First Pictures of Apple's New Mini Connector

tad001 writes "The Daily Mail has pictures of Apple's new mini connector. The photograph, shared by French tech website nowhereelse.fr, shows two components, one of which is said to be similar to another apparently leaked picture of a part of the new iPhone. As well as the new dock connector, the part also seems to take in the headphone jack and the home button connector for the hotly awaited devices."

Comments

Just use micro USB already!

[PrescriptionWarning]

Its really just bad that they insist on not moving to micro USB like basically all other phones manufacturers have. Requiring people to buy new sets of chargers, cables, accessories, docks for a new product just shouldn't be necessary with what is already available.

Re:Just use micro USB already!

[Anubis IV]

There are a number of valid reasons for not using USB. I'll address some of them and make a few guesses towards Apple's perspective, but I'm not interested in arguing whether or not this is the right decision.

By using their own port, they can ensure that every device/cable that will ever be plugged into it (by a sane person) will work as expected. In contrast, if they were to use a general purpose port, such as micro USB, while it would be able to connect to more devices and cables, you'd also introduce confusion as a result, as well as introducing compromise by using a general purpose solution for something that may be better served by a specific solution. Regarding the latter idea, someone far smarter than I discussed it at length just yesterday, going into detail for why this is such a good design for the application in which it will be used. He talks about why it's better in terms of simplicity, integrity, and a number of other factors than the current dock connector, but many of those would apply to USB as well.

For a few other examples that weren't mentioned in that article of why having a proprietary port may be a good idea, unlike the current dock connector, which has dedicated pins for video and audio and standard ways of supplying them, implementations of video and audio over USB are not so standardized across the industry. Some devices may support certain files or certain codecs, while others support nothing at all. Some devices that can play video may not be able to accept any video at all from mobile devices hooked up to it. There are no guarantees. When a user plugs their device into an accessory that's supposed to support video and/or audio, will it, in fact, support it for their model? The answer is "maybe". That sort of confusion and poor handling of user expectations undermines confidence in the brand among the general public, which is something that Apple would clearly want to avoid.

And if you go by the standards, USB doesn't carry anywhere close to enough power for modern devices to charge quickly for most people, so they'd already have to stray away from the standard as it is (which is exactly what they (and many other manufacturers, for that matter) have done for years with USB ports on their computers).

As I said, those are some of the benefits to having a proprietary design. Does it mean that it's worth not using USB? For Apple, quite possibly so, especially since they can still support it via an adapter, as they already do in Europe, thus eliminating complaints that people have to buy new chargers and the like. And I imagine that Apple does not see interoperability with other accessories designed for devices besides theirs as being important (or perhaps even of value), which may be justifiable, given the number of hardware accessories available specifically for devices with their current dock connector and the consistency with which they operate.

Re:Let the lawsuits begin..

[Desler]

No they won't. They provide an adapter which complies with the rules.

Re:Let the lawsuits begin..

[icebike]

So please tell me what non proprietary connector allows any old dumb device to control functionality like line in, line out, volume, power, video out, and controlling playback? This can all be done by sending analog signals over certain pins. For very cheap devices a USB controller and the supporting chipset and software is not an option.

Haven't seen any android devices lately have you....
I suggest you broaden your horizons.

Re:Let the lawsuits begin..

[AmiMoJo]

No need for annecdotes. The spec says that the micro USB connector must be rated for at least 10,000 insertion/removal cycles.

You can buy the connectors for pennies. There is more chance of the soldering or glue holding the copper layer of the PCB failing than the connector breaking. Similarly the cable will probably fray before the connector gets damaged.