Quick, look at your phone and find the port you plug your charger into. If it was made after June 2009, and it almost certainly was, you’re looking at a micro-USB port.
Unless you own an Apple product. Then you’re staring at a thirty-pin proprietary connector.
The upcoming iPhone 5 and the surround rumors have been showing a huge case of Stockholm Syndrome on the part of people who stubbornly refuse to believe what’s increasingly becoming obvious: Apple is out of touch.
And that has wider implications for the direction of mobile computing.
Apple is already forcing people to buy a new Mag-Safe charger for their shiny new laptops or spend $10 for an adapter for their old one. Now comes the news that Apple, after five years of that thirty pin connector, is going to change it to a nineteen pin one. But don’t worry! All the iPhone crap you’ve bought will still work with the new iPhone! You’ll just need to buy an adapter!
Good Lord, what is this? 1998? There is literally not another company in mobile computing that makes people buy a proprietary connector at this point. The fact that people are even making this argument instead of storming One Infinite Loop with torches and pitchforks illustrates just how insane some gadget fans really are.
Apple’s arguments are twofold: one, that they need the connector to stop app piracy and two, that they need the connector to stay slim and stylish.
Ask anybody in the jailbreaking community how well that first one has worked out. Also, we’re mildly skeptical of the second one for the fairly simple reason of, oh yeah, there are dozens of sleek smartphones with a micro-USB port. Unless the iPhone 5 will disappear when you turn it sideways it’s probably not going to be appreciably different from other phones on the market.
It’s baffling to me that I’m calling on Apple to join us in the twenty-first century but at this point, it has to be done. Get with the times, guys. I promise, it won’t hurt much.