Apple has begun selling its Lightning to Micro USB in the United States for the first time. The adapter, originally released to European customers because of EU requirements, allows users to charge their iPhones using commonplace micro USB adapters.
With the adapter, iPhone 5, iPad mini and 4th-generation iPad users will be able to charge their devices with some of their existing cables.
Support for micro USB charging via an adapter, rather than plugging directly into the phone, is allowed by the EU policy. Apple isn't required to include an actual micro-USB port directly on the iPhone.
Top Rated Comments
• The chip in there cost Apple nothing to develop.
• Then, once developed, it costs nothing to make.
• And the chip only exists because Apple wants to kill third-party accessory companies. Teardowns showing dynamic pin capabilities and other future-proofing are lies.
• And USB is FULLY as high-tech and future-proof and durable and easy-to-use as Lightning is. And the old 30-pin connector is just as good too. too. Lightning has no current or future benefits, so we should still be using 10-year-old tech.
• And nobody wants thinner devices or easier, reversible connections anyway. Apple just likes to ram thin and light down our throats.
• And nobody but Apple marks up cables and accessories. All other companies sell at cost.
• And cheap unshielded bootleg accessories are just as good as Apple-certified ones.
• And third-party Lightning accessories have been late to arrive, which is just as bad as never arriving. Waiting for them is simply not possible.
• And a USB cable with this little thing kept permanently on the end is not portable. Only a single bare USB cable is.
• And the Lightning synch/charge cable included in the box with every iPhone and iPad somehow doesn’t already do what most people need from a cable.
Have I summed up the insanity? :)
You guessed incorrectly. It is $19.
Is the 30 pin connector reversible? No.
Can you get video over µUSB? No.
Can you get analog audio over µUSB? No.
Is µUSB reversible? No.
Now. You can argue whether those line items are significant or not, but they are factual.
In practice, I find the reversibility of the lightning connector to be a huge win. It's relatively difficult to see which side of either the dock connector or the µUSB connector is which. It is, of course, a non-issue for Lightning.
A friend of mine is legally blind. He has found the Lightning connector to be a relative godsend.
None of this negates the points that have been made about Apple having such tight control over the accessories market, but those who argue that there are not real, credible advantages to Apple's connector are ignoring reality.