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Nokia Design Guru Urges Apple To End Cable Chaos
An anonymous reader writes "Nokia's former head designer has called on Apple to work with the broader technology industry and end its policy of having proprietary connectors for its device chargers and accessories. Other experts say Apple cannot continue to go it alone with Lightning Connectors and ignore Micro USB."
I know this won't happen, especially since the EU mandates Micro-USB.
And even more especially because Apple has patented aspects of the Lightning connector, and have no intentions of sharing.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
5-pin MHL adds video.
11-pin MHL (samsung only atm unfortunately) adds OTG capabilities.
The connector is awful though, no other usb cable type breaks as easily for me.
If you're asking for the rationale behind the EU charger harmonisation, it's waste. If every device uses the same charger then fewer chargers have to be manufactured and ultimately recycled. For example you never have to go out and buy a "spare" charger for your smartphone to keep at the office, or a replacement for the one you left behind on holiday, if you already have four mutually intercompatible chargers that originally came with different products.
Of course whether that rationale makes any sense is up for debate but that's the logic.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
they're friendly to ACCESSORY manufacturers.
that's quite different from 3rd party hw manufacturers...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
No, "some company" does not own "the patent" on microUSB. USB was developed by an industry consortium to be a shared standard and, by design, no one company controls it.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I'm puzzled by complaints about fragility and having to be plugged in the right way. My last two phones and the one I have now had and have micro-USB. The cables outlasted the phones. OTOH, I've had a lot of those 1/8 inch audio jacks break. U wish they'd use RCA jacks on computers (it wouldn't work on a phone).
I would guess that most problems with any plugs stem from users pulling them out holding the wire rather than the plug.
USB itself will only plug in one way, polarized wall plugs only plug in one way, and I don't remember anyone bitching when they went from non-polarized to polarized wall plugs.
Free Martian Whores!
The plug itself incorporates a processor which detects the plug's orientation and routes the electrical signals to the correct pins. Official Lightning connectors contain an authentication chip that makes it difficult for third-party manufacturers to produce compatible accessories without being approved by Apple.
Fixed that for you.
You didn't fix it very well.
There are at least 2 data protocols which will output video from micro-USB. MHL and Slimport (aka MyDP, mobile DisplayPort). Both can do 1080p60 output (i.e. FullHD and 3D), and aside from how they draw power, they work in a similar way to the end user - plug dongle into phone, plug HDMI cable into dongle, plug power (if applicable) into dongle, and play. Dongles start from $20 up.
- plug dongle into phone, plug HDMI cable into dongle, plug power (if applicable) into dongle, and play
In no fucking way is that MicroUSB.
It's MicroUSB+Dongle+HDMI cable+Power Cable.
Where Lightning will do it all in just one cable. No dongles needed.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
You run a wire up, split it, then join the two 1s. Another wire goes up, splits, and joins the 2s. Etc.
Hi. I see you have never done any mechanical connector design so I'll explain how it works for you. The connectors need to be mountable on a PCB by flow/wave soldering. No wires, so that plan is out I'm afraid. I suppose you could add some to the connector itself, but that costs money. Ideally you want the connector to be made entirely out of stamped metal parts, like the Micro USB connector is.
"Twice as many failure points" -- LOLOL. We're creating REDUNDANCY here.
Redundancy as in "one side now shorts so, so both sides are broken". Pins bent out of shape and shorting is the most common failure mode of small pitch connectors like this. Again, this is well understood by people who design mechanical connectors.
You can buy a variety of more complicated cables from monoprice for $3 each
Micro USB connectors (PCB mount, the part that takes the strain) cost about 40c (Euro) for quality ones. Of course we have no idea how much lightning connectors cost, but I guarantee it's more. Might not sound like a lot but if a phone sells for 40 Euro retail then wholesale price will be about 20 Euro and BOM cost will be about 10 Euro, so that connector is maybe 4% of the total cost.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC