News
Apple readying move to smaller ‘micro’ dock connector?
By Charles Starrett
Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Friday, February 24, 2012
News Category: iPod Accessories, iPad Accessories, iPhone Accessories
Apple is preparing to move its portable devices away from the traditional Dock Connector to a new “micro dock” that would make more room inside its devices for components, according to a new report. Rene Ritchie of iMore claims that Apple could potentially make the change as soon as the release of the iPad 3 or iPhone 5, but hasn’t yet heard a firm timeline. Reasons for the switch are said to be the need to open up more space on the interior of the devices for ever larger batteries, camera modules, and other components. The report also notes that with the advent of PC free setup, iCloud, AirPlay and Bluetooth 4.0, the traditional 30-pin connector plays a far less prominent role than it once did. No word was given on if Apple would offer an adapter if it were to make such a move, although it would seem likely, given the huge number of Dock Connector-dependent accessories on the market.
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1
The report seems to be going out of their way to ignore the obvious: the 30 pin connector is an anachronism that only exists in the current market to render Apple accessories incompatible with other products. The 30 pin connector came about because there was a technological advantage in the slower bus speeds of 2005 to having such an “old school” design, particularly in an era when firewire and USB were still both arguably viable in the tech world, and so the 30 pin connector was designed to weather the changing peripheral technology while firmly rendering everything made for Apple FOR Apple.
Nowadays you can do every single thing through a micro-USB connector that you can do through the proprietary dock connector. In fact, any change to anything other than an industry standard connector will again be nothing but a cost saving measure that benefits no one but Apple.
Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on February 24, 2012 at 10:05 AM (PDT)
2
@CM: “Nowadays you can do every single thing through a micro-USB connector that you can do through the proprietary dock connector.” You sure about that? The current dock connector has many pins for older devices which could be dropped, but it also has audio input, a pin that determines where audio output is routed, accessory ID, etc. Unless I misunderstood what you were implying, I can’t see the next “dock connector” being a standard micro USB.
“No word was given on if Apple would offer an adapter if it were to make such a move, although it would seem likely, given the huge number of Dock Connector-dependent accessories on the market.”
They could leave the adapter to the accessory market, too.
Posted by rockmyplimsoul on February 24, 2012 at 11:02 AM (PDT)
3
Ultimately it’s just a data port and while accessories would have to be redesigned to decode the audio portion, etc., they would have to be redesigned for any new dock as well. You can send video, audio, raw data, charge, etc. through USB, you just have to encode/decode it at either end.
Example: my cell phone uses micro USB for charging, data transfer and… audio transfer.
We don’t need another proprietary Apple dojanger designed to protect them and their lawyer’s jobs.
Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on February 24, 2012 at 1:04 PM (PDT)
4
Micro usb is all ready used with iphones with certain battery cases. I can even connect it to my car stereo thru micro usb to play music while charging my iphone and battery case at the same time.
Posted by Shameless1 on February 26, 2012 at 1:05 PM (PDT)