“Newcomers to Apple products, both customers and developers, sounded off recently about Cupertino orphaning their investment in iOS peripherals using the 30-pin dock connector, and complained loudly about the abandonment of support for Google Maps,” David Morgenstern writes for ZDNet.
“Longtime Mac users would advise advise them to get used to the change and enjoy the roller-coaster ride,” Morgenstern writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Our iCal (and, yes, we’ll always call it “iCal”) icons are hopping up and down with an oldie but a goodie (written nearly a decade ago – gulp! – and all previous comments regrettably lost in the great hard drive melt-down that occurred umpteen web hosts ago):
The iMac was launched on August 15, 1998. About six months later, the distant murmurings of a new breed of Mac users complaining about Apple pricing started to be heard. And I mean pricing for everything from mice to cables to software. This strange new offshoot regularly shops at Wal-Mart or K-Mart or Some-Mart somewhere (where Macs are conspicuously not for sale), yet for some reason, they actually bought an iMac. I guess they all bought Blueberry iMacs since they reminded them of their beloved Blue Light Specials.
… These are not “Mac users” in the classic sense. They’re “iMac users” is the worst possible sense. I call them “Mac Whiners.” There is a schism in Macland. – SteveJack, MacDailyNews, October 3, 2002
Morgenstern writes, “It’s a bit bewildering to hear the complaints from retailers, business owners and developers… Longtime Mac users have had experience with “quick” hardware and software changes. For example, over recent years, Apple has been stripping away classic Mac vestiges for its now-OS X machines. And we are mostly happy with the result: faster and more robust machines, more powerful expansion and interesting new services.”
“Certainly, Jobs knew that change was hard and disruptive, but sometimes needed to be suffered. He killed the Mac licensing program in the late 1990s. He moved the platform to Intel. Apple has been aggressive in performance and compatibility,” Morgenstern writes. “Apple keeps pushing hardware transitions such as the Lightening iPhone connector, or from FireWire to Thunderbolt, Core Duo to Core 2 Duo, and changes in the MagSafe connector. Or on the API front with the end of Rosetta (ask a Quicken for Mac user). This is a much different situation than on the Wintel platform.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. – Apple and TBWA\Chiat\Day, 1997
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “CognativeDisonance” and “Edward W.” for the heads up.]
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Apple’s new Lightning connector: The good, the bad and the ugly – September 15, 2012
I honestly don’t mind the transition to the Lightning connector, but how in the world can there be no Lightning cables for sale the day the iPhone 5 comes out?
Oh there’s lightning cables, just no third party cables. Same with accessories.
No lightning cables till October I was told. Toting mine around to work and home. I’d be good if I didn’t listen to radioio all day at work.
Side note. Sure I’m not the 1st to ask for it but I’m gonna be the latest. Please update your app MDN. I know it’s only been a few days. I check MDN more then Any other throughout the day. Would love to see it uses all 4 inches. Bring the heat!
If you’re talking about the Lightning-to-USB cable, I walked into an Apple Store in Southern California and bought one yesterday for $19.
That’s what I get for listening to a best buy employee. He must have meant them in paticular.
Guess lll be heading to Tampa to the apple store.
I was in Bestbuy today… they told me same thing.
Drove to Apple store, they had the cable.
Bestbuy may be right, October when *they* get the cables… Apple has the cable.
Best Buy: Financially struggling. I wonder why.
Because then you’ll be tempted to buy new stuff to go with the new phone.
not sure where you live but you should call other Apple Stores near you … i went to Apple Store in Valley Fair Mall (closest Apple Store to Cupertino) and was told Lightning cables would be in stock next month … then I called and went to Apple Store in Stanford Shopping Center and they had 10-15 in stock … my friend bought one from the store in Alderwood Mall in WA with no problem also … I am not sure why some stores don’t have them and why some stores have them
I’m actually in the Bay Area, too. I went to two Verizon stores, two Best Buy stores and the Apple store on University in Palo Alto. No luck. I should have checked the one at Stanford Shopping Center, but it was getting pretty late at that point. Maybe I’m alone in thinking that there should have been sufficient stock in the areas around Cupertino for me to pick up at least one extra cable!
Actually it’s not about being poetic. It’s about making the connector smaller for future devices. C’mon MDN and complainers, it’s just a connector. That’s all. Move onto more important issues.
+1
Samsung had 18 different connectors in the same time frame as Apple’s single 30 pin connector.
‘Progress’ is ‘progress’, it brings with it ‘change’ and ‘innovation’. As a species we continue to ‘adapt’ and to ‘accept’ the ‘new’ for it betters what we have, it ‘improves’ and brings ‘joy’ and ‘quality’ to our everyday life. So be it!
Grand thoughts for an itty-bitty connector, but yeah, you’re right.
2002? Impossible. No one was alive back then.
They had the same Dock connector for 9-years! That’s centuries for an Apple connector.
In the same amount of time, Macs went through, what, 50 different video connectors? I don’t remember the whole history – it’s all kind of a blur to me of micro/mini vga/dvi/displayport/thunderbolt – but I distinctly remember needing to get a new video connector after nearly every mac purchase in my life.
Lightning & Thunderbolt seem like solid standards designed to last – lets hope Apple sticks with them for 9 years!
For example: Mini-DVI in 2008. MiniDisplay Port in 2009.
Ah: Don’t forget the Apple Display Connector (ADC for short). “It’s beautiful: There’s only one cable to run from the computer to your monitor” I still have several ADC-based Apple monitors: They’re keeping dust off the top shelves in the garage…
So, Apple dumped a big plug for a smaller plug?
Small potatoes when compared against the bold move to dump the floppy drive.
Innovate or perish. Try to please everyone and you condemn your future to lambent mediocrity.
The complaints I’ve heard (and lodged) are not about having to use an adaptor to continue to use a 3rd party product. It’s about 3rd party products that will no longer work EVEN WITH an adaptor. Like, say, all cars that used the iPod Out functionality. (And for which, AFAIK, Bluetooth connections do not have the same functionality.)
I can’t remember the last time Apple took away a feature without substituting a better one. Until this. (And smaller does not simply equal better. Except, apparently, to Jony Ive.)
What’s the big deal? Just buy a new BMW, problem solved!
Where’s my thunderbolt – ADB adapter !!!
C1, you’re parents weren’t even dating, yet!!!
Quit ya whining already! Motorola has gone through at least 3 different connectors during the same time Apple had the one. I think after 9 years with the same connector we can cut Apple some slack!
People really do need to get over this one. The 30 pin connector is nearly a _decade_ old. If this were OS X, it would be 10.1 / Puma.
Could all of the posters above me here who have advised me, and others, to “get over it” please explain then how my three week old Kia will use its iPod integration when the new iPhone 5 no longer supports “iPod Out”?
The new 5 does not send out the signal used to display playlists, album art, lists by artist – all the good stuff the iPhone and iPod output – up to now. All that is left is Bluetooth hookup, and that gives you one long playlist in alpha order.
That all by itself will keep me from getting an iPhone 5.
The current lightning to 30-pin adapter will not support iPod out or video out. Part if the issue here is the switch from analog signal to digital signal. Patience is all that can be advised.
The Lightning connector can support everything the 30-pin connector could support and more. It is difficult to roll out EVERYTHING that EVERYONE needs or wants all at once. The shear volume of phones is more than any other company on earth could handle.
Patience will not restore an analog signal that my car, and nearly all others, use for iPod integration.
That feature is gone, period.
My car is the “accessory” that I use the most with my iPhone4.
Buy an iPod Classic.
I like the new connector – more durable and reversible, aside from being smaller. And although I have a large amount of Apple products, I don’t have anything that needs an adapter (of course I wouldn’t be happy if I had a car that was obsoleted – hopefully a solution will be forthcoming).
I really can’t complain about the adoption to a much smaller Adaptor on the iPhone. What I am unhappy about is the fact that Apple replaced Google Maps with a substitute that was clearly not yet ready for public use. I think Apple made the right decision to drop Google maps, don’t get me wrong. It was next to worthless on iOS and all it did was show how much better Gmaps was on Android. But was Apple’s decision to make public a flawed maps alternative a wise one?
I would not mind Apple postponing the release until the next update if it meant fixing its current issues. The two main issues I have encountered are (1) Certain structures, like the Statue of Liberty, are squashed like a pancake and (2) Turn by turn navigation is not always reliable — Asked it to take me and a friend to a bar, it took us to some guy’s house. Not kidding!
Maybe the guy has a great bar? Perhaps Apple Maps is even more brilliant than anyone imagines…
I used the TomTom app for my daily driving all over the country. It was generally very good. Except for that one restaurant I was trying to find in Iowa where it wanted me to make a sharp right turn off the overpass… And Hertz NeverLost wanted me to drive into a bay to get to a dock-side restaurant once. Nothing is perfect.
This is a much different situation than on the Wintel platform.
Examples:
Q: WHEN will Windows PC boxes will all be 64-bit hardware?
— Apple moved to all 64-bit hardware in mid-2006. That’s exactly five (5) years ago. I like that.
Q: WHEN will the Windows OS go all 64-bit?
— Apple went all 64-bit in July 2001 with OS X 10.7 Lion. That’s a year ago. Note that gap of four years after the hardware went 64-bit. It was to allow all the 32-bit Mac hardware users to catch up. I like that.
It’s called “PROGRESS”.
Meanwhile, my oldest Mac, a Quadra 650 from 1993, is still cranking and i still use it as a digital imaging workstation. Therefore, if you don’t like change, keep working with your legacy Mac because it’s probably still working for you. That’s called ‘Return On Investment’ (ROI). That’s what you’re paying for with Apple gear, all you cheapskate settlers.
ERROR: Please read “Apple went all 64-bit in July 2011 with OS X 10.7 Lion.
Whew. I thought you were in the beta program there.
Parallel, PS/2, Serial, VGA, Digital Visual Interface, SCSI, TRS……
Imagine if…………………………..
Welcome to Apple.
I just bought a MacBook Pro with Retina screen and had to get TWO little adaptors: an OLD MagSafe to NEW MagSafe converter and mini DisplayPort to FireWire 800… the Apple Store gal didn’t know WHAT I was talking about.
So, 30 bucks for backward compatibility, BFD.