adapter - page 2

We figured that Apple was going to charge a stupid amount of money for the Lightning to 30-pin Adapter. We were thinking somewhere between $15-$20, but turns out Apple is going to charge 30 bucks just so your iPhone 5 can have fun with all your old accessories.

It feels like extortion, but maybe the production cost of the adapter is pretty high. Maybe Apple’s charging so much because they don’t want you to buy it so you’ll buy new accessories and cables instead so they’ll make even more money. Maybe we’re overreacting. Who knows?

When Apple switches over to a smaller 9-pin Dock Connecter for the iPhone 5 and iPad mini, all your existing cables, chargers and accessories won’t work without an adapter. According to a new report, you won’t just be able to pick up that adapter anywhere: only Apple will sell them, in packs of one or three.

Here’s what we know. We know that the next iPhone and the forthcoming iPad mini will have smaller dock connectors. We also know that these smaller dock connectors will require Apple to sell adapters so that the next iPhone and iPad can interact with the existing ecosystem of 30-pin accessories out there.

The big question is, what will these adapters look like? Over at Metablog, they’ve got some interesting thoughts.

Will the next iPhone have an 8 pin or 9 pin dock connector? The iOS 6 beta says 9, but if you count the pins on the leaked dock components, there are only 8. Which is correct? Both: according to a new report, the new dock connector’s aluminum shell teams up with the 8 gold pins to make a ninth pin, resulting in 60% less real estate than the existing 30-pin connector, and better transfer rates with a fraction of the electrical contacts.

When I go on vacation and I want to take my notebook and iOS devices with me, I have to pack a bunch of white cables into my case — all of which seem to be tangled up with each other by the time I take them out again. However, Apple is developing a universal all-in-one data & power cable that will charge both your Mac and your iOS devices, and allow you to transfer data between them.