One of the things that can drive consumers crazy is the proprietary adapters that companies release with their devices. Each adapter is specific for a certain device from a company and often we’ll see the company release a whole new adapter when a new model comes out.
Apple has been fairly consistent with their dock connectors for their iOS products such as the iPad, iPod and iPhone, but with the upcoming iPhone 5, this may all change.
What this means is that moving forward, you will need a whole new dock connector in order to interface with your new iOS devices. Putting aside the frustration that this will cause, there is a reason as to why Apple is looking towards a new micro docking port and it all has to do with space. Let’s face it, Apple has always been pushed to develop slimmer and slimmer devices and real estate within their iOS devices is limited. With the iPhone 4S, the battery life was always one of the criticisms levelled against it because it was shorter then any earlier model. This is something that Apple wants to address with the iPhone 5 and the only way to generate more space within their smartphone is by using a “micro” docking port which would free up much needed space inside the device so that a larger battery could be included. The iPhone 5 will be the first Apple device to see this design change and rather then using the current microUSB standard which is outdated, the new docking port will draw upon an entirely new design.
Additionally, the functionality of the dock connector is also going to change. Over the last year, Apple has been touting their iCloud service and today, rather then using connectors to transfer data, Apple has been using wireless data transfers be it new app downloads or updates. That said, the dock connector may serve a limited role, simply to recharge your product and to access non-Apple services.
