iPhone 5

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: rg200amp
The old connector was used for almost TEN years. How evil of Apple for innovating and bettering their technology!!


If you tear down the phone, and look at the PCB, you'll know that space is VERY VERY EXPENSIVE. It is more important to use the space for something useful (i.e. components) than to make the connector compatible with the older format used in the last 10 years.

If you know Steve Job, you'll know that he always take the path to "improvement" instead of the path of "backward compatibility".

 

[oldmaninsc]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
[ if not, wjhy waste the bandwidth? Just to release latent anger against an inanimate consumer product?

That's been my question about you for a long time. Should I go count how many times you have said you don't pay "to watch commercials" or what a waste of money texting is? I have often wondered why you find it necessary to repeat yourself. We all know how you feel.

For the record I have no hate for any "inanimate consumer product." I don't care how other people spend their money.

The more you post - the more I seen how there are different standards here. Pretty sad really. No wonder so many people have left this forum.

 

[JHZR2]

It's quite obvious that you're trolling now. Am I not allowed to have a say? I am, and someone who doesn't like an iPhone is too. Again, basis please.

I give mine. There was none in the post I commented on. That is the difference. If you can't see it, I can't help it.

If you have such a problem with me, just ignore my posts. Apparently having a dislike for texting and cable tv offends you so much that you bring it into this thread. Few on here are immature enough to have "spillover" from one thread to another to create a personal attack. People are allowed to state their dislike for any product many times on various threads that discuss them. Look at Bill or Nick talking about apple laptops and phones for example. Multiple times on multiple threads. I may refute their comments, as others do, but my response isn't the same. Why? Because they actually have basis behind what they say and add something.

Big difference. Not sure why you insist on picking this fight... But you do over and over.

 

[oldmaninsc]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2


Big difference. Not sure why you insist on picking this fight... But you do over and over.

No actually you are the one that is picking this fight. I just pointed out I find it funny when people don't practice what they preach - that is you rebuffing someone for something they didn't like or in this case choose not to buy. But hey - who am I to speak against the great moderator, JHZR2?!!!

So like so many others before me - I'm out of this forum. ENJOY!

 

[oldmaninsc]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2


If you have such a problem with me, just ignore my posts. Apparently having a dislike for texting and cable tv offends you so much that you bring it into this thread.


BTW the point you can't seem to understand is - I don't care what you think about texting or watching tv. What I was talking about is how many times you REPEAT that and how you have no tolerance for any one that doesn't agree with you. I'm not offended at all by your likes/dislikes. Why would I care? Again it's about practicing what you preach.

 

[chiks]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: Greggy_D
Originally Posted By: rg200amp


The old connector was used for almost TEN years. How evil of Apple for innovating and bettering their technology!!




They should have included a single connector adapter for free with the iPhone 5 so you could use all your old gear. It probably cost them 5 cents to make, but to charge 30 bucks is absolutely ludicrous.


I definitely agree with this. I'm not one to have a huge problems with things Apple generally does, but I've never really understood why they have ever used a proprietary connector, when at the end of the day it just connects into a USB port. Even on my car it is just a USB port and it transfers all the information about music and control. I can understand wanting something slimmer and smaller, but I have to ask why that micro USB wouldn't work. The conductivity on the other end after all is the same. I'm not really that concerned about it though, because I'll bet the phone comes with a real USB cable, and adapters will surely be available on amazon for $2 very soon... Not that it matters much since I'm still sporting my 4s.


The point is increase revenue. Every accessory manufacturer that provides a port for this connector has to pay a license fee for each unit it makes/sells.

Bean counters at work.

 

[JHZR2]

So you're saying that there is zero technical basis for the connector, purely economic? Maybe that is the case, I don't know.

But I look at it another way - why did they start with a 30-pin cable? It is exceedingly expensive to make, I'd guess (the bean counter thing), so what added capability was going to come from all those pins? Now they condense it down. What capability is retained? There may well be some. I think stereo channels come from the connector, for example, fwiw, can that be done with USB? It may be needed for integration to certain things, I have no idea.

But we may well be speculating both ways here incorrectly. I think I would rather just have micro USB, but someone may come back and explain why that wouldn't be good.

 

[chiks]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
So you're saying that there is zero technical basis for the connector, purely economic? Maybe that is the case, I don't know.

But I look at it another way - why did they start with a 30-pin cable? It is exceedingly expensive to make, I'd guess (the bean counter thing), so what added capability was going to come from all those pins? Now they condense it down. What capability is retained? There may well be some. I think stereo channels come from tr connector, for example, fwiw, can that be done with USB? It may be needed for integration to certain things, I have no idea.

But we may well be speculating both ways here incorrectly. I think I would rather just have micro USB, but someone may come back and explain why that wouldn't be good.


That is exactly what I am saying. The proprietary design is not because usb or micro usb cannot do. It is to rake in licensing fees. Think about it. The other end is still a regular USB.

 

[JHZR2]

So 5 pin (or whatever the number is) micro usb does EXACTLY what 19 or 30 pin can do, form, fit and function? There is no functionality that is gained from going to micro USB to 19 or 30 pin? I dont know... Ive not seen a pinout to be able to make that determination. Apparently you have.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
So 5 pin (or whatever the number is) micro usb does EXACTLY what 19 or 30 pin can do, form, fit and function? There is no functionality that is gained from going to micro USB to 19 or 30 pin? I dont know... Ive not seen a pinout to be able to make that determination. Apparently you have.



The 19 / 30 pins has more than just USB.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dock_connector#Apple

The lightning connector is not a USB, but a dynamically assigned port that consolidate these wires. It is more expensive, because they have a chip inside the cable.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/2..._reversible_use

Like I said before, it is not about economics, the phone is only so big and you need all the space inside you can get to put components in it. If you have pins and wires that you only use once in a while (i.e. audio, video, etc), why not dynamically assign it so you can save the space for more important stuff? like battery size, RF filters, etc or make the phone smaller?

 

[JHZR2]

But he just said it was purely beancounter-based... And USB can do everything. Who are you to know otherwise?

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
But he just said it was purely beancounter-based... And USB can do everything. Who are you to know otherwise?

Well, Samsung has managed to have HDMI come out the micro USB port on the SGS3 as well as a host of other features. So in one sense you are correct, that they COULD have just used Micro USB and a smart port like PandaBear described to assign different roles to the port depending on what is plugged in, while retaining a standards based, non proprietary connector.

However, since this is Apple, they don't do things "standards" based, they do things the Apple way, so of course they have to come up with a new port format because Micro USB is far too mainstream for an Apple product

 

[JHZR2]

Interesting stuff. So HDMI is the full deal, graphics and sound, right? But it is encrypted, so it needs something to decrypt it right? And isnt there a royalty to use HDMI? Could those signals, just straight out from a bigger connector allow for more free, simple and varied implementation then needing to convert to HDMI and do funny things?

It would be really interesting if there was a side to side pinout of all the different connector variations to see just how much similarity there is.

My gut says micro USB would be best (did people complain when phones switched from the trapezoid mini usb to micro usb the same way? After all, I need a $2 converter of of amazon for that too), but it would be interesting to see what can and cant be done from each connector as they are now.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Interesting stuff. So HDMI is the full deal, graphics and sound, right? But it is encrypted, so it needs something to decrypt it right? And isnt there a royalty to use HDMI? Could those signals, just straight out from a bigger connector allow for more free, simple and varied implementation then needing to convert to HDMI and do funny things?

It would be really interesting if there was a side to side pinout of all the different connector variations to see just how much similarity there is.

My gut says micro USB would be best (did people complain when phones switched from the trapezoid mini usb to micro usb the same way? After all, I need a $2 converter of of amazon for that too), but it would be interesting to see what can and cant be done from each connector as they are now.


I think the pin-out on the port is irrelevant, because the chip that runs the port senses what is plugged into it and puts forth the proper output for that type of port. That's why it is a "smart" port

 

[Quattro Pete]

It's about license/royalty fees. If your device has an HDMI port, the maker of this device will pay a royalty fee for it. It's probably the same with USB. Apple did not invent either of these. So to avoid having to paying anyone anything, they invented their own proprietary connector, and now if anything, it'll be other companies that will have to pay royalty fees to Apple.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Interesting stuff. So HDMI is the full deal, graphics and sound, right? But it is encrypted, so it needs something to decrypt it right? And isnt there a royalty to use HDMI? Could those signals, just straight out from a bigger connector allow for more free, simple and varied implementation then needing to convert to HDMI and do funny things?

It would be really interesting if there was a side to side pinout of all the different connector variations to see just how much similarity there is.

My gut says micro USB would be best (did people complain when phones switched from the trapezoid mini usb to micro usb the same way? After all, I need a $2 converter of of amazon for that too), but it would be interesting to see what can and cant be done from each connector as they are now.


I think the pin-out on the port is irrelevant, because the chip that runs the port senses what is plugged into it and puts forth the proper output for that type of port. That's why it is a "smart" port

But panda bear talked about the cost of chip space before. Maybe a smart chip doing more isn't the best use of space, so pulling signals from elsewhere actually let's stuff be more compact? I'd imagine it's cheaper and more compact to add some PCV traces than another chip.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Interesting stuff. So HDMI is the full deal, graphics and sound, right? But it is encrypted, so it needs something to decrypt it right? And isnt there a royalty to use HDMI? Could those signals, just straight out from a bigger connector allow for more free, simple and varied implementation then needing to convert to HDMI and do funny things?

It would be really interesting if there was a side to side pinout of all the different connector variations to see just how much similarity there is.

My gut says micro USB would be best (did people complain when phones switched from the trapezoid mini usb to micro usb the same way? After all, I need a $2 converter of of amazon for that too), but it would be interesting to see what can and cant be done from each connector as they are now.


I think the pin-out on the port is irrelevant, because the chip that runs the port senses what is plugged into it and puts forth the proper output for that type of port. That's why it is a "smart" port

But panda bear talked about the cost of chip space before. Maybe a smart chip doing more isn't the best use of space, so pulling signals from elsewhere actually let's stuff be more compact? I'd imagine it's cheaper and more compact to add some PCV traces than another chip.


But that's exactly what he's saying is going on in the iPhone 5. That it utilizes a smart port that senses what is plugged into it and puts out the appropriate signal. The SGS3 does the same thing, it just uses Micro USB instead of a proprietary connector.

 

[JHZR2]

Understood... But does one do less/more? Are there inherent limitations in one approach (say syncing/charging or hdmi only) that are overcome with a few more pins?

I agree fundamentally that micro USB is the way to go, just more curious if there is indeed something more to be gained with the additional pins on the iPhone connector. If so, perhaps there is a tad bit more to it (whether anyone will use it is another story) then just pure profit motivation.

Then again with a two dollar connector from Amazon I can use a micro USB cable to sync up my iPhone. So I'm not sure how much I really care besides the technical discussion which is interesting.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Understood... But does one do less/more? Are there inherent limitations in one approach (say syncing/charging or hdmi only) that are overcome with a few more pins?

I agree fundamentally that micro USB is the way to go, just more curious if there is indeed something more to be gained with the additional pins on the iPhone connector. If so, perhaps there is a tad bit more to it (whether anyone will use it is another story) then just pure profit motivation.

Then again with a two dollar connector from Amazon I can use a micro USB cable to sync up my iPhone. So I'm not sure how much I really care besides the technical discussion which is interesting.


Based on this article that PandaBear posted:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/2..._reversible_use

"Lightning" is actually 8 pins with connectors on both sides, so 16 contact surfaces but only 8 conductors. USB is 4x conductors.

But being digital, it doesn't really matter. Multiple roles can be assigned to a single contact so the number of pins becomes vastly less important.

 

[JHZR2]

Even for high bandwidth stuff like hd video and sound? I have to imagine there is a reason to have 8 pins vs 4? Otherwise why not make a proprietary 4-pin connector? The "typical apple customer" hipster spendthrift wouldn't know the difference anyway.