

There is no sane reason for the dock connector to not be micro-USB. Discuss. - pavel_lishin
http://jwz.livejournal.com/1300359.html

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msbarnett
Well Micro-USB was standardized by the USB-IF in 2007 and the dock connector
was first used in 2003, so I'm going to go with "linear time and a desire to
be backwards compatible with the enormous ecosystem of products which provide
them with a significant competitive advantage".

I mean, I can go to most hotels now and more or less count on the fact that
even if I forgot to pack a charging cable, I can stick my phone on the alarm
clock's dock connector. That's a big factor contributing to the low-friction
iDevice ownership experience.

*edited to reflect the fact that the dock connector came in with the 3rd gen iPod in 2003, not the 1st gen in 2001.

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baddox
Wait—hotels have clocks with Apple dock connectors?

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msbarnett
The last 4 or 5 I've been in certainly did. These were in and around Seattle,
Portland, and Vegas.

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jamesbkel
Also seen them pretty regularly in NY, Boston and Atlantic City. Typically
can't use them to listen to music off an iPhone, but it will still charge.

Definitely saved me a few times.

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jsz0
Maintaining compatibility with iPod integrated cars has been one of the big
reasons to stick with the dock connector. It's _very_ expensive to upgrade
cars with fancy new head units especially if you want things like steering
wheel controls to continue working. Conservatively I'd say anywhere between
$1-2k with a professional installation. Plus what's the alternative? I don't
know of any standardized control system for micro-USB based players. I think
Bluetooth will ultimately solve the integration problem.

The funny thing is over the same time period that the iPod has used one
connector devices like cell phones have gone from proprietary connectors, to
mini-USB, now to micro-USB. It hasn't exactly been a smooth ride. micro-USB
was only announced in 2007 and wasn't widely deployed until 2009. Are we going
to have nano-USB in 2 years and repeat the whole process yet again? I'm not
arguing against standardized connectors but the mini/micro debacle certainly
didn't help consumers much did it?

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houseabsolute
I always thought so too, but it was surprisingly much less than this at my
local Fry's. I didn't opt to buy, but these services ran in the $200-400 range
there, IIRC.

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zacwhite
No need for separate ports for video/audio out is a pretty compelling reason.

<http://pinouts.ru/PortableDevices/ipod_pinout.shtml>

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sprout
Why is a separate port a big deal? You could easily put a micro-USB port right
next to an HDMI port, take up roughly the same amount of space, and still have
a quasi-proprietary but just as easy to use cable that is just an HDMI cable
and a micro-USB cable in the same sleeve.

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cmelbye
Haha, you really think apple would put two ports on their devices?

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sprout
Well obviously not because they would prefer they be proprietary. But if you
put them right next to each other, you can have your magically minimal design
and still let your users get by when they're short a cord.

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buster
Don't get why you were downvoted..

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tuacker
By 2011 or 2012, can't remember the exact deadline, their mobile phones must
have Micro-USB. At least if they want to continue selling them here in Europe.
The ruling for it passed a while ago that all mobile phones must be chargeable
with the same micro-usb connector. Apple agreed to those requirements. I don't
see Apple doing Dock AND Micro-USB.

Unless they provide an adapter, don't know if this is allowed or not.

EDIT: Ah screw it, if this site[1] is to be believed Apple will only provide
an adapter.

[1] [http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/25149/next-iphone-charges-
vi...](http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/25149/next-iphone-charges-via-micro-
usb)

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bruceboughton
What's wrong with only providing an adaptor? This satisfies everyone doesn't
it?

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buster
What's the point?

This law is to make all your gadgets chargeable through one cable. Now i have
to carry adapters for all my gadgets instead of different chargers/cables?
That's just about the opposite of what that law tries to achieve!

I just hope this will be forbidden. Please! All my gadgets use different
connectors and chargers it is so annoying (and all seem to be USB but with
different layouts.. that's laughable).

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maqr
Just as a note, HTC uses something called "ExtUSB" which lets them get extra
pins (and therefore features) out of something that can still do normal USB
functions (like charging, syncing, etc).

<http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=ExtUSB>

~~~
napierzaza
_clap clap clap_

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thought_alarm
Among other things, the port was/is/will be a:

\- Firewire Port

\- USB Slave Port

\- USB Host Port

\- Audio Line Out

\- Audio Line In

\- VGA Video Out

\- Micro SD Port

\- Future Port 1

\- Future Port 2

\- etc...

I suppose I might care about the complaints if I were not already swimming in
iPod-USB cables.

On the other hand, I have a micro-USB phone and exactly one micro-USB cable
that I use for charging both at home and in my car, and for sync. One time I
misplaced my one micro-USB cable and decided to go shopping for an extra, only
to find that every store I visited had no idea what a micro-USB cable was.

And my micro-USB phone is a lot more finicky about flaky USB power sources
than any of my iDevices, so I have a very difficult time understanding the
complaints about the iPod port.

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hopeless
From a physical design perspective...

\- micro-USB doesn't provide anything to hold the connector in whilst the dock
connector uses small clips.

\- Also, anyone who has used the WD Passport drive with dock knows that the
micro-USB port isn't very suitable for holding an iPhone-sized device
vertically. There's too much play so the device can wobble or not be seated
correctly, and this can damage the usb pins. There just isn't the same
positive physical connection as with a dock connector.

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dbrannan
I can't stand Apple's iDevice ports. They are wide, difficult to plug, and
feel like they will break or snap off. They also collect lint like there is no
tomorrow.

Apple's magnetic power plugs on the other hand are awesome! I suppose magnetic
interference prevents them from becoming a digital port, but it sure would be
nice!

~~~
proee
The magnet plug will not interfere with the signals on a digital port.

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pkaler
USB used to need a bit of charge to negotiate a session with the host so you
couldn't charge a completely dead battery by connecting to a PC. I'm not sure
if that is still true. I just tried to charge a dead Canon point-and-shoot
camera over microUSB and it didn't work.

The dock does a/v out without needing another connector. For example, the HTC
EVO has an additional HDMI out port.

Apple has added additional features like the control capsule on headphones.

It'd actually be nice if the 30-pin dock connector was standardized and
everyone used it. Apple probably isn't too keen since USB beat Firewire the
last time Apple tried to standardize a connector interface.

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acgourley
MicroUSB can do AV out, it just can't do HDMI. I would imagine the apple
connector can't do HDMI either. Although I really don't know how many "free"
pins there are in the 30 pin connector that could be purposed for it.

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olefoo
There is an eminently sane reason, at least from the perspective of Apple's
wanting to keep the switching costs of it's customers high. It may also be an
aesthetic and design choice, but the primary function of the specialised dock
connector is to prevent competitors from producing drop-in replacements for
Apple devices and to raise the switching costs for committed apple customers.
If you already have a dock connector in your clock/radio and in the dashboard
of your car, you aren't going to switch to a usb based device for music or
phone or casual browsing.

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zdw
The A/V connection seems to be a valid reason, but...

Ever used a Ford with MS Sync? I rented a Focus with this on vacation last
summer, and it works quite well - a surprisingly innovative and compatibile
product for Microsoft.

It hooks up to your iPod/iPhone with the standard USB cable, and can play
audio, so it has to stream it over the USB connection somehow, or it rewires
the port, which seems unlikely to me, as you'd run out of pins (stereo audio,
power, control, ground = 5 pins minimum).

I really wonder how this is accomplished, as it can play back protected AAC
music, which must be decoded on the phone, so it isn't just using the device
as mass storage...

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jemfinch
I can't imagine it's accomplished very much differently than any radio-
transmitting iPod attachment for a car.

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daeken
A radio transmitter for iDevices will use the audio out lines on the dock
connector, whereas the USB cable purely breaks out data, as far as I'm aware,
so they must be doing something different.

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jemfinch
I must have misunderstood you, and now I'm intrigued: what connector does an
iDevice have other than the dock connector and the headphone connector?

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lzw
The dock connector, started back in the days when the iPod was firewire* and
since the iPod charged over firewire on Macs but firewire ports on PCs were
often unpowered, Apple needed to provide a way for one iPod model to be
plugged into both windows and mac machines. This was also before Apple gave up
on firewire and went USB only. Further people have enough confusion hooking
things up, so giving them a failproof solution is pretty ideal. People really
do have trouble confusing video and audio RCA jacks, for instance. This single
port has allowed Apple to transition thru dozens of product and models over
almost a decade without having any compatibility confusion or hassle, and no
special $20 adapters, etc. Compare this to the situation we've seen in the
last decade with video ports-- and they only do one thing, yet there have been
a half dozen different "Standards".

What is most interesting here is the default presumption that Apple is doing
this for proprietary "monopolistic" reasons.

*though the first ipod had an actual firewire port, a later model which was intended for windows as well had the dock connector which supported both firewire and USB and Apple shipped different cables for mac and windows iPod users.

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awakeasleep
Another thing people forget is the variety of devices Ipods plug into. Your
high-tech treadmill, for example, uses pins dedicated to video out.

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sudont
Indeed. I’d have to say this form of laziness is a benefit. Even the extra
cost in firewire controller chips helped to doom it outside of pro use.

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napierzaza
It has USB, power out, serial control, audio, video out, and remove features.
Probably some others I can't think of off the top of my head. This means it's
doing a lot more than just USB.

There are a lot of products like FM tuners and other aftermarket offerings
that are only possible via the dock connector. A USB connection would require
the dongles to be much more complicated and work a lot closer to the hardware.

PS If you made all the Audio digital over USB you'd need more complex
hardware. You want to have the cheapest headsets and output cables to get the
audio and video out of the machine. That means old fashioned analog
audio/video. It's all in one connector so you can "dock" it with simply one
connection.

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gcb
There shouldn't be any reason for 4 different micro-USB standards when we
already had usb-C!

