Breakdown of Apple lightning port
brockerhoff.net
brockerhoff.net
I have no doubt in my mind that corruption was involved. I bet you a lot of lobbying money by plug makers went to converting the standard. There aren't many major manufacturers of those plugs and they all have a huge vested interest in seeing every single plug in the country get switched over.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with using standard three prong plug that is standard in the US.
If it's not theoretically possible, then the lightning port really isn't future proof.
And I also know from other reviews that Thunderbolt cables aren't just powered with electricity, but powerized (?!) with processors at each end. My fingers suspect this is true because the ends get damn hot.
The biggest restriction on getting Thunderbolt on an iOS device is not going to be the connector or cable. It will be the controller chips necessary to support such a fast protocol. And fast enough flash chips to provide the data quickly enough.
Lightning can act as both a USB controller or peripheral. It can already provide or receive power. The active elements inside Thunderbolt won't be the limitation.
You couldn't do that with USB.
The bottom line is that they could have done this just the same with a USB port. In my opinion, all they really got out of designing their own connector was: a) something they can license, control, and collect royalties on; b) a connector that's slightly easier to use (the ability to plug the cable in either way, etc.).
I feel like people tend to have these same knee-jerk reactions to anything Apple-designed; they always feel it was designed for the purposes of collecting royalties because Apple is "evil".
I think it's a bit too early to tell if the device connector will lead to confusion over "old" and "new" lightning supported devices considering nobody has released any lightning devices yet. Your FUD is based on existing intermixed standards that have nothing to do with a connector design created by a single company.
I think your other points are disputed below.
This has been shown to be false over and over.
> The pins on the plug are deactivated until after the plug is fully inserted, when a wake-up signal on one of the pins cues the chip inside the plug. This avoids any shorting hazard while the plug isn’t inside the connector.
I'm guessing that there's a different mechanism for power plugs, since they have to work even if the device is dead. Yes, there's always a market for poorly made third-party devices, but poorly-made devices have always had the potential to be dangerous -- scroll back to the top, and you'll see a dangerous, poorly-made adapter that manages to be dangerous even though the power is always transmitted from female jack to male plug.
Third party garbage is inevitable, and too often very difficult to tell apart from authentic merchandise. In electrical current even in low amp situations idiot-proof should be the critical part of the design.
http://www.arcfn.com/2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and-...
And a picture of what it should look like:
http://www.arcfn.com/2012/05/apple-iphone-charger-teardown-q...
Notice that on the shoddy power supply, the isolation between mains voltages and the other side is about 1mm. Manufacturing tolerances and component faults could easily bridge that gap and electrify the entire low-voltage side with lethal 240V mains -- shield and all.
Idiot-proofing low-voltage plug design doesn't help, because you've already lost if you let idiots design anything that plugs into the wall. Okay, shorting the plug might blow out your knockoff power supply and possibly start a fire, if the current limiting circuitry fails (which it shouldn't). But that knockoff was going to electrocute you anyway, at least if it lights on fire you still have the chance to run.
Update: Ok, sorry, looks like sarcasm is not clear, so here.
So the only advantages for lightning are that it's reversible, and it makes Apple scads of money.
I'll be interested to see if there are any advantages to Lightning once it is dissected or if it is just a lock-in play.
And the fact you brought up the money argument just shows you have no idea what it is going on.
It seems to me that having done something twice in the past is a better proof of being able to do that something than speculation is.
The implication of this article is that the Lightening port can be repurposed, without changes to the device's hardware, simply by providing a new cable and software.
If the iPhone5 doesn't have internal USB3 or HDMI or DP support, it can't magically gain it through the use of a new cable and new software. It's probable the iPhone6 will support all or most of those, but that's because they changed the device's hardware...
That's not microUSB becoming compatible - It's having to add hardware inside the device which makes use of microUSB's pins. The Lightning connector seems to push that to outside of the device i.e. make the right cable/adapter and software and you can adapt to anything without requiring support from specific hardware inside the device. At least that is what he seems to saying and it'll probably take some more analysis and dissection (not to mention actual adapters) to support that assertion.
Apple has been pretty aggressive about patenting their connector designs [1]. So sarcastically I'd say this could be in use exactly 20 years from now :-)
[1] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...
http://www.arcfn.com/2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and-...
(I suspect that the chargers with integrated micro-USB cable are, for the most part, quite a bit safer due to not imitating Apple and having plenty of space. I actually took a dirt-cheap Chinese 5V supply apart a while ago because it had died - proper controller chip and all the works, good half-centimeter of isolation between high and low voltage, slot in the PCB along the part of the isolation boundary where they're closest, etc.)
Having to have different cables from pretty much everyone else, on the other hand, will.
In my house there are at least a dozen microUSB cables. There's 2-3 Apple cables. That reflects the relative ratio of devices that use each, and it means charging or connecting anything that requires microUSB is trivial - there's always a cable at hand. There's half a dozen microUSB cables within a one metre radius of where I'm sitting at my desk right now.
Won't matter if you're at home and have a nice collection of Apple specific cables. But it is likely to make far more difference for people when they're out travelling for example.
Having a "future proof" connector? Not going to matter for anything but a tiny sliver of early adopters who might otherwise need adapters now and again (e.g. MHL adapters for micoUSB now, that are quickly becoming obsolete as TV's etc. start getting MHL support built in)
USB 2 has a maximum current of 1.5A while communicating and 5.0A when not. Micro-USB has a maximum current (per spec) of 1.0-1.8A, and the usual rating for most connectors is 1.0A. The result? By switching to Micro-USB, your iDevice will now take significantly longer to charge. (However, keep in mind the iPhone charge adapter is 1.0A, whereas the iPad adapters are 2.1A).
So in exchange for a standardized connector, we would have devices that take twice as long to charge. Honestly, that's not a tradeoff 99% people would want to make.
The same can and will happen with the microUSB spec.
"Also, the pins are so small that no current plug/connector manufacturer allows the 2A needed for iPad charging"
So, right now, all usb cables will suck when charing, nice.
Also, lighting is way easier to plug and eject, microusb is just horrible
When was the last time you looked at your headphone jack when you plug it in? It's probably second nature and you always get it right on the first try. Most microusb plugs have different "sheaths" so you can't remember the "feel" of the plug and insert it without looking at it.
The regular usb plugs are the worst offenders, they look identical on top & bottom. The only way to tell if it's the right orientation or not is to attempt to plug it in. If it doesn't go in, you flip the plug over and try again. It's a minor hassle, but it's something that could have been designed better.
If you go by the spec all USB plugs should have the USB 'trident' logo on the top side of the plug. The overwhelming majority do - not that this will help you, because whilst it sorts out the problem of the plug orientation the socket still remains an unknown.
And some manufacturers, like WD put their stupid logo on top.
Even better is how Logitech did it, with a huge bumb on the top. I'm seriously tempted to order a bunch of these[1] and throw out all of my other microUSB cables.
[1]: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Logitech-Micro-USB-Cable-/2...
My basic argument is that cable connector design hasn't changed in 30 years. Back when people used 9-pin serial cables, they still dealt with this problem the same way. There's room for innovation here, but nobody is taking a bite.
- The top has the USB symbol that is embossed enough to feel it without looking.
- The top of the metal sheath has "hooks" or other indendations that are both plainly visible and can be felt with a finger tip.
- The top of the metal sheet has sharper corners, while the rounded bottom corner are easy to both feel and see.
This is across probably half a dozen different brands of microUSB cables - I have sets of cables permanently in charges in 4 rooms at home, at work and a few cables in my bag.
I despise micro USB and feel sorry for my brethren in the EU. It's great there's a universal charging standard, but it sucks that they chose the crappy micro USB format.
They're all different for me, so YMMV. I still stand by my argument that bi-directional insertion cables are still easier to use than usb. I don't have to "feel" any part of the cable when I plug in my audio jack.
Anyone you talk to will have attempted to plug in a microusb the wrong way at least once, and had to flip the cable to retry. I've yet to talk to anyone who plugged in their audio cable improperly -- there's just no way to improperly do it! That's the difference between good design and bad design. These are basic elements of design that reduces the user's need to think when using the device. For example, a door with a pushbar means that one should push the door to open -- a user would not examine the door frame to decide if they should pull on the pushbar or not; it's obvious!
I'm inclined to think the latter, as if I put my display on top brightness and play any games that uses my phones GPU, I get warnings that my charger delivers less current than needed to charge if I "only" use my 1A rated chargers.
This will be an interesting change if the standard catches on. I wonder about the failure mode of 60 watts through micro-USB though - I expect dramatic smoke and flame :-)
http://www.usb.org/press/USB_Power_Delivery_Spec_Completion_...
It's not "hollow" like USB cables, where the "male" plug is actually a "female" plug in the sense that there is a negative space in the usb connector that is filled when it's plugged in. With the Lightning port, it's just a male nub with the pins on both sides. Meaning you don't have to worry about orienting it correctly.