Quote:
Originally Posted by watrob
I just don't understand why apple just did not go with a mini USB connection?
It would have kept all of us happy and probably would have picked up more customers, alot of people dislike iPhones because of this. If you think they have cornered the market imagine if it had a usb connection?
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This has been asked and answered several times in several threads. If you take a look at the pinout diagram of the 30-pin connector, it's always been capable of outputting far more than a normal USB data signal, which was largely what enabled the existence of the huge swath of accessories out there -- including our cradles that can pull analog audio, digital audio for newer cars, and iPod Out. I'm sure that as the Lightning adapter is developed over its expected decade lifecycle (according to Apple), it too will have far more capabilities than USB. Could Apple have included a USB connector AND standards-based connectors for everything else it wanted to support rather than bundling all of that functionality into a single connector? Of course -- but Apple's minimalist design ethic would never allow that, it would complicate form-fitting accessory design and lead to more porous protective cases, and in an era where everything is getting thinner and lighter, the more excess ports that can be trimmed, the better (for Apple, at any rate).
A pure USB data connection would require more complex and expensive internals on attached accessories that could interface with the iPod's stored data in its native format -- which requires the accessories to support all formats that the iPhone does, and if the iPhone's file format support were expanded later or the APIs to access its data changed to support new functionality, compatibility with those accessories might break partially or completely, whereas if the iPhone decodes the data and outputs a raw signal, the accessories remain compatible into the future. USB-only connectivity would also mean that things like video output to TVs (or iDrive) would become impossible. You may not care about video out and frankly neither do I, but it's not as if Apple just arbitrarily decided to create a connector functionally identical to USB but just shaped differently.
Quote:
Originally Posted by watrob
Long term everyone wants intergration to cross platforms, I think eventually you want your phone to talk direct to your computer and not muck around with special programs, itune's etc.
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That's a great ideal, but that would require standards for everything, and new functionality would be held up until a standard for it were developed and broadly supported. I definitely like standards, but I also recognize Apple's huge success in having a completely vertically integrated iOS system. It's definitely proprietary and closed, but it delivers a first-rate user experience, I would argue for the most part far better than anything the competition has. Some people like being able to pick and choose a patchwork of standards-compliant solutions that best suit their needs to achieve their desired goals, but other people just want a single easy, integrated, comprehensive solution that works. I personally prefer the former on my PC which is why I use Windows, but I prefer the latter on my phone, which is why I have an iPhone.