
07-06-2009, 04:53 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 637
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Ah the woes of quasi-monopolistic power. I wonder what benign excuses Apple will come up with to excuse this?  The 3G broke all 3rd party docks/car adapters by removing firewire charging support. Now they have actually gone even further as this seems to be a firmware change which can't even be fixed with a converter plug. IMO, when you change the connector, CHANGE the connector. Pretending to maintain backwards compatibility is dishonest. I wonder how they'll support the new Euro-standard MicroUSB? I'm guessing they'll ship with an adapter.
By the way, in response to the Greenpeace article earlier, THIS is why they are targeted. Now we have millions of docks, car adapters, video cables, etc. that are useless (and thus must be placed in landfills and replaced with newly manufactured/packaged/shipped/warehoused/delivered ones). All the while claiming to be "green." Until I got my iPhone, I had a Nokia which used the same adapter as my wife's which was the same as my 4 year-old phone which was the same as my 7 year-old phone which was the same as my 10 year-old phone. Never had to buy a different wall charger or car charger. They only changed recently to MicroUSB.
If your proprietary plug provides some kind of superior functionality, fine (the dock connector didn't really, but let's assume). Then at least keep it the same over time to support your users and your ecosystem. If you can't even do that, then shame on you. Almost as bad as that stupid "I'm-greedy-for-accessory-revenue" headphone remote on the shuffle...
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