What the New iPhone Connector Means for Your Old Accessories

A new report from Reuters adds to the steady trickle of stories that the next iPhone will feature a smaller dock connector with a radically different form factor than the one we've come to know over the past nine years. It will give the iPhone's components more elbow room. Yet the new connection is likely to cause some problems for consumers who have invested in accessories based in the old design over the years. In short, really old accessories are probably not going to work very well. But of course, really old accessories often already have connection issues with the newest iPhones. Newer accessories should work, but will require some sort of adapter.The latests reports and rumors point to Apple replacing the current 30-pin connection with a 19-pin connection. By losing 11 pins, Apple can make its long-running proprietary connection smaller, which opens up all kinds of design possibilities. iFixit cofounder, Kyle Wiens told Wired: "It's too big. That's the fundamental issue."
Design aesthetics aside, as far as connections go, the 30-pin connection is long in the tooth. Introduced with the third-generation iPod in 2003 as a replacement to the iPod's Firewire port, the 30-pin connection has been adopted by nearly all of the iPods and all iPhones and iPads. The connection's size is a result of Apple's desire to allow backward compatibility with legacy analog connectors, and Apple's own Firewire connection. Those legacy connections lower the cost of third-party hardware. Building fully compliant USB docks is expensive."The primary reason to have all the pins is to make it cheaper for companies to implement accessories." Weins told Wired: "If your (iPod) alarm clock had to implement a full USB interface, it would cost more. It would be a more expensive device to make."
But there's a different financial issue at play for consumers, many of whom have been hoarding speakers, alarm clocks, keyboards, external battery packs, cases and an untold number of cables over the past nine years. If Apple decides to move to a smaller connection, its new devices won't fit all those existing accessories. However there should be ways to make your current accessories work with the new iPhone, iPad, and iPods, although you may have to shell out a couple of bucks to do so (well, probably).Apple could remove many input/output (I/O) connections without making your next iPhone speaker prohibitively expensive by discarding legacy features that no one uses anymore. A quick check of the 30-pin connection shows seven pins that could be removed if Firewire support were annihilated. How Apple will deal with other legacy I/Os is yet to be seen. But, sadly, it's those legacy I/Os that will determine if your current iPhone and iPod speakers will continue to pump out the holiday jams when the new iPhone drops this fall.