Apple Says "No" To Releasing New Dock Connector Specs

sl4shd0rk writes "According to sources, Apple hasn't offered any specs to developers for the new '9-pin Connector' to be used on the next version of the iPhone. Apple has also said it may use 'licensing agreements and threats of lawsuits' to prevent third-party adapters from hitting the market through at least 2012. There have been suggestions that this tactic is to allow Apple time to leverage competition and reap in revenues of $100 million for every 10 million Dock Connector Adapters it sells for $10. It remains unclear whether Apple will allow third-party developers to release competing alternatives after 2012."

Comments

Putting words in Apples mouth

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple hasn't said a damn thing. Just speculation.

Re:Putting words in Apples mouth

[gutnor]

The new connector itself is pure rumor. So they don't publish the specs on a rumored connector of a product they haven't even announced or given any clear indication it will exist at all ? Some days it really feel like all Apple Haters and Fanboys are like teenagers gossiping about their favorite star.

Re:Putting words in Apples mouth

[Pieroxy]

Care to put your money where you mouth is? I'm willing to bet $1000 that's what the next iphone will look like (little dock and all).

My best judgement prevents me from betting $1000 with AC, sorry.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[preaction]

You mean instead "leveraging their position to unfairly stifle competition," correct?

universal connector

[mister.woody]

It's a shame that they do not have a universal connector. Something that would work on any damn phone, like a simple usb. But oh well... it's apple!

Re:universal connector

[gl4ss]

There is a standard and it is very much like usb. Its called micro usb which you might have heard of.
Virtually every smart phone these days sold has a micro usb port.

iPhones and iPads are not phones or tablets. They are purely fashion statements.
No one would buy them otherwise.

all other manufacturers agreed to standardize on microusb some 5 years ago(and it's finally starting to be used on pretty much all, non-apple, devices now).

Re:universal connector

[GrahamCox]

They are purely fashion statements.

Well, maybe one data point doesn't disprove your argument, but the way you've framed it, it goes a long way to.

I am the least fashionable person imaginable. I'm a little bit of a lefty and despise brand worship and the creeping corporatism of our age. I abhor labels and typically buy no-name brand jeans from Target.

Oddly enough, I do have an iPhone. I find it well designed, very functional and useful as a phone and portable web browser, music player, gps, camera, and very occasional puzzle and games machine. That's why I have one, it's NOTHING to do with fashion.

Re:universal connector

[data2]

http://www.maclife.com/article/news/microusb_set_european_commission_standard_smartphones
Brought to you by those commie, over-regulating Europeans.

Re:universal connector

[VortexCortex]

Typical hipster.

Re:universal connector

[profplump]

No, that's for speaker-level audio after the amp. The port on the bottom puts out line-level audio (with no internal volume control), along with video, status lines to detect/inform the power state, data lines so you can read and control the device, and a whole slew of other things that have come and gone throughout the decade-long life of the 30-pin connector. It is possible to do most of these things with other standard ports (though not all of them, particularly on a thin case), but the replacement is not as simple as power + headphones.

Re:universal connector

[digitig]

There is a standard and it is very much like usb.

Only for charging, not for data. And a manufacturer can be compliant by supplying an adaptor, which only has to charge the device, not carry data. Hardly relevant to docking the device.

Re:universal connector

[nospam007]

"all other manufacturers agreed to standardize on microusb some 5 years ago(and it's finally starting to be used on pretty much all, non-apple, devices now)."

Apple signed the agreement as well.
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/magazine/articles/single-market/article_10942_en.htm

Re:universal connector

[GungaDan]

Hipsters can shop at Target if they do so ironically, or were doing it before it became mainstream.

Re:universal connector

[Charliemopps]

Give me a break. The iPhone connector is designed specifically to not be compatible with anything else on the market so apple can charge other companies that want to use it for the privilege. You can't even find the positive and negative pins on the phone, hook up alligator clips and charge it. The connector has a resistor and cap across several pins so the phone can detect if it's a real iPhone connector and it will literally reject the cable if it doesn't detect these components in the signal. There is no purpose in those components being there other than to enforce their patents.

Every point you make can be done with USB. You can transfer streaming audio and video via usb, you can certainly use it to control the volume of an iPod. In fact, the iPods connector is larger, analog and transfers far less data than a modern USB connector could. It is, without question, an inferior connector. If the connector were so superior, why isn't anyone designing their phones to work off the same connection? No one seems bothered about breaching any of apples other patents...

Will they attempt this in the EU as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be that they are walking straight into EU regulations with that kind of policy. Vertical monopolies in the supply chain is one of those few things the EU gets extremely aggro about, to the benefit of the market and consumers.

Re:Will they attempt this in the EU as well?

[Mr. Wok]

Aggro?! Do you mean EU is somekind of monster of which somebody is always tanking and getting the aggro while the others shoot?

Re:Will they attempt this in the EU as well?

[jonwil]

One big reason Apple doesn't use USB is that the dock connector does more than just USB.

Re:Will they attempt this in the EU as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

But nothing that you can't do with USB. Android phones have the ability to do audio and video through micro USB after all.

The only difference is they provide an analog pins for each audio channel, for svideo etc. Micro USB means you just send it as data and convert it in the adapter.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Mr. Wok]

They haven't said or done anything, this is all just speculation. Slow news day on Slashdot.

a price to pay

[azalin]

Apple has never been a fan of cheap. Their products carry the undercurrent message "I can afford this", much like sports cars, suvs, rolexes and the like. They don't want everybody to provide cheap accessories to their products, because it diminishes the brand value.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Taco Cowboy]

Innovative and good technology company

A. Innovative company might not have good technology

B. Companies that have good technology might no longer be innovative

Apple, Inc. used to be in "Category A" when Mr. Jobs were alive

Now, it's in "Category B" and soon, it might end up be neither

Its their own damn fault

[MassacrE]

Accessory manufacturers (particularly case manufacturers) burnt all their bridges with Apple long ago. Since around when the iphone 3gs came out, nobody has gotten any advance notice of new hardware because of all the leaks.

Even now, many of the apple rumors come from case manufacturers who are attempting to bribe employees at the manufacturer for information.

Right now Apple has only even hinted that there may be an iphone 5, and if they are going to deprecate a decade of accessories with a new connector they want to do it on their own terms. There is no way Applw have confirmed or denied the dock connector except perhaps in controlled leaks to the media. Nobody making alarm clock docks is gonna know a damn thing until the rest of us do on the 12th.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

So when do you think apple will give it to 3rd parties? It's coming out next week, so they are seriously running out of time to get production up and running. Or do you just blindly defend apple any chance you get, truth staring you in the face or not?

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[1u3hr]

Slashdot is the New Fox.

Take a purely speculative story and give it a headline stating something likely to excite your readership as a simple fact. result page hits.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[sco08y]

It's never a slow news day when you can just make shit up.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[dj245]

This kind of behavior worked a lot more in the 40 years ago (when the manufacturing cycle took a lot longer) than it does today. I'm not saying it is excusable, but the market for people who need to buy Apple accessories is so large that many companies buy the Apple Thing on day 1, reverse engineer it on day 2, and are receiving Accessories for the Apple Thing within a couple weeks from China. I work with a company that owns a Faro Laser Scanarm (3d scanner) and they frequently have multiple customers send them phones overnight on day 1. Each one of them is trying to get into the market for docks, cases, screen protectors, etc.

I'm not saying that Apple's tactics are OK, but they are generally futile in this case. You can't stop a flood of Chinese accessories from dozens of manufacturers.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[MachineShedFred]

Even though Apple hasn't released shit about unreleased products to the mass market except in rare exceptions for over a decade, everyone still thinks that it's news that Apple doesn't just up and scream aloud about features of unreleased products.

Guess what? When they released the 2nd gen iPod that has the dock connector we've been using for 8 years now, they didn't pre-release specs for that either. Yet I'm sure we had the same cynical speculation of "OMG it's not bone-stock FireWire! They're going to squeeze everyone out with proprietary bullshit and sue everyone that tries to use it!"

Never mind that today's dock connector only carries a few of the signals present in the original - gone is the FireWire and the 12v power, long replaced with USB2 and it's 5V DC. HDMI video has been added. Etc.

This is likely Apple deciding that it's time to have a change in the connector that coincides with a change of signal, rather than leaving the connector alone for so long to keep compatibility with 3rd party accessories at the cost of engineering simplicity, and reduction of product size.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[ArhcAngel]

That would be very...un-Apple-like. They currently make money on every device legitimately sold by 3rd party OEMs (iHome, JBL) by requiring an NDA and licensing agreement through their MFi program. I found and interesting read here about the reasoning behind the Square CC reader using the audio port. They cite several valid reasons but one that sticks out in a big way is basically it costs Square US $1 to manufacture the device but it would have cost them $4-$8 per device in licensing if they had gone with the 30 pin dock connector.

Re:Apple is the new Microsoft

[UnknowingFool]

So far it has been speculation that there is a new connector. Now there is speculation on why Apple won't release specs for a connector they haven't announced yet. Maybe the day they announce the connector, they will release specs. Or the connector manufacturers have been sworn to secrecy about it considering the leaked cases of past models.