Fire Alarm Companies

an agreement amongst the EU manufacturers of mobile phones means that everyone must be loaded via a micro USB connector. However, Apple uses a 30-pin connector everywhere. This is how you solve it - and make a profit

this week Apple quietly released in the UK and Europe an adapter to connect a standard micro USB connector to 30 pin adapter is at the base of the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Now I know what you think:

The guard is so in love with Apple that he even published an article on an adapter

. I had a moment of reflection on the same subject. However, this article tries to solve an engineering problem, and that's what makes it interesting. It is society that made it.

costs £ 8

... or as my dad likes to say, "How ?!"

So, well, these things are going for £ 8 at the Apple Store. But all you can buy third-party USB cable from Apple for 1p plus delivery across multiple sellers on Amazon Marketplace, which will not be long before you buy 8 pounds of these things enough to fill a bowl of cereal right size.

common European charger

The introduction of this adapter in Europe (note: not currently available in the U.S.) is a voluntary agreement that Apple and other mobile phone manufacturers to move away from property adapters cells of energy and move to a common model. (Read the note to a related agreement). Like all things, including the concept of "bureaucracy" and "voluntary" in the neighborhood, you can read in this desire for manufacturers to control the game, instead of passing control to the legislators.

the standard applied in the common power supply (EPS) was based on micro-USB adapter that was common in most other regions. The format of this adapter is a problem for Apple, but not a problem for others (among them Motorola, Samsung, Nokia and RIM), and either already used or not has nothing particular to stop the exception design changes and changes in the supply line.

30-pin adapter and its role in the downfall of competitors to Apple

The iPod was originally designed to increase the value proposition of Mac via the PC. Although MP3 players are starting to gain ground at the time of the introduction of the iPod, a major problem that the PC market was that the file transfer with a device via USB 1.1 is interminably slow. FireWire was originally designed to be a bus disk subsystem and therefore, very quickly, can operate at speeds up to 400 Mb / s. Since it was a Mac FireWire, and since the iPod was supposed to complete the Mac, the first iPod was a FireWire adapter.

As time passed and the product was developed, USB 2.0 is out, can (in theory) operate at 480 Mb / s, faster than FireWire. Above all, Mac began supporting the USB standard. (And vice versa -. FireWire was happening on the PC as well) Then, Apple decided to open the iPod into the PC market as well. So they should be able to build a device that can connect via USB or FireWire.

The solution was the 30-pin adapter, which like many things Apple was a happy accident that bet on something very special.

(A little background on the adapter itself. At first, he had separate data and USB data pin FireWire, and the associated power pins. You also have analog audio left and right to left and right audio in. Over time, composite video has been added. There are also some pins that indicate the type of connected device, and as always in these things that have axes that are not used.)

With the 30-pin adapter, Apple has managed to control access to their world. By registering and the protection of designs that can license companies to produce adapters for it. With nothing else on the market for the iPod touch, Apple has used to build an ecosystem. Customers want to connect your iPod music on their computers and companies like Sony, Panasonic and Denon product. While the iPhone was released with the same 30-pin dock (as is the rule of Apple) "just worked". By keeping the design of the lower units similar and compatible with time, an iPod dock for a v1 in theory still works with an iPhone 4S. (Your mileage may vary on this point, the specification of output pins has not been as static as you want.)

Therefore, the micro-USB 30-pin adapter allows Apple to maintain its negotiations with the EU, while not having to add huge production costs. A side effect of the agreement is that device manufacturers do not give the chargers with the phones (assuming the client already has one that he or she can use, because the whole world with micro-USB , no?).
's a lot of brass, plastic, carbon, weight and cost can be simply subtract - or, in the case of Apple, is replaced by a small micro-USB-30 pin adapter that probably costs less than a penny to keep the cost of the device. Nobody is really going to wait for Apple to reduce the cost of the iPhone for £ 15 just because you do not get an adapter, the price of the device is more elastic. (OK: .. No one who knows the supply chain, manufacturing costs, operating income and total quality management is to expect that everyone was waiting outside, and do not forget to watch the pigs fly)