to redesign the port to allow for the thin/light design without locked down proprietary hardware.

Apple has been using the 30-pin connector for about 10 years. Switching to a new connector means a drastic change for many of Apple's customers who have purchased their products over the last decade. The impact goes beyond just charging/sync cables and extends to home theater accessories, car accessories, fitness accessories, industrial accessories, education/academic accessories...the list goes on. Until Apple releases either new innovative software or decides to open up the licensing of the lightening port to the other companies who didn't pay the ridiculously high licensing fees so that more 3rd party hardware can be developed, Apple customers have every right to vent their criticisms and frustrations. The lack of competition means that all Lightening-port equipped accessories will have inflated prices due to Apple's licensing fee being passed from the 3rd party accessory manufacturer directly to the customer. Whereas everyone in the mobile phone industry has moved towards standards, Apple has actually gone in the entire opposite direction. On to my next point related to that last sentence...

However with that said, Apple knows it could get away with it because it always has. No matter what Apple develops people will buy it. So perhaps, as consumers, we shouldn't blame Apple 100% but rather take at least partial to half of the blame. We can vote with our dollars, but many are without the willpower to do so.

 

[LordVic]

What confuses me is people who think the headphone jack doesn't belong on the bottom and their excuse is the aux port in your car?!?!

Let me get this straight. You think it's easier to mount the phone or toss it in a cup holder with a cable attached to the TOP and BOTTOM (assuming you also want to charge your phone) then two going in to a single place on the phone. Nothing annoyed me when in a rental car (since my car uses USB so I'm all good) having one sticking out of the top and one sticking out of the bottom. Now I just put both on the bottom and toss the phone top down in a cup holder. Not restricted by wires getting bent over the top or over the bottom and coming from both directions.

Maybe I'm confused but having the jack at the bottom (even for pocket placement) is a pretty good idea if you ask me.

Plus I actually like the lightning connector. I have a lot less fear of snapping things off on the connector then I did with the 30pin. Sucks to have to change stuff out like cables and accessories but I knew that when I bought it. Once the knockoffs are common place and accessories market picks up this will really be a silly argument.

as A left handed individual who's habit is to use my left hand for one handed operation of most hand held devices, since it is my strong and dominant hand.

I can safely say after having used devices with headphones on the bottom...

BAD. BAD. BAD. BAD BAD! it sucks. it's annoying. you ever know why they're on the left side? cause there are less of us to complain!

put a headphone on the bottom left, where the typical location people put it on the bottom, and try one handed holding your device.

it sucks. you have a headphone jack sticking down and trying to jam itself into your palm. it doesn't work. it's terrible. you're forced to try holding it differently, or using your right hand, which, again, being a lefty, isn't always the easiest to do.

how do you avoid this?

Put it on the top. where no hands tend to be. Top RIGHT is the ideal place for it. in POrtraight mode, it's top right and nowhere your hands will be, and if you rotate the phone left and in horizontal mode, it's sticking top left, still out of the way.

but Bottom left? NO.

Trust me. Apple with the iphone 5 has made me change my mind at considering the iphone. I'm currently on BB, and been looking to get off it for obvious reasons, The design of so much in the iphone 5, and the headphone jack in particular has me walking elsewhere.

 

[ipedro]

But all I want is an adaptor that passes the power through.
I just want to be able to charge using my stack of old cables.
That would seem do-able.

Seriously? You're going to buy one of these $29 adapters to be able to use your old charging cables? That would mean that you'd either have to buy an adapter for every cable -- at which point you might as well just buy new Lightning cables -- or you're going to have to carry the adapter with you everywhere. Then just carry the damn Lightning cable!

Whoever is complaining about this should look to all other the battery powered phones in history. I lost count of how many times Ericsson phones changed charger types. I went through 3 Ericssons before they became Sony-Ericsson and all 3 had a different charger (and I had accessories for each i.e. Texting keyboard, car charger, etc). Then BlackBerry, I think I went through 3 cable changes in 4 years. Samsung? Aren't there like 18 different connector types?

Apple changes the Dock connector once after a decade because soon the phones will be smaller than the connector and people freak out? Your phones still work with your dock connector. It still works with the dock connector today just as much as it did when you bought it. If you want a new phone, then you'll have to ....erm..,

...Adapt.

 

[samcraig]

Seriously? You're going to buy one of these $29 adapters to be able to use your old charging cables? That would mean that you'd either have to buy an adapter for every cable -- at which point you might as well just buy new Lightning cables -- or you're going to have to carry the adapter with you everywhere. Then just carry the damn Lightning cable!

Whoever is complaining about this should look to all other the battery powered phones in history. I lost count of how many times Ericsson phones changed charger types. I went through 3 Ericssons before they became Sony-Ericsson and all 3 had a different charger (and I had accessories for each i.e. Texting keyboard, car charger, etc). Then BlackBerry, I think I went through 3 cable changes in 4 years. Samsung? Aren't there like 9 different connector types?

Apple changes the Dock connector once after a decade because soon the phones will be smaller than the connector and people freak out? Your phones still work with your dock connector. It still works with the dock connector today just as much as it did when you bought it. If you want a new phone, then you'll have to ....erm..,

...Adapt.

Precisely the reason why the EU now has a standard adapter. So that people don't have to adapt nor do they have to worry about manufacturers switching plugs on them

 

[al2o3cr]

"This thing is even more fearsomely reinforced than the Lightning USB cord, by a factor of 10, surely to thwart those that want to hack it, and also so that it cannot break easily."

Yep, because a tiny hacker community is the concern and not tens of millions of users who accidentally step on / drop / whatever the adapter (and who would be seriously annoyed to be out $29).

Paranoid much?

 

[PNutts]

as A left handed individual who's habit is to use my left hand for one handed operation of most hand held devices..., since it is my strong and dominant hand.

I can safely say after having used devices with headphones on the bottom...

BAD. BAD. BAD. BAD BAD! it sucks. it's annoying. you ever know why they're on the left side? cause there are less of us to complain!

put a headphone on the bottom left, where the typical location people put it on the bottom, and try one handed holding your device.

it sucks. you have a headphone jack sticking down and trying to jam itself into your palm. it doesn't work. it's terrible. you're forced to try holding it differently, or using your right hand, which, again, being a lefty, isn't always the easiest to do.

how do you avoid this?

Put it on the top. where no hands tend to be. Top RIGHT is the ideal place for it. in POrtraight mode, it's top right and nowhere your hands will be, and if you rotate the phone left and in horizontal mode, it's sticking top left, still out of the way.

but Bottom left? NO.

Trust me. Apple with the iphone 5 has made me change my mind at considering the iphone. I'm currently on BB, and been looking to get off it for obvious reasons, The design of so much in the iphone 5, and the headphone jack in particular has me walking elsewhere.

I'm sure a solution will be available soon...

 

[snowcrash]

as A left handed individual who's habit is to use my left hand for one handed operation of most hand held devices, since it is my strong and dominant hand.

I can safely say after having used devices with headphones on the bottom...

BAD. BAD. BAD. BAD BAD! it sucks. it's annoying. you ever know why they're on the left side? cause there are less of us to complain!

put a headphone on the bottom left, where the typical location people put it on the bottom, and try one handed holding your device.

it sucks. you have a headphone jack sticking down and trying to jam itself into your palm. it doesn't work. it's terrible. you're forced to try holding it differently, or using your right hand, which, again, being a lefty, isn't always the easiest to do.

how do you avoid this?

Put it on the top. where no hands tend to be. Top RIGHT is the ideal place for it. in POrtraight mode, it's top right and nowhere your hands will be, and if you rotate the phone left and in horizontal mode, it's sticking top left, still out of the way.

but Bottom left? NO.

Trust me. Apple with the iphone 5 has made me change my mind at considering the iphone. I'm currently on BB, and been looking to get off it for obvious reasons, The design of so much in the iphone 5, and the headphone jack in particular has me walking elsewhere.

I'm a lefty too (well ambidextrous, but majority of my iPhone use is with my left hand) I don't have this problem at all. But I agree that top right ESP for portrait mode is good. But then you'd have people saying "but I rotate my phone to the right! That sucks!!!" So I guess you can't win wherever you put it. I just like all cables going to a central location. Top, bottom or side, doesn't matter, as long as all cables are coming from a single spot I can manage my way around it. It's the top/bottom or top/side or right/left side that I never understood the logic behind. Seems like if I'm using both headphones and charger it was always a mess. This is the first time I feel the phone isn't being tugged in 2 different ways (if that makes any sense)

 

[avanpelt]

OK you are definitely much smarter than the Apple engineers. So do tell us how else to make an already thin phone thinner while keeping the same 30-pin connector?

I didn't proclaim to be smarter than Apple engineers. I just said it seems like a money grab right now. It probably won't seem like that if we see the new connector do more things than the 30-pin was capable of. I know people who were clammering for a larger screen. I don't know anyone who thought the 4S was too thick. Therefore, I think if the Lightning connector was developed primarily to make the handset thinner, that's pretty pathetic. As I said, though, once we are able to see the Lightning connector making things possible that weren't possible with the 30-pin (as I hope we will), the pain of the switch will be lessened.

I still think it was suspicious that the Lightning to 30-pin adapters weren't on sale for two and a half weeks after the device went on sale. That totally seems like they were trying to maximize sales on Lightning cables from people who couldn't wait for the adapters.

 

[samcraig]

I didn't proclaim to be smarter than Apple engineers. I just said it seems like a money grab right now. It probably won't seem like that if we see the new connector do more things than the 30-pin was capable of. I know people who were clammering for a larger screen. I don't know anyone who thought the 4S was too thick. Therefore, I think if the Lightning connector was developed primarily to make the handset thinner, that's pretty pathetic. As I said, though, once we are able to see the Lightning connector making things possible that weren't possible with the 30-pin (as I hope we will), the pain of the switch will be lessened.

I still think it was suspicious that the Lightning to 30-pin adapters weren't on sale for two and a half weeks after the device went on sale. That totally seems like they were trying to maximize sales on Lightning cables from people who couldn't wait for the adapters.

Apple loves its customer and puts them first - they would never do such a thing. Clearly it was a supply issue.

 

[uknowimright]

I wanna know where people keep picking up these brittle microUSB cables, I should start selling microUSB cables since they break so often according to you guys. I will be the next Mark Cuban and make a fortune over the interwebs!

for real, I've bought a few off of monoprice (you know hella inexpensive) and they have held up great

 

[Medic311]

for real, I've bought a few off of monoprice (you know hella inexpensive) and they have held up great

^ THAT

monoprice is GREAT

 

[fertilized-egg]

I don't know anyone who thought the 4S was too thick.

I always thought 4S looked thick. As an iPod Touch fan iPhones in general seemed chubby to me. By the time 4S made it to the scene, it looked somewhat thick against many competition in the phone world as well.

 

[danranda]

none of the above 3 "benefits" you mention are specific to the proprietary Apple Lightening connector. Apple could have achieved all of that without this ridiculous level of circuitry complexity and cost, solely implemented to monopolize accessory cables

Name one existing & cheap connector type that you can plug in in any orientation like #1 in that post you quoted stated and you so easily dismissed.
Everyone is rushing to say apple should have used mini or micro usb, and perhaps they could have, but none of those offer the ability to plug it in in any orientation. Also, a blade type connector like the lightening connector tends to be less prone to breaking the socket on the device that it is plugged into.

I'm an IT professional and I can't tell you how many times I see computers and mobile devices with usb connectors (all sizes) that have broken off the main board they're connected to because the user kept trying to force the connector into the port the wrong way.

In all honesty, most of us in this forum probably know how to properly insert a micro usb cable just fine, but is designing devices for the masses and yes these devices can be pricey. Would you want your fancy iphone of any generation rendered rather useless after damaging the connector? I think not.

 

[E.Lizardo]

If you believe Apple 100%. And if you believe they created the best solution vs the most profitable solution (which may or may not be the best).

Can you say with certainty - that Apple's solution is the only one that would have/could have worked with the new iPhone 5?

I'm sure you think you can. I'm also cure the other person wasn't whining. But I'm so pleased you resorted to the childish response of "there are other options for people like you"

Well done.

The most absurd challenge I've ever seen.The poster made no such claim.Quit erecting straw men.

 

[Ecofriend]

These are benefits of a smaller connector, not specifically the Lightning connector. Apple could have used micro USB and every consumer would be better off.

Micro USB has its own problems. It is FLIMSY, and I mean flimsy. If you've picked up and iPhone 5 off of a lightning connected, you can feel that lightning is much more sturdy. And micro USB users are constantly having to worry about breaking off the contacts inside if their devise. My sisters android tablet had that happen just a few weeks ago. Apple made the right choice with lightning

 

[repoman27]

What new features exactly? Only one I've seen yet that micro-USB can't do is the ability to plug in either way; nice, but not worth an extra $19 / cable. Everything else is vaporware at this point.

Wow, tomorrow the Lightning interface will have it's 3 week anniversary, and still only a couple Apple made accessories are available. Baffling isn't it. Total vapor on everything else. I guess if you're in the MFi program and couldn't design, test, manufacture and get a product to market in under three weeks, then you probably never will. BTW, you do get a Lightning cable free with every new iDevice that uses the interface, and it has a normal USB Type-A connector on the other end so you can plug it into a myriad of ports / chargers.

This guy who did the tear down doesn't sound very knowledgable when it comes to tear downs. I mean, if you're going to pull something apart, you should have an inkling of what you're supposed to be looking for or the resources to find out what's before you. I guess I'll wait for the ifixit tear down.

No, he sucks at tear downs. I can't believe everyone continues to give him free advertising. His photos are terrible, too. Where are the closeup shots of the chip markings so we can actually ID any of the components used? When he tore down the Lightning to USB cable he used a Dremel tool to remove the glue and took the corner clean off of the most significant chip. Hopefully this dude will do us all a favor and get a heat gun and a macro lens.

"The chips look unfamiliar, but with the same metal finish and some have lasered text."

Chips made from polished silicon wafers that have manufacturer's markings laser etched in them... Who could have created such amazing technology?

"One of the chips reads Apple on it with a very long serial number."

Hmmm... Sort of like all the Cirrus Logic DAC's that are made for Apple? Marking numbers usually start with 338S?

What I think is fairly obvious at this point, but nobody seems to be commenting on, is that the metal shield component of the Lightning connectors looks to be injection molded metal, which is pretty crazy.

About the actual cable, not the adapter: Can someone tell me why the cable has chips in each end? Why doesn't the iPod and the computer do what those chips do? Surely the iPod has enough processing power to do the pin switching and whatever else the cable does, why put mini-computers in the actual cable then?

The cable only has chips on the Lightning connector end. From what I've been able to glean, it appears that when the plug is inserted into a device, the device pulls up (or down) pin 4 so that the chip in the cable knows which pin to use for device power, and then the chip switches VBUS to that pin. The SoC senses USB D-/D+ or serial Rx/Tx on pins 2/3 or 7/6 and switches the relevant signaling to those pins. I'd reckon that the chip can also handle digital negotiation for charging current and voltage. It is possible that the chip acts in some way to identify the capabilities of the attached accessory or as a trusted platform module, but I have seen no confirmation of this.

 

[etrinh]

Not everybody can afford to buy the best. That is why so many people buy Android junk. Apple products are like Ferraris - they set the owners apart from the commoners.

lol. Good job

 

[Medic311]

Name one existing & cheap connector type that you can plug in in any orientation like #1 in that post you quoted stated and you so easily dismissed.

i never said that Apple would have to use a plug that's already available...did i? provide me that quote. i simply said that Apple did not need to add cost with complex proprietary chipsets that monopolize the production of the cable in order to achieve all of the touted "features" of their new Lightening port.
get real

 

[etrinh]

Just because I bought an iPhone 5 and like it overall doesn't mean I have to be happy with every aspect of it. I think it is a great phone, but at this point the Lightning connector adds complexity and cost with too few benefits. Perhaps in the future Apple will come up with something micro-USB can't do and can justify the cost, but we aren't there yet.

Grow up and let others voices their opinions.

Does the micro-USB standard even have docking accessories? I am not informed so pleased enlighten me. Micro-USB is that tiny plug that looks like a grain of rice right?

 

[faroZ06]

"Nobody should balk at paying $29 for this after they see what is inside, though."

Why shouldn't they?

What has the Lightening port done for the consumer?

1. Made the iPhone slimmer (which is useless for some, including me)
2. Faster (good, of course)
3. It looks like it supports digital audio, which would increase audio quality!
4. Made some old docks not work anymore without an adaptor or sometimes not at all (bad, of course)
5. Made it easier to plug your iPhone in (good, of course)

The only bad thing is that it's harder or sometimes impossible to use old docks. Oh well, most things become outdated after 10 years. At least Lightning is advanced enough for future use.