One of the most common complaints about Apple’s dock connector is that it’s proprietary. Don’t have your iPhone or iPad charger on you? You’re totally out of luck. Unless you live in the EU, that is, where the iPhone 4S will come with a MicroUSB charger — of a sort.
EU legislation enacted back in 2010 mandated that a common phone charging standard was needed for European consumers, and that the standard in question would be MicroUSB. Not a problem for pretty much every Android, Blackberry or Windows Mobile phone, but this left Apple in a corner, especially as it was a signatory to the agreement. But there’s a way out for Apple that allows it to keep the Dock connector and provide EU-compliant charging — a MicroUSB adaptor that’ll ship with the iPhone 4S, or can optionally be purchased from Apple’s European online stores for £8 (~$12.80).
I’ve seen a few bodged together Dock to MicroUSB connectors before, but having the official Apple seal of approval means that using one shouldn’t do a thing to your phone or Pad warranty. Sadly, there’s no sign of the connector in the local Apple store; I’m waiting to hear back from Apple as to whether there’s any plans to offer the connector here. [Apple via Macrumors]
The Flash
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 9:37 AMWon’t be long before there’s a ton of copies on eBay for about $1…
Corey
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 9:39 AMWhy would I happen to have this adaptor but not my charger? Think you’d have more luck finding a iPod connector from someone than a microUSB anyways.
Bloody do-gooder EU.
Cam
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 10:04 AMWhilst I agree with the sentiment of iphone going micro-usb, and that perhaps in the future everyone will play nicely and all have micro-usb power plugs, at the moment EVERYONE has an ipod dock power plug of sorts in their home!
I dont see the point in having to carry around a plug (I may as well just carry my charger). I do see a change to the dock port being relevant, but then you’re going to annoy a hell of a lot of people in the process who have dock only devices.
Peter
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 10:04 AMOne iPhone in my house compared to the two androids, two WD portable hard drives and I have my old Nokia phones cable with me as it’s so tidy and short. MicroUSB is the way of the future and once again Apple are playing catch-up.
Mr Mack
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 10:13 AMI wouldn’t say catch-up this time, just greed/stubbornness getting in the way of progress. Proprietory = money
Peter
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 10:22 AM@Mr
If they are lagging on a protocol they signed with an adaptor, they’re playing catch-up ;)
Stephen
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 10:13 AMNormal i would agree with you on apple playing catch up but you cant just throw it into everything apple does.
They are not doing this to play catch up they are doing it because of the push in Europe for a universal phone charging method. Im sure if it was up to them they wouldnt have bothered, hence why its only available there.
Blake
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 10:12 AMHmm my house has 5 micro usb devices compared to 0 apple port thingies.
At work most desks have a micro usb cord somewhere, apple chargers on the other hand, you’d have to hope someone randomly brought them in.
Most of my friends have Android phones, but even those with iPhones usually still have a micro usb cable laying around somewhere.
Having said all that, needing a connector is stupid, they should just embed a micro usb port and make everybodies life easier.
matt
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 10:31 AMno,no,no… I can’t believe they got away with this… what is the difference between that and just having the cable with the usb coord attached?
jonny
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 12:52 PMOne day the technophobic apple users will understand that there are standards that ‘all’ the others use. Cupertinos blatant money grabbing proprietary nonsense has somehow escaped the attention of these noobs. Pwned by the late Steve Jobs. It’s a wonder they don’t feel more embarrassed about this
wes
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 3:31 PMApple just likes to squeeze extra money out of its customers…I’d like to buy the dock adaptor for my iphone4…it costs $12…for 3 iphone4 universal dock adaptors??? WHY THE HELL DO I NEED 3???
Norgan
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 5:23 PMthis is the smartest thing Apple have ever done!
Apple are to blame directly for the lack of a standard (well actually one exisits in micro usb but due to market share it’s not really standard).
This is one of my biggest gripes with Apple, they just had to be different and push billions of dolllars of marketing and subsidies and as a result people with good technology using common standards actually suffered as a result!
Richard
Friday, October 7, 2011 at 1:16 AMMeh. It’s a stupid rule in my books. Sure, the fact that most devices use it is appealing, don’t get me wrong, but that doesn’t mean microusb is going to be the best option for all devices and I don’t agree with forcing a manufacturer to adopt it ultimately helps all that much.
What happens the day a company wants to use a connection that is faster or smaller? They’ll be forced to put out silly dongles like this to apease the miniusb requirement.
It seems like the sort of law that would hold back a manufacturer from making use of a better specification when the law inevitably lags the market.
Andrew Watson
Friday, October 7, 2011 at 1:49 AMInstall ASUS Ai Charger and you can charge your iDevice from any modern PC that has high power USB ports that just need this software to enable that feature.
Then you can buy lots of $1 iCables from eBay and carry one around or stash them anywhere you may need to recharge.
http://event.asus.com/mb/2010/ai_charger/
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/USB-Charger-Cable-Cord-Apple-iPad-Wifi-3G-16GB-32GB-/130511023316?pt=AU_Laptop_Accessories&hash=item1e63102cd4#ht_2641wt_1139
Entilzha
Friday, October 7, 2011 at 1:45 PMLets face Apple idio… customers woop won’t care.