Those exposed connectors could prove a major problem. If it falls on anything metallic, something could short, including the 5 volt USB power.
Like the exposed antenna in the iPhone 4, this supports my sense that the artists have a bit too much sway around Apple and the engineers too little. The result are products that are more pretty than practical.
The same can be said of Apple products that favor thinness over a decent battery life. I've not upgraded to a MacBook Air, in part, because the battery life in the 11" model is way too short--barely better than what I get with the original battery in my six-year-old MacBook.
All that thinness makes no sense, since users will be carrying their MBA about in a padded case that's at least two inches think. Another half-inch thickness could probably give users twice the battery life.
Pity the parent whose one-year-old sticks that live connector is his mouth. A 1.5 volt battery creates an unpleasant metallic taste. I'm not sure what 5 volts does.
Or they could just, you know, use Micro USB, like every other small portable device on Earth.
Wouldn't save consumers money, or add convenience, or anything like that. Nah. Let's make a new proprietary connection and FORCE CONSUMERS TO BUY THE CABLES AND ADAPTERS FROM US.
Pity the parent whose one-year-old sticks that live connector is his mouth. A 1.5 volt battery creates an unpleasant metallic taste. I'm not sure what 5 volts does.
I'm sorry, do you people REALLY think that this will be able to happen? Even I, whose reservations about the potential future of New Apple are well known, and who allegedly will forgo Apple at the "drop of a hat" don't think that anyone could be that mind-numbingly stupid as to create a product that would be capable of doing this.
But I suppose I've never stuck a USB port or Dock Connector in my mouth, so I can't say I have experience in this regard. Have licked a 9-volt, though. It caused my taste buds to misfire and I tasted strawberries. It was actually pretty neat.
Originally Posted by Shidell
Or they could just, you know, use Micro USB, like every other small portable device on Earth.
Wouldn't save consumers money, or add convenience, or anything like that. Nah. Let's make a new proprietary connection and FORCE CONSUMERS TO BUY THE CABLES AND ADAPTERS FROM US.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Please stop this nonsense. If you had any conceivable legitimate reason that MicroUSB was better than Dock Connector, much less Dock Connector 2, you'd have said it already instead of the continued generic nonsense that we see in all anti-Apple postings.
Please stop this nonsense. If you had any conceivable legitimate reason that MicroUSB was better than Dock Connector, much less Dock Connector 2, you'd have said it already instead of the continued generic nonsense that we see in all anti-Apple postings.
Well go ahead and provide us with the reasons, because mine are so valid it should be sickening to you.
Or they could just, you know, use Micro USB, like every other small portable device on Earth.
Wouldn't save consumers money, or add convenience, or anything like that. Nah. Let's make a new proprietary connection and FORCE CONSUMERS TO BUY THE CABLES AND ADAPTERS FROM US.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Or this never would have been a mandate if, you know, every other company on Earth had followed the lead Apple started 8 years ago by making the EPS and cable detachable with an USB-A port so that there is no EPS waste.
It's funny how you like to ignore Apple has not only been compliant for nearly a decade but is the only company that wasn't making the EPS proprietary.
How is Apple using a standard USB connector a bad idea? You could literally plug pretty much anything into the phone and have it work if the drivers are available using far cheaper adapters or Micro USB cables. The current connector supports Storage devices, USB Keyboards, MIDI Input and Output and Audio Devices (full speed 16-bit PCM audio at 48KHz input and output - including USB headsets that work with Skype without configuration - even professional MusicEquipment). Making it a standards compliant USB connection with all the standard USB drivers (rather than a select few) from OSX would make it a far better solution.
Not to mention it would be cheaper for third parties to use standard Micro USB ports for their peripherals as they wouldn't have to get a license from Apple to use a proprietary connector and they wouldn't have to get the connectors specially made; they'd just use off the shelf parts.
I honestly cannot think of a good reason to use a proprietary connector over the Micro USB. If the proprietary connection was smaller than USB, I'd sort of understand, but it isn't.
Wouldn't save consumers money, or add convenience, or anything like that. Nah. Let's make a new proprietary connection and FORCE CONSUMERS TO BUY THE CABLES AND ADAPTERS FROM US.
"With the new design, users will no longer have to make sure that the connector is right side up when inserting it into an iDevice."
Yeah! Finally I'll be able to conform to the laws of statistics, in that I'll have a BETTER than 50-50 chance of getting it right on the first try. With USB I'm constantly defying that law, getting it right only 1 out of 10 tries.
I've been commenting on this design flaw with USB for years. It's a bad design. If this (above) is true it will be a dream I've had for several years.
How is Apple using a standard USB connector a bad idea? You could literally plug pretty much anything into the phone and have it work if the drivers are available using far cheaper adapters or Micro USB cables. The current connector supports Storage devices, USB Keyboards, MIDI Input and Output and Audio Devices (full speed 16-bit PCM audio at 48KHz input and output - including USB headsets that work with Skype without configuration - even professional MusicEquipment). Making it a standards compliant USB connection with all the standard USB drivers (rather than a select few) from OSX would make it a far better solution.
Not to mention it would be cheaper for third parties to use standard Micro USB ports for their peripherals as they wouldn't have to get a license from Apple to use a proprietary connector and they wouldn't have to get the connectors specially made; they'd just use off the shelf parts.
I honestly cannot think of a good reason to use a proprietary connector over the Micro USB. If the proprietary connection was smaller than USB, I'd sort of understand, but it isn't.
So much crap but I'll stick with only a couple points for now. Apple has been using the USB protocol for nearly a decade. This means that if they wanted to add support for USB HDDs, keyboards, mice, prints, etc. they could. There is no magical requirement for a USB device that the connecter has to be one of the dozen types designed by the USB-IF. It's not there because it's stupid to include that support.
If you go with what only micro-USB is capable of you lose all the advantages of what the 30-pin dock connector offers. How would I hook up the component cable to play video to a hotel TV? I've found that quite useful on several occasions. Have you looked at what the Dock Connector has offered users over the years? Do you understand why there is a market for devices that connect to iOS-based devices but not Android-based devices?
I'm sorry, do you people REALLY think that this will be able to happen? Even I, whose reservations about the potential future of New Apple are well known, and who allegedly will forgo Apple at the "drop of a hat" don't think that anyone could be that mind-numbingly stupid as to create a product that would be capable of doing this.
I haven't stuck a mag-safe connector into my mouth, but doesn't that have some kind of smart-switch to activate the flow of electrons? I mean, if there's any connector out there that's inherently dangerous, I would guess its that one. So I would assume, this new alleged connector would have a similar feature. It has to sense a connection before it lets anything potentially dangerous flow ...
Very tight tolerances with solid aluminium connector and frame. It's not going to be cheap plastic.
I'm actually stoked to see this new connector -- yeah, it'll cost a little to buy new cables/adapters, but it looks like a nicer experience for the next ten years -- kind of wish it would be a mag safe, but I guess the physical connection has saved my phone from dropping a couple of times.
I too wish it was MaGSafe. Desperately. It's not, though - makes me sad.
Hoping that it's also MagSafe, but that seems unlikely. The small indentations on the edges of the metal 'tab' look like detents for a mechanical attachment mechanism.
Those exposed connectors could prove a major problem. If it falls on anything metallic, something could short, including the 5 volt USB power.
Like the exposed antenna in the iPhone 4, this supports my sense that the artists have a bit too much sway around Apple and the engineers too little. The result are products that are more pretty than practical.
The same can be said of Apple products that favor thinness over a decent battery life. I've not upgraded to a MacBook Air, in part, because the battery life in the 11" model is way too short--barely better than what I get with the original battery in my six-year-old MacBook.
All that thinness makes no sense, since users will be carrying their MBA about in a padded case that's at least two inches think. Another half-inch thickness could probably give users twice the battery life.
Pity the parent whose one-year-old sticks that live connector is his mouth. A 1.5 volt battery creates an unpleasant metallic taste. I'm not sure what 5 volts does.
5v tingles a bit - 9 v tingles better - its often how i check a 9V pp3 i just found in the draw - before i discard it
Terrible idea. Can't meaningfully charge that way.
Even worse idea, which is a feat.
No. Apple does not have to supply USB ports directly on their devices. They must provide some sort of adapter for it.
And for the record, when the EU creates three products that revolutionize the three separate industries in which they reside directly and hundreds of other industries by their very presence indirectly, then they can tell me or anyone else what ports we put on our devices, thank you very much. Why a government thinks it has the right, much less the proper knowledge to tell us what port we should put on our devices is beyond me.
I don't want anything further in this regard to turn into POLITICS, politics, so if we could keep it on connectors, that'd be super.
You don't appear to understand politics or government very much so I would indeed not suggest to take this further.
However, at no point did the EU tell anyone which ports to use on devices. The EU has asked the mobile industry to come up with a solution to the different charging mechanisms because it is not in the interest of the consumer or the environment that every single brand needed a new charger. The EU asked the mobile industry to come up with a solution, the mobile industry got together and decided to harmonise on micro-usb.
That is how things work in the market. Something can be in the interest of all players in the market while it is not in the individual interest of those same players to be the first. At that point a sensible government can provide a platform or incentive to overcome that barrier. That is also why governments can sometimes play a role in creating a level playing field in a market, either to create a market that didn't exist, or increase competition in an existing market.
Which is exactly what happened here and I haven't heard a single of the more than a dozen signatories to this Memorandum of Understanding complain about how this was achieved. And personally I am very glad that the mountain of useless old phone chargers I have hasn't grown in the last two years thanks to this.
What people forget about USB is that it's not a universal "connector", but a universal "bus". The myriad of USB connections just boggles my mind. There should be one standard size and one micro size, that's it. Not the 6 or 7 different variations that currently exist.
Apple develops its own dock connector so that it can manage the design and keep it simple. But even that hasn't been perfect over the past 10 years. The new dock connector will hopefully address the past problems and last another 10 to 15 years.
So if USB has those tiny clips to hold a solid connection between cable and port, how is Apple's solution going to keep their connection from being too jiggly?
If you look closely you can see there are indentations on the sides of the plug which I presume interlock with some sort of spring loaded mechanism that snaps in to securely fasten it to the device.
I think it's a brilliant design and far better than micro-A USB. It shows what just a little original thinking can do, even to a cable.
By putting the metal on the outside they achieve the same thing as the fragile, ugly shielding on the current cables. By making it plain old male-female, instead of female/male-male/female like the current cables they make it far simpler and easier to use. By hollowing out the metal tang and putting the wires down the middle it achieves perfect shielding and excellent and exacting fit and finish. By making a window in each side for the contacts, it makes it reversible.
This is never going to be interoperable with USB (as the article incorrectly implies) however because the whole point of the cable is actually the circuitry inside.
Comments
Like the exposed antenna in the iPhone 4, this supports my sense that the artists have a bit too much sway around Apple and the engineers too little. The result are products that are more pretty than practical.
The same can be said of Apple products that favor thinness over a decent battery life. I've not upgraded to a MacBook Air, in part, because the battery life in the 11" model is way too short--barely better than what I get with the original battery in my six-year-old MacBook.
All that thinness makes no sense, since users will be carrying their MBA about in a padded case that's at least two inches think. Another half-inch thickness could probably give users twice the battery life.
Pity the parent whose one-year-old sticks that live connector is his mouth. A 1.5 volt battery creates an unpleasant metallic taste. I'm not sure what 5 volts does.
Or they could just, you know, use Micro USB, like every other small portable device on Earth.
Wouldn't save consumers money, or add convenience, or anything like that. Nah. Let's make a new proprietary connection and FORCE CONSUMERS TO BUY THE CABLES AND ADAPTERS FROM US.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Originally Posted by Inkling
Pity the parent whose one-year-old sticks that live connector is his mouth. A 1.5 volt battery creates an unpleasant metallic taste. I'm not sure what 5 volts does.
I'm sorry, do you people REALLY think that this will be able to happen? Even I, whose reservations about the potential future of New Apple are well known, and who allegedly will forgo Apple at the "drop of a hat" don't think that anyone could be that mind-numbingly stupid as to create a product that would be capable of doing this.
But I suppose I've never stuck a USB port or Dock Connector in my mouth, so I can't say I have experience in this regard. Have licked a 9-volt, though. It caused my taste buds to misfire and I tasted strawberries. It was actually pretty neat.
Originally Posted by Shidell
Or they could just, you know, use Micro USB, like every other small portable device on Earth.
Wouldn't save consumers money, or add convenience, or anything like that. Nah. Let's make a new proprietary connection and FORCE CONSUMERS TO BUY THE CABLES AND ADAPTERS FROM US.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Please stop this nonsense. If you had any conceivable legitimate reason that MicroUSB was better than Dock Connector, much less Dock Connector 2, you'd have said it already instead of the continued generic nonsense that we see in all anti-Apple postings.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Please stop this nonsense. If you had any conceivable legitimate reason that MicroUSB was better than Dock Connector, much less Dock Connector 2, you'd have said it already instead of the continued generic nonsense that we see in all anti-Apple postings.
Well go ahead and provide us with the reasons, because mine are so valid it should be sickening to you.
Or this never would have been a mandate if, you know, every other company on Earth had followed the lead Apple started 8 years ago by making the EPS and cable detachable with an USB-A port so that there is no EPS waste.
It's funny how you like to ignore Apple has not only been compliant for nearly a decade but is the only company that wasn't making the EPS proprietary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Even worse idea, which is a feat.
How is Apple using a standard USB connector a bad idea? You could literally plug pretty much anything into the phone and have it work if the drivers are available using far cheaper adapters or Micro USB cables. The current connector supports Storage devices, USB Keyboards, MIDI Input and Output and Audio Devices (full speed 16-bit PCM audio at 48KHz input and output - including USB headsets that work with Skype without configuration - even professional Music Equipment). Making it a standards compliant USB connection with all the standard USB drivers (rather than a select few) from OSX would make it a far better solution.
Not to mention it would be cheaper for third parties to use standard Micro USB ports for their peripherals as they wouldn't have to get a license from Apple to use a proprietary connector and they wouldn't have to get the connectors specially made; they'd just use off the shelf parts.
I honestly cannot think of a good reason to use a proprietary connector over the Micro USB. If the proprietary connection was smaller than USB, I'd sort of understand, but it isn't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shidell
Or they could just, you know, use Micro USB, like every other small portable device on Earth.
Proven wrong: http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones-accessories/APCBS10UBEBSTD
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shidell
Wouldn't save consumers money, or add convenience, or anything like that. Nah. Let's make a new proprietary connection and FORCE CONSUMERS TO BUY THE CABLES AND ADAPTERS FROM US.
Proven wrong: Consumers can buy Non-Apple cables and power adapters.
You know what's awesome? You make it so easy...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wings
"With the new design, users will no longer have to make sure that the connector is right side up when inserting it into an iDevice."
Yeah! Finally I'll be able to conform to the laws of statistics, in that I'll have a BETTER than 50-50 chance of getting it right on the first try. With USB I'm constantly defying that law, getting it right only 1 out of 10 tries.
I've been commenting on this design flaw with USB for years. It's a bad design. If this (above) is true it will be a dream I've had for several years.
So much crap but I'll stick with only a couple points for now. Apple has been using the USB protocol for nearly a decade. This means that if they wanted to add support for USB HDDs, keyboards, mice, prints, etc. they could. There is no magical requirement for a USB device that the connecter has to be one of the dozen types designed by the USB-IF. It's not there because it's stupid to include that support.
If you go with what only micro-USB is capable of you lose all the advantages of what the 30-pin dock connector offers. How would I hook up the component cable to play video to a hotel TV? I've found that quite useful on several occasions. Have you looked at what the Dock Connector has offered users over the years? Do you understand why there is a market for devices that connect to iOS-based devices but not Android-based devices?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Srice
Very tight tolerances with solid aluminium connector and frame. It's not going to be cheap plastic.
I'm actually stoked to see this new connector -- yeah, it'll cost a little to buy new cables/adapters, but it looks like a nicer experience for the next ten years -- kind of wish it would be a mag safe, but I guess the physical connection has saved my phone from dropping a couple of times.
I too wish it was MaGSafe. Desperately. It's not, though - makes me sad.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inkling
Those exposed connectors could prove a major problem. If it falls on anything metallic, something could short, including the 5 volt USB power.
Like the exposed antenna in the iPhone 4, this supports my sense that the artists have a bit too much sway around Apple and the engineers too little. The result are products that are more pretty than practical.
The same can be said of Apple products that favor thinness over a decent battery life. I've not upgraded to a MacBook Air, in part, because the battery life in the 11" model is way too short--barely better than what I get with the original battery in my six-year-old MacBook.
All that thinness makes no sense, since users will be carrying their MBA about in a padded case that's at least two inches think. Another half-inch thickness could probably give users twice the battery life.
Pity the parent whose one-year-old sticks that live connector is his mouth. A 1.5 volt battery creates an unpleasant metallic taste. I'm not sure what 5 volts does.
5v tingles a bit - 9 v tingles better - its often how i check a 9V pp3 i just found in the draw - before i discard it
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Terrible idea. Can't meaningfully charge that way.
Even worse idea, which is a feat.
No. Apple does not have to supply USB ports directly on their devices. They must provide some sort of adapter for it.
And for the record, when the EU creates three products that revolutionize the three separate industries in which they reside directly and hundreds of other industries by their very presence indirectly, then they can tell me or anyone else what ports we put on our devices, thank you very much. Why a government thinks it has the right, much less the proper knowledge to tell us what port we should put on our devices is beyond me.
I don't want anything further in this regard to turn into POLITICS, politics, so if we could keep it on connectors, that'd be super.
You don't appear to understand politics or government very much so I would indeed not suggest to take this further.
However, at no point did the EU tell anyone which ports to use on devices. The EU has asked the mobile industry to come up with a solution to the different charging mechanisms because it is not in the interest of the consumer or the environment that every single brand needed a new charger. The EU asked the mobile industry to come up with a solution, the mobile industry got together and decided to harmonise on micro-usb.
That is how things work in the market. Something can be in the interest of all players in the market while it is not in the individual interest of those same players to be the first. At that point a sensible government can provide a platform or incentive to overcome that barrier. That is also why governments can sometimes play a role in creating a level playing field in a market, either to create a market that didn't exist, or increase competition in an existing market.
Which is exactly what happened here and I haven't heard a single of the more than a dozen signatories to this Memorandum of Understanding complain about how this was achieved. And personally I am very glad that the mountain of useless old phone chargers I have hasn't grown in the last two years thanks to this.
Apple develops its own dock connector so that it can manage the design and keep it simple. But even that hasn't been perfect over the past 10 years. The new dock connector will hopefully address the past problems and last another 10 to 15 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
Proven wrong: Consumers can buy Non-Apple cables and power adapters.
You know what's awesome? You make it so easy...
Did you read http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/152341/apple-adapters-for-new-9-pin-dock-to-cost-10-cables-will-be-19-report
At least at first Apple will be the sole supplier of the new dock connector cables, of course it's a rumor, but so is the whole new dock connector
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
Proven wrong: http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones-accessories/APCBS10UBEBSTD
Proven wrong: Consumers can buy Non-Apple cables and power adapters.
You know what's awesome? You make it so easy...
I guess you missed the part where Apple's forbidding others from manufacturing this new cable type, as well as accessories to adapt to it.
Thank you for making it easy. Derp.
*cums*
Quote:
Originally Posted by silverpraxis
So if USB has those tiny clips to hold a solid connection between cable and port, how is Apple's solution going to keep their connection from being too jiggly?
If you look closely you can see there are indentations on the sides of the plug which I presume interlock with some sort of spring loaded mechanism that snaps in to securely fasten it to the device.
By putting the metal on the outside they achieve the same thing as the fragile, ugly shielding on the current cables. By making it plain old male-female, instead of female/male-male/female like the current cables they make it far simpler and easier to use. By hollowing out the metal tang and putting the wires down the middle it achieves perfect shielding and excellent and exacting fit and finish. By making a window in each side for the contacts, it makes it reversible.
This is never going to be interoperable with USB (as the article incorrectly implies) however because the whole point of the cable is actually the circuitry inside.