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Was the iPod Accessory Port Inspired By a 40-Year-Old Camera?
An anonymous reader writes "While Samsung has been accused of repeatedly borrowing everything from Apple's hardware, to packaging and accessories, it appears that all current iDevices share a port which is very similar to one found on a forty-year-old Polaroid camera. It gets more interesting when you realize that camera was the 'supreme achievement' of a man Steve Jobs idolized. Edwin Land was the creator of the Polaroid camera and, if Steve Jobs obsessed over Land's devices the way many do with iPhones, etc. today, there's a chance this similarity is not a coincidence."
You guys remember the days when every piece of bullshit spewed by an Apple fanboy wasn't immediately posted on the front page of slashdot?
That slot on a Polaroid camera was actually an edge connector. The flash bar was printed on a PCB and had gold trace "fingers" on a protruding section, like an ISA card. These are very cheap, as only one side of the connector even is a connector at all, the other is just a PCB. But they also aren't physically very strong and aren't good for a lot of insertion/removal cycles.
The iPod 30-pin has a metal shelled connector on both mating pieces. These are more precise, last longer and with the a latch system (present on some iPod cables, not others) physically strong. You can hang an iPod Mini easily from a latched 30-pin connector while the Polaroid flash bars fell out without even putting weight on them.
Also note Steve Jobs didn't design Apple's 30-pin connector, Donald J Novotney did.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Interesting - how much time until there's an app for loading Polaroid pictures to the iOS?
They should use that in court against Samsung.
"It's not parent infringement, it's an Easter egg!"
Slashdotted within ten minutes at 2100 EST on a Saturday night? What are all of you people doing reading /. now?
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
This is my server. Running wordpress. I have supercache enabled and all of my media is on a CDN. Still couldn't handle the load. Sorry guys. Sorry for submitting Timothy. I really thought it was up for the task. Best, M
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
Who wants to hear some blogger gossip about how some component of an Apple product kinda-sorta-maybe looks like that of some other 40-year-old product? It's in the same vein as comparing the Kennedy/Lincoln assassinations: you can always find random coincidences if you look hard enough.
Nintendo did a good job with that connector; from what I know, it took a lot of wear without breaking. The designers of USB could have imitated worse things.
If I were to guess about the form factor of the 30 pin connector, it would solve a number of issues:
1: It is decently thin. Maybe one could make a connector thinner, but then there is the engineering for dealing with high insertion/removal cycles, mis-insertion, torquing, and so on.
2: It provides structural support. This provides it an edge over MicroUSB, because one can just mount any device on a cradle using the 30 pin connector, and it will stay in place without any additional reinforcement (molding around the bottom).
3: It provides enough pins to handle things the original design likely never was thought to do, such as HDMI.
4: The springs holding the connector in place are in the dock or the cable, so if those break, it is generally easier to replace that than the iPod, iPad, or iPhone.
I would think the 30 pin connector got that way out of functionality constraints if anything.
Jobs in same interview: (his own words) "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."
Jobs in 2010 interview: "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."
Hypocritical? You decide.
I believe we're past the customary mourning period, so it's back to business as usual. It's been 3 days and no sign of a resurrection yet, so maybe he wasn't the Massiah after all.
Here's something that is barely relevant about standards. At least some of it isn't made up! ;)
Why are (most) automobile axles as long as they are?
Because they were the same length as the then railcar axles (I think railroads were originally narrow Gage).
Why were railcars axles as long as they were?
Because that was the Gage (duh) of the railway.
Why was the Gage of the railway set to be that width?
Because it matched the width of the wagons and carriages used on roads at the time.
Why was the axles of the wagons and carriages standardized on that length? (they were made before mass production so many varying lengths would be more probable).
Because they were made to match the ruts formed in the often muddy roads.
Why were the ruts in the road formed at that particular width?
Because one width was used by one kind of common vehicle (the roman chariot).
Why was that width particularly useful?
Because it was the width of two horses.
(Sort of) Moral: nothing is new and our primary transportation technology is based on horses assess!
And here is an earlier draft of the text from the article:
Steve Jobs, an inspiration to artists and business leaders alike, had a hero of his own. According to this article from the New York Times, Edwin Land, the creator of Polariod was a role model for Jobs. Land was also a college dropout who developed great products, simply and elegantly designed to appeal to an enormous market. It's an interesting read, as is the linked Fastcompany book review.
Like Jobs, Edwin Land had numerous technological and commercial achievements. However, the NYTimes article calls the Polaroid SX-70 folding camera Edwin Land's 'supreme achievement'.
I happen to have a vintage Polaroid SX-70. After reading the article, I pulled it off the shelf to take another look. It's a really beautiful piece of design. It even came with this handsome leather case.
This camera was my father's, and I've handled it hundreds of times since I was a child. Today, pulling it out the case I was immediately struck with a question:
Why does a 40 year old camera have an Apple 30-pin connector port on it? (or at least one that looks nearly identical)
There is a port, just above the lens, that seems ready for any iPod accessory. It's not as obvious when the camera is open, but the port to connect the old fashioned 'flash bar' is very obvious when the camera is collapsed. In fact, the collapsed SX-70 looks like a piece of consumer electronics Steve Jobs would have created if he'd been born a generation earlier.
It's not just similar. Physically, it's almost an exact match. You can even put the tip of a 30-pin connector in the Polaroid and it's a snug fit. I know that this seems like Apple fanboi wishful thinking - that something could be this specifically thought through. Perhaps it is, and that thought occurred to me. So I tried other things that could be similar in size. An SD card. Close, but it doesn't fit. You don't get snug fit of the 30-pin connector.
Keep in mind that this is the only port on this device. And it's designed to allow the camera to interact with accessories. And this isn't just any device. It's the 'supreme achievement' of the man Steve Jobs called a 'national treasure'. Now, this port of nearly identical proportions is the common denominator three devices that could each, along with the original Macintosh, contend as Steve's 'supreme achievement.' And out of all of the sizes available for peripheral ports (micro-usb, etc), this is nearly an exact match, within micrometers (if I had the appropriate tools, I'd measure it for you). Here's a video to give you a better sense of the fit:
http://vimeo.com/30244633
Perhaps there was never an explicit intention to mimic the SX-70. Of course, if this similarity is by design, I am sure someone like Jony Ive would know. The port could have been a result of teamwork, but if Steve Jobs obsessed over Edwind Land's creations the way we obsess over his, there is a reason that this could have felt like the right size for an accessory port according to Steve's aesthetic sensibilities.
I've never givien much thought to the 30-pin connector. It wasn't any more interesting to me than a USB port. But now, I'd be very curious to know the background of the only physical trait that latest iPhone shares with the early iPods and with a forty year-old camera invented by a man Steve Jobs idolized. .
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
Edwin Land would certainly be a good role model for Jobs.
He was probably the greatest developer of optical and photographic technologies in American history. I'm particularly fond of him for designing the folding ultra-high resolution cameras that allowed the U2 spyplane to photograph objects at 2.5 foot resolutions from 60,000 feet up. Those cameras were refined into those used on the blackbird (80,000 feet and resolution high enough to see the stripes on a parking lot) and those used in satellites. These cameras were, of course, was just one of many achievements in his field.
Anyone with those kind of standards would have been a god to Steve Jobs, I'm sure.
Especially when you consider that the click wheel iPod is thought to be influenced by a 1954 transistor radio.
Plus even Jobs' comments about the iPhone 4 being "like a Leica camera" betray the fact to yes, their designers look to past gadgets for inspiration, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone given the task of locating the port saw the Polaroid camera and went "let's try that"...
You are the one who posted the article? Why did you post it anonymously only to follow up with your real account? It's a conspiracy, isn't it?
Typical Apple fanboy: respond to a substantive point by shifting the argument to something irrelevant.
The fact remains: Apple copied the iPod connector and its functionality from Palm and other devices, not the other way around. They also used it the same way: for charging, syncing, docking. Palm wasn't even the first one, it's just the one that Apple obviously copied a lot of features from.
And even if it were, it doesn't change the fact that the iPod Touch and iPhone designs "stole" heavily from Palm and PocketPC.
Also totally irrelevant. Apple builds nice hardware, but that doesn't entitle them to claim that they own ideas they didn't invent.
I pasted the wrong link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/07/steve_jobs_dianamania/
"What kind of music do pirates listen to?" -Paul Maud'dib
"Yeeeaaarrrrr n' Bee!!" -Stilgar, Leader of Sietch Tabr
You should have setup a Varnish instance in front of it. A bit of a plug for some foss software, but it does work *really* well. In every place I have ever deployed it webpage load, even from spikes like "slashdoting", is never a problem if its configured remotely correctly.
The Newtons 26 pin connector: http://myapplenewton.blogspot.com/2009/07/interconnect-port-101.html
Pics:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/4281355248_0d8d04f355.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3044/3090113889_9483dbd7af.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_86fa3woQOHU/SgV_ZUYBrrI/AAAAAAAAAfk/jxzCukhEE2M/s1600-h/IMG_6905.JPG
Apparently Apple have got the video and images removed from the web, but here are they again =) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSkUM6HonkY https://picasaweb.google.com/111571551554338213029/WasTheIPodAccessoryPortInspiredByA40YearOldCamera?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Hi. The observation was about design. Not functionality. With the SX-70 collapsed the similarity is more striking. The iPod connector didn't fit, but the tip was snug, meaning that the measurements were the same. I have many connectors here for phones, PDAs, gaming devices, etc. and nothing was close. It didn't seem random. My guess, and it was just a guess - presented as a question, was that someone designing this new port for the iPod liked the aesthetic of the SX-70. By the time the 30pin adaptor was added, the iPod was already an iconic device. As was the SX-70. It seemed reasonable to me that there would be some thought put in to the aesthetics of the newly designed port. I am sorry the story was green lit for you. . If it's any consolation, I spent the weekend trying to get my host to re-instate my server account. So, I guess I was appropriattely 'punished'. I didn't mean to waste anyone's time. I was excited to find something that seemed connected. I did several searches and couldn't find anything on it. (perhaps because I am off base). There's been lots of interesting feedback from engineers who work on ports. I still haven't' seen anything that was as close of an aesthetic match as these two. If you still feel like I should be banned, that's certainly your prerogative. Cheers.
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
If your vision is very poor...and you view both ports from a distance...I suppose they could both look like blurry black rectangles. That's about it. They aren't even close to the same size.
. Fail.
I'd have to disagree with that. They are exactly the same size. That was my observation. That's why you can fit the tip of the iPod cable in the SX-70 jack and it's snug. They are micrometers different. If i had a more powerful lens and a micro meter, I'd be able to better show the fit. If you look at any other device between 1970 and 2003, I am not sure you would find a device port that has these dimensions. I could be wrong, but for all of the conversation, nobody has cited a device that is the same match. It seems random if you think they are random devices. But the SX-70 was the iPod or Walkman of its day. It's legendary. I am not saying it's important to anyone else. I left that for the editors to decide. I just thought it was interesting. It's not supposed to be any more significant that potentially seeing a lineage in consumer electronics. It got me to pull my SX-70 of the shelf. It's quite amazing. If you like technology you'd likely enjoy the camera. Sorry you didn't like the greenlight. My server shares your sentiment. On that front, I agree with your 'fail' assessment. Cheers.
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?