Apple will no longer license aftermarket power adapters for iPhone 5 | Hacker News Reader

Apple will no longer license aftermarket power adapters for iPhone 5

appleinsider.com

52 pointsesolyt54 comments

The current title, Apple will no longer license aftermarket power adapters for iPhone 5, is not supported by the article. The word "power" doesn't even appear in the article.

The article does say: Apple is said to have stopped approving third-party proposals for connector-equipped accessories in recent months. That is the existing 30 pin connector. An unnamed person claims they are stopping developers from designing new gear for the legacy connector.

The new 9 pin connector is a secret. That means Apple won't share the specifications until after launch.

They are plugging the gap in the interim with a $10 adapter for your boom-box-with-a-dock or whatever, and extra USB cables which let you use anyone on the planet's charger, computer, or automobile are $19, which is about as cheap as Apple can be bothered to sell a cable. Like your existing cables better? Great, stick an adapter on the end. (I'll need the three pack to cover my existing cables but retain iPad charging capability. $30. Sucks until I replace the iPad2.)

The physical fit between dock, adapter, and iPhone will be highly variable, but it was going to be a bit different anyway from the phone's form factor change.

In short: Set down the pitchforks someplace handy and get back to work. See what the third party folk say on September 19th then tweet back to the mob.

According to iLounge, Apple expects to sell $US 100 million by the end of this year. That is no small amount but it's certainly not a large one for them. This makes me think that this move is about embracing the new dock connector, fast. They are gonna force the accessory makers to build the new 9 pin connector into their products instead of building the old 30 pin connector and bundling the adapter. Given that there are more than 500 million iPod compatible devices, I say the accessory makers need a little incentive.

I think if they could stop licensing the old adapter for any new product they'll do it without of doubt. It's about establishing a new dock standard not about screwing third parties (which they are doing anyway, but as a side effect.)

Good for Apple. What about the users though?

What about them? I'm impressed that Apple's actually pricing the 9-pin stuff down around the prices others have charged for 30-pin stuff.

The users get a smaller phone. They're not shrinking the dock connector for fun.

> Apple is said to have stopped approving third-party proposals for connector-equipped accessories in recent months

Isn't it possible they've just stopped approving new ones as part of their big secrecy around the next iPhone? The accessory market seems to be one of the big sources of iPhone rumours (whether correct or not). If they are changing the device specs they probably don't want new accessories appearing for the old iPhone, and they will want even less to give away any information that would lead to the accessories being compatible with the new iPhone.

that would lead to the accessories being compatible with the new iPhone.

Yes, god beware: people could buy accessories at a competetive price and time.

Wow, you haven't shopped for iPhone accessories recently, have you? Aside from cheap cases at the dollar store or Monoprice, everyone is charging the same price for accessories and cables. Walk into any Target or WalMart and marvel at the "competitive" $29 items compared to Apple's $35.

It depends. Will accessory prices come down with the iPhone5? If so, it's an unfair comparison to compare current prices. Also, I can typically buy an iPhone data cable off eBay delivered for about $1 to $2 ... i've never had an issue with a cheap accessory from eBay (and i've bought quite a few). Apple will not want to compete with that sort of price - because it doesn't make sense for any OEM to sell cables at that price. This "lock in" by Apple will almost certainly drive prices up, with little improvement to quality.

>It depends. Will accessory prices come down with the iPhone5? If so, it's an unfair comparison to compare current prices.

What kind of logic is this? They didn't go down with the previous 4 models, why even assume they will go down with the 5?

>Also, I can typically buy an iPhone data cable off eBay delivered for about $1 to $2

And you'll continue to be able to buy those. Those are cheap knock-offs, and don't have anything to do with any Apple licensing...

^ This seems like it makes a lot more sense to me. Considering the same thing happened when the iPhone 4 released - Apple didn't sell any 3rd party cases at the time. They only carried their bumper exclusively for a short period.

This type of connection is about to be used in a myriad of devices. 3rd party cables will be licensed. This article is blogspam with a sensationalist HN headline that isn't even from the original article.

"generating revenues of $100 million for every 10 million Dock Connector Adapters it sells for $10"

What is this, I don't even... do they pay by the word at AppleInsider?

I'm surprised that the author didn't realize that Apple could generate revenues of $1 billion for every 100 million Dock Connector Adapters it sells for $10 ...

The ironic thing is the math is probably off. I'd guess at least half of the adapters will sell at wal-mart, target, amazon, etc. and I'd guess the wholesale cost is around six fifty. Exercise left to the reader.

If it's Apple-branded, the wholesale cost isn't that low. I'd expect more like $8.50. I tried the Apple reseller thing a number of years ago and you could buy systems cheaper as a student than as a reseller. You'll notice that the Walmart price on Apple items is barely under what you pay Apple directly. Apple likes to keep retailer margins very tight.

I could totally be wrong but my understanding was that the markup on most Apple products was ~15% (as you say) but the markup on Apple's accessories (headphones, itunes cards) was nearly double that.

Even in that case though, you're right that six fifty would be low-ish.

I wonder why companies like apple keep so much goodwill at stake with "get every penny from customer" moves. I can understand why BestBuy would do it (They are already dying with high cost low margin items), but apple?

Why wouldn't they do it? They get away with it every time.

Other companies are just as bad or worse, so consumers have no choice. Apple gets good will because at least the product is good, even though you spend twice as much. Nothing is worse than buying something and being disappointed.

People would rather pay twice the price than suffer buyer's remorse. Love it or hate it, the apple products are still the best.

Apple charger - about $26 for an original... About $3 for a knock-off (I just checked eBay). I have never had an unreliable bootleg charger yet.

This is a little more than "double" (it's acutally 8x the price) and I can assure you, there's no noticeable quality difference, other than the shininess of the plastic.

Please do not justify Apple's behaviour because others do it. Would you justify Pinochet because of Stalin? Unless there's a tangible benefit to society, you may want to reconsider your views.

Apparently there is a difference in quality: http://www.arcfn.com/2012/05/apple-iphone-charger-teardown-q...

"Justify"? WTF?

On what moral basis are you condemning Apple? Is this Aristotelian ethics? Medieval European ethics? Kantian deontology?

I'm a modern consequentialist. I don't give a shit about "justification". Apple gets away with it because the power dynamics work out in such a way that they get away with it.

If you want my moral argument, I argue that we should guillotine the super-rich, redistribute their wealth, tap the knowledge and expertise of the social sciences to rehabilitate the Earth, and create a technocratic Star Trek utopia. In that world, Apple will not even care to overcharge for their adapters because capitalism will be at the service of humanity's quality of life rather than vice versa.

You get a beautifully designed power adapter, probably removing and reattaching it comes with a very satisfying slurping sound. Those things don't come for free.

Removing the USB cable from my Android phone makes my ears bleed with it's creaking.

Given how dreadful Apple's own cables were (or at least they were in my experience back when I had an iPod Touch 2G), this is likely to be expensive for many iOS device owners.

Weren't they meant to be allowing microUSB chargers in the EU though? Even if they do it with an adapter that plugs into their own connector, that provides a way to avoid their costly cables.

I reeeeally hope this is true - fucking Apple squeezing the blood from this rock of a market...

Yup, it's a requirement that mobile phones sold in the EU be chargeable through Micro USB. Apple released a dock-to-microUSB adapter there.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/11/hands-on-with-the-iphon...

Agreed those cables are a joke I brought a non apple one and it is protected from exactly that kind of damages that always kills apples official cables.

Now I love my iDevices, but this is just wrong. How is this legal? It's okay, there's always China!

I don't know why, but when I hear stores like such I wonder how in the hell is it fair for Microsoft to get sued for about $1bn by the "EU" for including Windows Media player and IE in XP (in Europe), but Apple not to be for including iTunes and Safari. And now, pretty much monopolizing the iDevice sync business.

Anybody have an information/insight?

You can't be sued for abusing monopoly power without first having a monopoly in the relevant market, keeping in mind that 'monopoly' and 'relevant market' have specific legal definitions.

At the time of those sanctions, Microsoft was deemed to have a monopoly in the "Intel-compatible PC operating system market". AFAIK, there is no market in which Apple is considered to have monopoly power.

It is still a rumor. Yet some people are riled up.

Take your pitchforks and torches when it's confirmed, but not now.

I wonder when apple will start offering their own Internet and not allow Apple users to connect to the Internet that we all know and love. They are creating non-standards to squeeze more dimes out of its very loyal users.

And remember the myriad of cables that came with each new model of each brand of phone? A different cable, 10 years later. Yet when companies blindly continue with compatibility at the expense of all else, you get a different bandwagon of people complaining about THAT!

"How dare apple charge for a new cable". Meh, whatever - it's $10.

America Online began as “AppleLink Personal Edition” before the company struck out on its own, Apple tried a service called “eWorld,” and the replacement for MobileMe, iCloud, scaled back the scope of online services. I think Apple has learned by now that even they don’t have the resources to compete with the Internet at large.

This is utter BS.

Only because Apple will wind up extorting money from users on these damn things.

As it stands I have MANY power adapters for my apple products. I also have many adapters for my laptops: I keep multiple chargers in my backpack, a charger in basically every room of the house and I buy the 3rd party iphone cords from deal extreme that are 7 feet long because the length of an ipad cord is retarded.

The fact that apple things that the crappy headset should cost 29 bucks, and the charging cords should be 20 is INFURIATING!

Seriously, these things, we all know, cost .50c to make.

If there is one thing I absolutely despise about apple, it is moves like this.

In most cases the price is determined by what the market is willing to pay. Think of a consumer that goes out of their way to buy $29 Apple headphones. Clearly they have decided this specific model/part is valuable to them for whatever reason. I'd say in general it's not any different than other companies that have a trusted brand and good retail distribution. For example I had to order a replacement charger for an HP laptop a couple years ago and it was about $90. I bought it just because I've had bad luck with generics in the past and I was willing to pay more for the original.

I wonder what proportion of HN readers and population in general supports "labor theory of value".

High margin, incompatible products are really good business. Apple knows it, and that's why they've been developing incompatible plugs, computers, printers, and software since its existence. They thrive on being incompatible with the rest of the computer and technology industry -- this philosophy was hardwired into Apple's DNA by Steve Jobs right from the beginning.

I know, but this does not make it ok.

Because licensing them means they miss out on their $39.95 per cable.

An alternative explanation (as they could raise their licensing fees instead, and the costs of managing licensing fees is much lower than constructing and distributing cables; when you look at their profit report these cables are just not a major part of their business) is that they found that third party cables often had minor aberrations that damaged the contacts on the device, leading to increased warranty repair and replacement costs under programs like AppleCare (which is much more likely to be a major cost, given how almost all of their money at this point comes from selling mobile hardware: if even 1% of users end up getting a new iPhone for free because of some shoddy cable, the result would be tremendous and should easily swamp any money they might make selling cables).

I'm not sure I buy this argument. USB cables are everywhere (and ports are everywhere)... like the macbook. Then again, it'd be more costly to remove USB ports from a macbook since nobody would buy such a laptop in the current market. But if that were the real reason for this, wouldn't it be better to switch to a small USB form factor like most phone manufacturers?

Also 1% seems really high. If it were destroying phones, my random guess is .1% or .01%.

Could you explain more your thought process here? Maybe I'd get the argument more. (Also, keep up the good work. Lots of respect.)

My "thought process" is mostly as stated, with the possibly exception of something I found obvious: that the complex Apple-specific connector is often built by third parties in ways that are kind of sketchy and you can feel it scraping along and not quite fitting into the port correctly with some of the cables you might purchase (the car adapter I used to use had this property, as does the multi-way charger I was using for a while).

Using a small USB form factor, btw, is totally unacceptable from their perspective, because they use the dock connector for more than syncing: they have a ton of extra pins and extra stuff they wire over the dock: it isn't just a USB->USB adapter for purposes of syncing and charging it, it is an accessory port with included UART. HTC probably had the most workable compromise: a mini-USB with a broken-out corner and some extra contacts.

Or Apple could just be cautious about the new connector.

This is their first new dock connector since 2005. They may want to see it (or third-party accessories for it) in the field before approving third-party adapters. There may be electrical details that are tricky to get right. And so on.

Normally I'm quite willing to believe the worst of Apple, but here there are too many reasonable explanations for limiting third-party adapters and cables for the moment. If the limitations end up not being temporary, that would be another story, but until then...

That's why the new iPhone cables will be $10 each or three for $29:

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/09/05/apple-will-be-only-suppl...

Dock adapters are $10.

"...Apple-branded new USB cables selling for $19 each."

What the hell is the point of selling three for $29? "Oooh, one dollar of savings!"?

Keep in mind that this article has one unnamed source. Don't ready your pitchfork just yet.

EDIT: Actually, they don't even have that. It's a report on a report that had an unnamed source. Not exactly a shining example of journalism.

The Auto Industry lost a lot of money trying to stop aftermarket products from being sold in the USA. Good luck Apple, it's going to cost you millions to stop the aftermarket business from producing equal and less expensive alternatives. Kevin, Cellphoneguruman

In some cases the 3d party stuff might be better than what Apple sells. Apple is a lost cause.

I am worried about how well the adapter will work in cars, where the dock connector provides mechanical support as well as connectivity (I have the 2point5 specdock in my audi). I'm not sure if extra height from the adapter is going to work well.

Why do you need a license from Apple to make a cable?

I imagine you don't, but you need a license to use any Apple trademarks, logos, or trade dress in your marketing and packaging.

Actually, they own patents on the pin-out for the 30-pin connector. They probably own patents on the 9-pin as well. Doesn't really matter if the patents are enforceable, the threat of a lawsuit versus the cost of the license keeps manufacturers from being too ballsy - do you risk your entire margin (or more) fighting Apple over pin-out licenses?

Also, if your accessory is not "approved," then it stands a chance at voiding your customers' warranties. That'd be bad for your business.

The most likely explanation is that Apple doesn't want crappy third-party accessories to tarnish the reputation of its new dock adapter.

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