
Apple will no longer license aftermarket power adapters for iPhone 5 - esolyt
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/05/apple_adapters_for_new_9_pin_dock_to_cost_10_cables_will_be_19___report.html
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jws
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.

------
redial
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.)

~~~
blinkingled
Good for Apple. What about the users though?

~~~
delinka
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.

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zmmmmm
> 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.

~~~
revelation
_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.

~~~
joezydeco
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.

~~~
rustynails77
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.

~~~
batista
> _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...

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Steko
"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?

~~~
huxley
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 ...

~~~
Steko
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.

~~~
delinka
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.

~~~
Steko
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.

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ameyamk
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?

~~~
forensic
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.

~~~
rustynails77
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.

~~~
forensic
"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.

------
Macha
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.

~~~
GuiA
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...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/11/hands-on-with-the-iphone-micro-
usb-plug-and-third-party-chargers/)

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mkhalil
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?

~~~
dangrossman
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.

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37prime
It is still a rumor. Yet some people are riled up.

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

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mpchlets
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.

~~~
Jarshwah
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.

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samstave
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.

~~~
jsz0
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.

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

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

~~~
saurik
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).

~~~
ckrailo
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.)

~~~
saurik
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.

------
neilux
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

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

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rdl
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.

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

~~~
jgross206
I imagine you don't, but you need a license to use any Apple trademarks,
logos, or trade dress in your marketing and packaging.

~~~
delinka
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.

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astral303
The most likely explanation is that Apple doesn't want crappy third-party
accessories to tarnish the reputation of its new dock adapter.

