Technology progresses through new developments, not by sticking to established standards.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How the EU allow Apple to get away with this?
- Thread starter BiggAW
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
Technology progresses through new developments, not by sticking to established standards.
My guess is that's why the EU allowed the use of an adapter. Technology changes, but the Micro-USB port doesn't. For example, if any manufacturer, be it Apple, Samsung, Nokia, or anyone else wants to add USB 3.0 functionality to a future phone, they couldn't use the existing Micro-USB port because it lacks the pins necessary to support it. However, they could sell a small adapter for charging.
I believe the main purpose of the EU standard was to reduce the number of new charging cables that would be produced and sold (since people could reuse the cable from their old phones), and not to mandate a particular data connection technology.
Still, EU rules do not apply outside the EU - and Apple would likely rather not sell to the EU than hold their device back to comply with some government rule.
Just because you can't personally justify it doesn't mean there is no justification for it at all. Lightning can be a standard. For future iPhones, iPads and iPods. It's an Apple standard. Just like FireWire. Apple standards may or may not be industry standards. Some are like Mini DisplayPort and others aren't like Lightning.
Actually, justifying the continued usage of the 30-pin dock connector is quite hard. Yes there are lots of products using it but that is a poor excuse for not using something new.
Apple did it, it looks to be pretty good, wait a few weeks (maybe less) and there will be cables made by Apple, wait a month or more and there will be 3rd party cables. I don't see the fuss.
The government shouldn't be in the business of managing what types of connectors phones use. If they want to force the cost of disposal to be borne by the manufacturer, then tax it, but no, it's ridiculous that government would try to control innovation in this way.
Yes, there is.
Micro-USB is crap.
You can't find the cables anywhere* and when you do they are prohibitively expensive, it's incredibly fragile and all it supports is charging (and a lousy 5W at that) and data transfer. The 30-pin connector supports about 15x as many uses. The Lightning connector is brand-new and it already supports more uses: it does data and charging of course (like USB) and it'll give an accessory device digital audio. In the near future, it'll support HDMI and probably VGA. USB will never be able to do that.
If Micro-USB were any good (like being durable) and it supported alternative uses, you'd see Apple using it instead of whatever they come up with. However, it isn't, and Apple doesn't want to make a giant mess of their hardware so they don't put multiple ports in.
*) I am not kidding when I say I can find a 30-pin iPod cable 20 times as fast as a micro-usb cable. It's literally 30 seconds versus 10 minutes of searching.
Sure, the Lightning cables are uncommon now. They've only just been introduced. Try going back in time to when Micro-USB was introduced and then finding one of those cables. But Apple has said (through Phil Schiller) that they are very serious about this sort of thing and Lightning will be the connector for the next 10 years, like the iPod connector has been for the past 10 years.
Why yes, many companies including Apple are using the iPhone/iPod as a Point of Sale system. Thanks for pointing out one of the many reasons of how iOS devices are so versatile. *rimshot* Though Me, I would stick to IBM POS terminals
----------
Exactly. This is exactly what I was trying to say all along. Mandating Micro-USB would just mean we won't be allowed to use anything better than Micro-USB should such a connector come out.
----------
Don't forget to add, Every Micro-USB port I have used became loose over time. Never a problem with the 30-PIN, and we will just have to see how Lightning holds up...It would certainly be a lot better than Micro USB just by looking at the pin outs, and connector itself.
----------
Exactly this. Remember when the Blackberry was the corporate "standard issue" phone? If we stuck by "standards" we would never change. There are standards, and then there is such thing as inventing new standards as well. Standards should only be a bar, not a limitation. A bar that you can pass.
That's interesting, considering I'm looking right at my second cable right now. You can most certainly buy them.
And, all arguments aside, just a friendly suggestion...have you considered enabling wifi sync so you can at least cut the need for 1 of the 4 out?
Wait, $1.40 for a 6 foot Micro-USB cable is prohibitively expensive, but $19 for a Lightning cable isn't? What planet are you living on?
Then they should have kept the 30-pin connector if it is so much "better". At least its pretty ubiquitous, and can be explained away as having been around before there was a ubiquitous standard. Actually it does the same darn thing, USB and power. They used to do Firewire, but they stripped that out after the Gen 4 iPod.
I can find about 5 of either in my drawer. My old phone used Micro-USB, as do both of my Kindles, my external battery that I use to charge my iPhone while traveling, some of my external hard drives, and god knows what else that I can't think of off hand.
Nope. I like hard copper connections. I use gigabit ethernet too, as we have the ability to run it to where my computer is.
+1
My dumb phone has a micro-usb charger, and half of the time I the connector will be the wrong way round when I try to charge it, it's like playing the russian roulette.
I vote Tim Cook as the chairman of the EU commission.
Last edited:
That Lightning cables are expensive does not mean Micro-USB cables should be too. Lightning ones could be cheaper as well so far as I'm concerned.
They stripped it out of the iPods, yes. But the 30-pin connector itself does a whole lot more:
- USB Power
- USB Data
- Firewire Power (USB and FW power are different)
- Firewire Data
- Analog audio
- Composite video
- S-Video
- Component video
- VGA
- HDMI
- TTL serial
- Somehow it can tell if a dock is going to have interference issues with iPhones on GSM
- Etc.
USB can only do two of those things. For the rest, it lacks pins.
Now, much of the above is either no longer needed or can be replaced with a digital connector. And the thing is pretty large. So what do you do if you need parts of that functionality beyond what USB can deliver, but want it to be smaller and there's no industry standard that does what you want? You create something yourself.
In two years you can find five lightning cables in your drawer.
Last edited:
How about you grow a pair and stop whining. Buy a different phone if you don't like the color of the grass on this side. You whine more than my 8 year old.
USB can support the same things as the lightning cable. It is USB for Christ's sake. How many different types of devices use USB with all sorts of special functions? A **** ton. So the arguments about it only being for power and not being able to do special things is pure bull.
With that said - I couldn't care less what Apple uses. Lots of devices use special cables. Nothing new.
With that said - I couldn't care less what Apple uses. Lots of devices use special cables. Nothing new.
Of all the connectors I have ever used, the micro USB is the hardest one to connect to the device, so I am grateful the iPhone 5 has a different connector
Please explain to me in technical detail how you're going to get the 3Gbps signal for HDMI over a two-pin-plus-ground USB cable designed to only do 480Mbps, which itself you're never even going to manage if an actual USB interface is involved. Even for USB 3 they couldn't manage and had to add a bunch of extra pins. Not to mention HDMI's supporting signals require more pins than the two.
Designing for the lowest common denominator GETS you the lowest common denominator, and drags new innovate products down. Steve Jobs was famously against this, and said so several times. That's why they have a habit of removing old tech, often when people still claim they use it. (ex. Flash, floppies, CD's, etc.)
MicroUSB absolutely does allow for 2 way communication. My car communicates with my iDevices over USB - steering wheel controls work fine. If USB only worked 1 way, then how would we be able to send and receive data while syncing in iTunes?
USB may not allow for the same bandwidth (though I have my doubts about Lightning's bandwidth since apple isn't supporting USB 3.0 or TB), but there's nothing preventing them from using something like the micro USB3.0 connector, which has an extra set of pins for the USB 3.0 stuff.
The OP obviously has an axe to grind.
The Lighting connector is much better than micro usb in every way. Lightning is so much better it's like comparing a Ferrari to a pile of rocks
Lightning from a technical standpoint is like having a Micro USB connector and 14 other connectors on top of that. Micro USB is much worse than lightning. The iPhone battery life is excellent anyways so it's not like you need to plug it in to public sources constantly, and any accessories you have can be converted or proprietary and will be substantially better as a result.
The Lighting connector is much better than micro usb in every way. Lightning is so much better it's like comparing a Ferrari to a pile of rocks
Lightning from a technical standpoint is like having a Micro USB connector and 14 other connectors on top of that. Micro USB is much worse than lightning. The iPhone battery life is excellent anyways so it's not like you need to plug it in to public sources constantly, and any accessories you have can be converted or proprietary and will be substantially better as a result.
My point is that Micro-USB cables are NOT expensive, at $1.40/cable, and everyone has many of them lying around already.
If they wanted all the extra ****, they should have stuck with the dock connector. Everyone already has like 10 of those.
MHL.
What a bunch of utter BS. A proprietary cable that no one has is in every way FAR WORSE than the industry standard that works exactly as intended, and has a great track record for availability, reliability, and functionality.
They're too large and contain many functionalities that are outdated. But mostly they're too large.
MHL is another proprietary technology that combines the worst of both worlds (Bad USB connector, non-HDMI or DVI-compatible signalling) and is still limited to doing only USB and some form of non-compatible video; and not at the same time if you want to remain compatible with USB. If you want HDMI, you still need a dongle.
The dock connector isn't that big. It fits fine on a 4S.
MHL is not proprietary, it's a standard. Unlike anything Apple does.
I think the warranty thing is even worse. A lot of countries state any selling product company MUST offer a two year warranty and Apples keeps giving one like if they could do whatever they wanted. Well... Apparently they can as no one seems to tell them anything...
And it'll probably even fit on a 5, but it very definitely won't on the new iPods.
I'm sorry, you're right. However, it is a proposed standard.
But the problem is that it only does one thing: video. And once you do that, with the Micro-USB plug, USB itself is gone. There just aren't enough pins to do both at the same time. While no one knows at this point if lightning can support USB and video at the same time (for lack of video dongles right now), it certainly supports more than just video.
Lightning is a connector designed to meet the demands of products designed ten years from now. MHL was designed to solve one specific problem that exists today: do video with a low pin-count plug (MHL does not actually specify a plug, so you're going to see incompatible MHL implementations*) so manufacturers can either multiplex an existing port (like Micro-USB) or can at least avoid having to add a regular and costly (micro)-HDMI port to their products. I guarantee you it will not be around even five years from now. Lightning will. The 30-pin connector did the same back in 2003 and it lasted 9 years.
*) And by "you're going to see", I mean "there are already". Samsung's Galaxy S3 uses some 11-pin connector for MHL.
----------
That is missing some important information.
In the EU, there are differing laws about warranty. In general, it's two years, but in the Netherlands, it's as long as you can reasonably expect a product to work. Anyway, the length is not the issue. The issue is who the warranty applies to: it's between you and the store who sold you the product. So if you buy your iPhone at fnac, and it breaks, you have to go back to fnac for a warranty claim.
Now, Apple (and most other manufacturers, too) is nice enough to also warrant a product. This is not required by law. So within whatever period that is you can also go to the manufacturer for a warranty claim. For Apple, this is one year.
Of course, Apple also runs its own stores and as such, it can be both the seller and the manufacturer of your device. In this case, the warranty as stated in the relevant law applies. But this is not the manufacturer's warranty that Apple always gives, which is what that one year is.
Last edited:
- Status