“Apple certainly took it on the chin when the 30-pin dock connector was ditched and replaced with Lightning,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “Yes, Lightning is smaller, and is non-directional, so you don’t have to look at the faint decal to see which end is right. But it was different, making loads of existing accessories obsolete; well, obsolete without an adapter plug.”
MacDailyNews Take: It’s a very minor issue for those who can manage to keep an adaptor handy. For the less organized, when they happen to find themselves in a bind, they tend to blame Apple instead of looking the mirror.
“For Apple, this change made sense, for it may unlock new features that we haven’t heard about yet. And it’s nice to be able to make a connection without fretting over polarity or perhaps risking damage to a plug or jack if you push too hard,” Steinberg writes. “Apple shouldn’t be forever bound with existing connection schemes, and it makes sense that, if they move to something new, they work hard to make all current iPhones, iPads and iPods compatible. That factor may have hastened the arrival of a fourth generation iPad last fall, though it was admittedly much faster too.”
Steinberg writes, “What this means is that all the new iPhones you’ll be able to buy after that September launch will support Lightning, if the predictions are correct.”
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