Official Lightning Connector Support Lacking, Inspires Workarounds and DIY Mods

[Rocketman]

I was at an apple store yesterday to help a friend get an iPhone5 and when looking at them I noticed they sat on the dock askew. I thought it odd Apple notorious for detail would miss that one. It seems if only the connector was attached to the stand just a fraction of an inch lower it would slide into the iPhone5 and sit flat on the display.

I would hope that third party dock designers would factor this detail in when making their stuff as the connector has a less secure method of attach and retention than the 30 pin did. This might be considered a downgrade of sorts.

I am excited about the variety of protocols the new connector supports and understand it will be increasingly necessary on form factors that are small or wearable, such as the square Nano.

There needs to be support for the devices around the dock area as the connector itself is no longer sufficient.

Rocketman

 

[MH01]

I still have yet to see ONE valid reason why humans shouldn't be able to fly. Forget all those technical reasons and rationale, we've heard it. Just tell me one good reason why I cannot fly? Birds fly. I should fly.

ONE good reason! I DARE YOU!

Most of us are fat

 

[Michael Scrip]

I believe this is because Thunderbolt is overkill for the vast majority of devices.

Exactly.

Thunderbolt is an amazing interface... but only certain types of people get excited over it.

If you're transferring terabytes of data every day.... and you have drives that can handle that much bandwidth... Thunderbolt is a godsend.

Or... if you're connecting expensive accessories to your computer... again Thunderbolt is (or will soon be) a great interface.

Otherwise... most people back up their hard drives to good ol' USB 2.0 drives. Because those are "good enough"

And then there is a certain percentage of the population who never connect anything to their computers.

Perhaps the only thing they may connect is their iPhone cable

 

[Born Again]

docks are overrated

 

[Zunjine]

This is the Thunderbolt port all over again. It has been almost 2 years and we still don't have many TB devices.

The differences:

1) There are very few machines currently in use that have TB ports while there will be 100 million LTNG compatible devices in use within weeks, 200 million by Christmas (rough guesses of course but if you count iPod Nanos I think we could be seeing that kind of number).

2) All TB compatible devices also carry USB connectors while new iPhones and iPods (and soon iPads) will only support LTNG. Thus, if you're building a TB device you're competing with much cheaper USB devices that offer enough bandwidth for most people.

So, while the economic argument for making TB devices is opaque, the argument for making LTNG devices is clear as day. This is, I feel, nothing like TB.

 

[chrvdMark]

Wait. Why on earth would a dock damage the iPhone's paint? The paint is all on the *inside* of the glass.

Well, I mean the black models "paint", on the antenna-frame...
I think daily use in a dock, would damage the black paint... And i guess Apple knows it...

 

[Lancer]

Still using a 3Gs for almost 3 year, thought about getting a dock but never found the need, biggest problem is most require you to remove any case. So I'm using the same Apple connector I got with the phone to plug it in a charge/sync.

I'll revisit the issue when I upgrade to the new iPhone in the coming months, I'm sure there will be lots of choice in the coming months as production ramps up.

 

[dcorban]

How so?
It'd be perfect for external HDDs, yet, no external enclosures that I could possibly afford.

Are there HDDs that can feed 10GB/s of throughput? To my knowledge, even the fastest flash based drives don't break the 1GB/s barrier. Slower physical disks won't even saturate a USB2 connection.

 

[kas23]

The differences:

1) There are very few machines currently in use that have TB ports while there will be 100 million LTNG compatible devices in use within weeks, 200 million by Christmas (rough guesses of course but if you count iPod Nanos I think we could be seeing that kind of number).

2) All TB compatible devices also carry USB connectors while new iPhones and iPods (and soon iPads) will only support LTNG. Thus, if you're building a TB device you're competing with much cheaper USB devices that offer enough bandwidth for most people.

So, while the economic argument for making TB devices is opaque, the argument for making LTNG devices is clear as day. This is, I feel, nothing like TB.

I agree with your points. However, these accessories should have been available right at launch. Developers had iOS 6 available months before launch, the accessory makers should have had the same luxury.

Sure, Apple wants to keep everything secret, but anyone with an Internet connection knew the 30-pin connector was going the way of the dinosaur. Even mainstream news outlets were reporting the change. What was the competitive advantage in keeping this a secret?

It's going to take these accessory makers months now to produce these accessories. This isn't just changing the connector. These accessories will have to be designed and thoroughly tested and go through the FCC and whatnot. We will be very lucky if we see these accessories by the Holiday season.

In the very least, Apple should have had the adaptors available immediately. Really, why aren't these available yet? More unnecessary secrecy?

 

[ZipZap]

I agree with your points. However, these accessories should have been available right at launch. Developers had iOS 6 available months before launch, the accessory makers should have had the same luxury.

Sure, Apple wants to keep everything secret, but anyone with an Internet connection knew the 30-pin connector was going the way of the dinosaur. Even mainstream news outlets were reporting the change. What was the competitive advantage in keeping this a secret?

It's going to take these accessory makers months now to produce these accessories. This isn't just changing the connector. These accessories will have to be designed and thoroughly tested and go through the FCC and whatnot. We will be very lucky if we see these accessories by the Holiday season.

In the very least, Apple should have had the adaptors available immediately. Really, why aren't these available yet? More unnecessary secrecy?

Because all production went to making the cables for Apple. I dont disagree with you. Apple dropped the ball on this.

 

[APlotdevice]

Headphone jack on the bottom of the device would hinder possible functionality.

I guess why they put the jack on the bottom is a separate discussion though (I can think of a few reasons...nothing huge is jumping out though).

iPods (all types) have had their headphone jack on the bottom for ages. Yet Apple continued to produce docks for them.

 

[bearda]

The differences:

1) There are very few machines currently in use that have TB ports while there will be 100 million LTNG compatible devices in use within weeks, 200 million by Christmas (rough guesses of course but if you count iPod Nanos I think we could be seeing that kind of number).

+1. It's kind of hard to say TB is the answer to everything when Apple's Pro workstation still isn't equipped with it. External TB RAID arrays have a pretty clear use case, but are completely unusable on the Mac Pro.

 

[rsnapeuk]

I presume Apple aren't manufacturing docks as it gives manufacturers the opportunity to fill the gap in the market, and chances are once they've got use to building simple dock, learning about the technology behind Lighning theyll begin to create lightning related accessories..

 

[Kissaragi]

I still have yet to see ONE valid reason why humans shouldn't be able to fly. Forget all those technical reasons and rationale, we've heard it. Just tell me one good reason why I cannot fly? Birds fly. I should fly.

ONE good reason! I DARE YOU!

Weight. Your welcome.

 

[ShiTzuism]

So a 25 minute mod project that "bolts in" on a $90 piece of aluminum? Hmm, Im sorry but why not just pick up one of the cheaper docks made specifically for the iphone5 connector?

 

[gtstricky]

Just having the adapters ready would have been a big improvement over this situation. Someone buy Steve Cook a "WWSD" bracelet.


I fly... USAir

 

[mdelvecchio]

I have still not read a single valid reason why Apple is not selling a dock themselves.

how bout because they dont feel like it?

serious. they know the after-market crowd will make plenty and better docs than their own, which is typically designed around a case-less iphone.

 

[tbrinkma]

Well, I mean the black models "paint", on the antenna-frame...
I think daily use in a dock, would damage the black paint... And i guess Apple knows it...

That's anodization, not paint. Sliding it into and out of something softer than the aluminum isn't going to damage the anodization. Anybody familiar with the process (including Apple) knows that.

 

[jzuena]

Maybe a dock is coming and due to the small connector size of Lighting they will use the audio jack to hold it up? As well as using the audio jack to pass through the analogue sound to the dock

If a dock is designed to use both the lightning connector and the audio jack, it will only work on items that have the exact same spacing between the two. If iPhone 6 is wider (or thinner) and the audio jack moves farther/closer to the lightning port, it won't fit. I doubt the new iPod nano has the two ports at the same distance from each other as the iPhone, so now there could even be a current device that wouldn't fit. Moving the audio jack to the bottom won't be of any help to the dock makers.

 

[jmitch720]

I have still not read a single valid reason why Apple is not selling a dock themselves.

This article shows an email from Phil Schiller who basically says that they are not making a dock because most people use speaker docks anyway. http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/18/apple...irms-apple-has-no-iphone-5-dock-in-the-works/

 

[janstett]

Who has the time or desire to modify an accessory for the iPhone 5 lightning connector? Sure, it's a great conversation topic, but it's not practical. I have the iPhone 5 and I feel no need to go modifying incompatible docks. I will say, however, that Apple really should have worked harder to get third-party accessory makers ready by the release of the new iPhone.

Still using my 4S in-car, waiting for 30-pin-to-lightning car cradles... And even when they materialize I will lose video out, so my neat trick of streaming TV to my nav screen with sling player will be dead.

 

[darkslide29]

iPods (all types) have had their headphone jack on the bottom for ages. Yet Apple continued to produce docks for them.

Reason for this is because the old 30-pin had analog audio out, whereas the new lightning connector is digital only.
That's (part of) the reason that the adapter itself costs $30, because it is acting as a DAC (digital audio convertor). It is taking the digital source of the iPhone 5, and converting it into an analog audio signal that the dock/component can understand and play out.
To think of it this way makes $30 sound more reasonable. Not that it's cheap. However, this makes me think a dock would have to cost even more than $30, making it look unaffordable to many. So I guess they decided to not even try.

Me, I don't really care for the audio out. I just want something sleek to be able to charge it on.

----------

Still using my 4S in-car, waiting for 30-pin-to-lightning car cradles... And even when they materialize I will lose video out, so my neat trick of streaming TV to my nav screen with sling player will be dead.

Time to get an Apple TV in there for video AirPlay since it'll no longer require a wifi hotspot

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I still have yet to see ONE valid reason why humans shouldn't be able to fly. Forget all those technical reasons and rationale, we've heard it. Just tell me one good reason why I cannot fly? Birds fly. I should fly.

ONE good reason! I DARE YOU!

I'll give you SEVEN reasons humans cannot fly:

1> They don't have enough frequent flyer miles yet.

2> They didn't buy a ticket.

3> They are on the "no fly list" and TSA stops them from flying.

4> They don't own their own plane.

5> Their name is neither NEO or Kal-El.

6> They simply haven't taken enough drugs yet.

7> Their lack of faith is disturbing.

 

[jdwebster]

Hmm... why is he about to stick his penis in it?

Is it wrong to say penis on these forums??


(look at the shadow)

 

[REDNAVE]

I made my own FREE lightning dock by modifying the earpod case
Took me about two and a half hours to figure out.