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Apple Now Shipping Lightning To 30-Pin Adapters
hcs_$reboot writes "Apple has started shipping the iPhone 5 Lightning connector to 30-pin adapters. Some iPhone 5 owners complained about its new connector being incompatible with the previously well known 30 pin connectors (iPhone 4S and before, iPod, iPad, and chargers). From the article: 'Apple's accessories page shows the adapter as available to ship in October, while one MacRumors reader said the e-mail notice pointed to a delivery day of October 9.'"
Well, that's one way to make money - gratuitous changes which you charge to fix.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
I own a bunch of micro-USB devices and I think that connector blows, at least mechanically. It's keyed, so it requires a specific orientation, and it's small so it's hard to differentiate the orientation, especially once presbyopia sets in.
The lightning connector has no specific orientation and I find it much easier to connect, especially in the dark.
The jury's out on whether or not there's any technical advantage to lightning over micro-USB as a connector or connector protocol. I'm in the camp that says 30 pin had to go and lightning is a welcome change, but even as an iPhone fan I'm not convinced there isn't some profit motive behind all of this, especially all the restrictions and apparent secrecy surrounding the device and adapters.
I support the change to the lightning connector for the most part -- it's a mechanically superior connector to 30 pin and to micro-USB (which keyed and difficult to orient in low-light conditions due to its size).
But I think Apple really fucked up when it came to the lightning connector in terms of third party accessory availability, adapter availability and adapter functionality.
First of all, it should have been rolled out with the iPad 3 first. iPad physical connectivity and portability is less common and it would have given developers lead time to get all kinds of accessories ready for iPhone 5.
On the day that the phone was rolled out Apple should have had a 30 pin adapter available that replicated all thirty pin functionality outside of video. There's just no excuse for a delay of nearly a month for Apple-supplied adapters to an Apple-designed interface. They also should have had a lightning-HDMI adapter available (AFAIK, no HDMI interface is even announced let alone available).
My understanding is that the 30 pin adapter they are selling provides analog audio but not iPod control -- why is that? Either iPod control isn't available over lightning at all or there must be some other good reason the adapter couldn't provide it. The lack of iPod control breaks a huge amount of functionality in things that aren't easily swapped out (ie, cars).
Furthermore, Apple should have begun sharing Lightning technical info and approving designs with third parties so that they could have had devices ready for roll out. This whole "secret development" and the dog-and-pony introduction event has kind of run its course in many ways and keeping the interface a secret from partners really doesn't accomplish much except punish users.
It remains to be seen whether Apple will realize that a more restrictive adapter and strangleholds on the technology and licensing of it actually hurts them and the ecosystem more than it helps. Part of me wonders how much of this is pure profiteering on Apple's part (IMHO, that's too simple) but part of me also thinks that some of this is a desire to manage DRM and other types of control by restricting who can make a cable and what it can do.
If there aren't a lot of third party products, adapters, etc out before Christmas (ie, Thanksgiving...) this might be a kind of "Waterloo" for Apple.