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Apple kills a Kickstarter project
- ghostnappa 14y agoSo I'm looking at my monoprice external battery pack. It says specifically that it works for iPod,iPhone, and iPad. Is the problem that they built in the cables into the device instead of just outputting to a usb hub with specifically defined output rates?
- sftueni 14y agoNot quite convinced by the argument that 'Apple killed' it. IMHO it's always dangerous to go for one plug design; given how those plugs evolved over time (Think USB, micro USB, mini USB for Android, etc.). I quickly amassed in my drawer a plethora of unusable chargers. Only the Apple port had the longest lifetime across multiple devices. I would say, the kickstarter idea could use it as an opportunity to redesign an initial flaw of - an otherwise nice charging station ?
- JohnTHaller 14y agoThey can't. The point of it was to be a charging station that could charge everything. Apple's updated more-anti-competitive license changes make this impossible by forbidding anything from having a lightning connector in conjunction with any other connector. It's basically Apple forcing 3rd parties to make docks, speakers, etc that ONLY work with new Apple products and won't support anything else.
- joeyo 14y agoThey could have simply provided a standard USB-A port. Trying to put all possible connectors on the thing sounds like a fools errand, regardless of Apple's stance.
- firloop 14y agoIf you look on their kickstarter page, they actually did provide USB-A ports on the bottom of the unit. They just weren't able to 'compromise their product', which makes me believe that perhaps they had other underlying issues, unrelated to Apple's licensing.
- JohnTHaller 14y agoThey said the product was going to do lightning and they found out they couldn't actually do that. I think that would qualify as false advertising.
- Kerrick 14y agoThere are already a glut of portable chargers on the market that provide a standard USB-A port. The point of this device was to stand out by providing the Lightning (and other) connectors without needing additional cables.
- JohnTHaller 14y agoNot really. The 3 USBs along with the fat iPhone connector and Lightning connector would let them cover most phones currently on the market.
- snogglethorpe 14y agoWait, why does Apple even have the power to do this...? It's a connector... Why on earth is it possible to patent a connector that doesn't involve any particular innovation (take wires, rearrange a bit, tweak shell shape) in the first place...?!?
- marshray 14y agoI haven't seen the connector myself, but I would not expect it to be devoid of all innovation. But I do find it somewhat disturbing that after 100+ years we're still finding patentable modifications to ordinary low-voltage plugs. Someone should make a Kickstarter for a compatible charging connector that unambiguously avoids all the patents. Something dirt-simple like just a few bare metal pins sticking out providing voltage and alignment. Now that would be disrupting the ecosystem.
- JohnTHaller 14y agoYou can't. Apple built DRM into their cable with a proprietary security chip. All DRMed and patended up nicely to lock everyone out of just about everything.
- marshray 14y agoBastards. Well, as long as someone has a cable somewhere that your DC supply can proxy communications to...
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- czhiddy 14y agoA minimal amount of googling would've uncovered the actual purpose of the chip: http://brockerhoff.net/blog/2012/09/23/boom-pins/ http://brockerhoff.net/blog/2012/09/23/boom-pins/ Care to provide any sources describing the DRM capabilities?
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- mullingitover 14y agoThis would've been a better product if it just had a general-purpose retraction mechanism and let you bring your own cables. Apple may have been jerks, but they could've designed around it and made a better product instead of just throwing up their hands.
- JoshTriplett 14y agoWhy not just continue the project with a few other connector types, and separately make an adapter for Apple's connector (authorized or otherwise), or recommend an existing something-to-Apple-connector cable?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- nostromo 14y agoWhy didn't they didn't just include a female usb port? Edit: I'm skeptical about their motive. It seems they are using this as a press event to announce their KickStarter competitor ChristieStreet.
- notthetup 14y agoThey seem to have 2 female USB connectors already. They could have just changed the 2 30pin connectors to USB as well. Or have 4 USB + 2 Lightning.. Not sure if they're also supporting the extended dock connector functionality, and hence had to keep the 30pin connector.. but I agree that it seems like a press grab..
- jlgreco 14y ago> Apple has refused to give the project permission to license the Lightning charger in a device that includes multiple charging options. > In fact, even combining Apple’s new Lighting connector with the old 30-pin connector in a charging device was verboten Emphasis my own. That doesn't read like combining Lighting with the 30-pin was the only issue, but rather the particularly egregious seeming issue. I'm reading that as Apple would not allow Lighting and USB either.
- notthetup 14y agoHmm. That seems probable knowing Apple. But then an all USB solution (bundled with Lightning cables) could have been an option too..
- jlgreco 14y agoYeah, if it were my product I would have refunded everybody's money and immediately launched another campaign for the all-USB version of the product. Announce the new campaign in the same email that was announcing the refund; if people were still interested they could fund the new campaign. Maybe they do plan on re-launching eventually, or maybe they just don't think there is demand for the compromised product. Or maybe they ran into other issues and are using this as a graceful out. Who knows.
- publicfig 14y agoI really fail to see how opening the options to which plugs would be supported by just offering a USB Type-A adapter and providing some cables or having the user supply their own is "compromising" their product, unless it makes them too similar to products that are already on the market and have been for a while. I think this is more a failure of execution than it is Apple "killing" the project.
- jasonlotito 14y agoThe same way that opening the options to which plugs can be supported by a product compromises Apple.
- jlgreco 14y agoIt is an issue of not being able to provide the product that people have given their money for. If I were in their position, and my priority was operating ethically not successfully, I would refund all the money as they have done, then start again, pitching an only USB product.
- jinushaun 14y agoSucks for them, but can't they make the thing a USB hub? BYOC. Who do I need their cable? USB-A ports are more practical. If I have an Android, why would I want iPhone chargers?
- OriginalSyn 14y agoMaybe you have friends, family or loved ones that use iphones that may be at your home that want to charge their phones? No. Then this product isn't for you. I personally am in love with a woman that comes from a family of mac users, perhaps you can understand my dismay when I stayed at her brother's house for two days and he didn't have a single MicroUSB cable and he's a tech geek/developer with 3 computers (MBP, Mac Pro and Mac Air), 2 tablets (Ipad 1 & 2) and 2 (i)phones. I've never expected that someone could have so many tech devices and not have a billion usb cables like most of my tech friends do. Then there is the fact that I'm competing with my old lady for plugins for our phone cables. We live in an extremely old house and the amount of plugins are limited as is the amount they can be extended.
- readme 14y agoThis is why I don't understand why so many hackers these days like to use apple products. Apple is the antithesis of the hacker ideal. They're just as bad as Microsoft. I mean, seriously. Have you ever been to a radioshack? Multi-charging devices are a common product. Yet apple will have none of it. It's clearly an anti-competitive measure aimed at making sure they're your only supplier. Furthermore, apple's chargers suck. They deliberately have a weaker rubber sleeve around the end of laptop charger cables because it looks aesthetically nice. It's been proven that it's weaker than the conventional rubber joints on most laptop chargers, but they don't change it, because they value aesthetics over functionality. Avoid if possible. /me realizes he's using an ipod shuffle. oh well.
- ntaylor 14y ago"just as bad as Microsoft" ?
- RyanMcGreal 14y agoApple is far more closed and tyrannical with its products and its users than Microsoft ever was.
- joenathan 14y ago>just as bad as Microsoft You have to be joking, Microsoft is way more hacker friendly than Apple. Try to build your own OSX PC and you can't because Apple won't sell you a license, Apple started the whole walled garden game with the iOS.
- shmerl 14y agoNot if you compare their stance on open standards in general. They are both bad and acting nasty with using lock-in in different forms.
- eridius 14y agoWell, yes. Microsoft is a software company. They're happy to sell you the software to run on any device. Apple is a hardware company. If you want to run their software on a non-Apple piece of hardware, you're not their customer. In fact, in the early 90's when Apple did allow for Mac clones to be built, that almost killed the company.
- tibbon 14y agoWasn't there an EU ruling a few years ago saying that cell phones needed to start using micro-usb connectors? How is Apple getting around that, and still selling phones in the EU with proprietary plugs?
- blazingice 14y agoThey released an adapter: http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MD099ZM/A/apple-iphone-micro-usb-adapter?mco=MjU5MjAwODM http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MD099ZM/A/apple-iphone-mic... Apparently these are quite difficult to buy in the United States. Edit: Lightning to Micro-USB is only $20, though: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD820ZM/A/lightning-to-micro-usb-adapter http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD820ZM/A/lightning-to-mic...
- devb 14y agoOnly $20? Are there even any voltage modifiers in it, or is it just a pin to pin mapper?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jws 14y agoThey are active devices.
- josteink 14y agoBecause Apple added DRM to the interface. They are active because Apple made that a requirement. People should stop being apologetic about the bullshit like this which Apple is doing all the time, in small dosages here and there. If you keep taking this, there soon wont be any open, general purpose computing-platforms left.
- jws 14y agoYou are misinformed. There may or may not be DRM according to the teardowns. There is certainly a bit of silicon which has a minimal DRM capability, but it may have come along for the ride. If there is DRM, it is not enforced. There are knockoff connectors out there. The connector electronics are there to allow higher current charging by allocating more pins to power transfer when they are not needed for data and to allow as yet undeveloped higher speed protocols to operate on the same connector. If there is DRM I can see Apple's point. When you destroy an iPhone with a cheap charger that fails, it costs Apple money to replace it. If you attempt to reverse engineer the connector, you will be wrong. The future capabilities are not present for observation. You will probably create a device that behaves improperly for future protocols. Will you destroy that future device by pulling -5V on a low voltage differential data line?
- beggi 14y agoRegardless of this particular issue, can anybody explain Apple's stance on this? Why are they forbidding Lightning connectors on products alongside other types of connectors?
- marshray 14y agoAlthough the simple explanation is "Apple is greedy and wants to milk their users with overpriced charging cords" I think the real explanation is more complex. Apple wants to control every aspect of how its users experience the products that they think of as "Apple". When Apple sells a charger and charging cord, they want it to be a charging experience worthy of the Apple name. I know it sounds ridiculous, but this is how they think. Every consumer eventually ends up with a big tangle of chargers and adapters. The kind of thing where you unplug it and tug on the cord and the FCC-mandated RF balun is a big lump and the cord gets stuck and you have to crawl under your desk to retrieve it. Most of us live with that kind of thing every day and most normal people hate it. In short, Apple wants its users to experience its products as a refreshingly simple and clean salvation from modern electronic hell. The existence of a single cable that mixes the new connector with the old connector is seen to tarnish that user experience.
- gst 14y agoAll the other things except iPhones almost universally charge via MicroUSB now. It's hard to end upwith a "big tangle of chargers and adapters" when all you need is a MicroUSB cable.
- marshray 14y agoI'm not defending Apple's position here, just trying to imagine how they think. I love MicroUSB. (In fact, I got a tip that Santa Claus will be bringing everyone in my family MicroUSB cables for Christmas! Shh!) But somehow I still have a big tangle of cables (USB and others) on my desk. Admittedly, none of them are Apple.
- josteink 14y agoAlthough the simple explanation is "Apple is greedy and wants to milk their users with overpriced charging cords" I think the real explanation is more complex. Occam's razor says that everything you wrote after this paragraph is wrong.
- slajax 14y agoNothing like calling Apple a bunch of a-holes in the press to make you look super professional. Siminoff sounds like a whiny baby who got mad and flipped the risk board. At least all the backers are getting their money back.
- JimmaDaRustla 14y agoI don't blame him for dealing with his grief. He has a right to be completely "pissed", and he has to be very emotional because he cared so much for this project, he worked so hard...and he probably had some passion for Apple...and then this life changing opportunity is denied by the "totalitarian" Apple. Edit: It's like salt in a would...made of salt.
- woah 14y agoAre you trying to say that Apple are not a bunch of A-Holes? Clearly this is a ridiculously false belief on your behalf.
- marshray 14y ago"We are pissed," Edison Junior CEO Jamie Siminoff told me on the phone today. "I think they are being a bunch of assholes, and I think they’re hurting their customers." He was direct, didn't mince words, and yet he distinguishes between his opinion and absolute truth ("I think" x2). This man's stature has gained in my view.
- slajax 14y agoOh c'mon! When you build a product that is completely dependent on buy in from a independent third party you need to account for the risk and shouldn't be surprised if they exercise their right to not accommodate you. At very least it's not excusable to call them aholes because you got emotional about something that is so painfully probable. Apple owes him nothing and judging by his reaction they probably made the right choice. I certainly wouldn't want to associate my brand with that behaviour.
- andrewfelix 14y agoI'm speculating here. But other than the ChristieStreet motives people are throwing around, it might also have been prohibitively expensive to get a 26,000Mha battery into the device at that price point.
- marcosdumay 14y ago26,000mAh Please, those letters have meaning. You can't just replace them at will.
- fpgeek 14y agoI found this quote from the project's letter about the situation impressive: "Providing full refunds means we will have to absorb a hit for both credit card (3%) and Kickstarter fees (5%) totaling over $11,000. Today we asked Kickstarter for the 5% fee they collected based on the circumstances, however regardless of their decision YOU WILL RECEIVE 100% OF YOUR MONEY BACK." I'm sure plenty of people wouldn't have had a problem if they'd passed along the various fees. After all, Kickstarters are still speculative projects that can fail even after funding. Eating whatever fees they can't get refunded is seriously going above and beyond to make things right for their backers in a difficult situation.
- lytfyre 14y agoInterestingly, the idapt dock I use seems to be have a lightning compatible tip.[1] Wonder how they pulled it off. [1] http://www.idaptweb.com/interchangeable_tips/charger/tp/lightning/ http://www.idaptweb.com/interchangeable_tips/charger/tp/ligh...
- veemjeem 14y agoApple has a program called MFi, usually you're supposed to get a MFi license if you make hardware for the ipod/iphone family. Since idapt doesn't list MFi anywhere, I'm guessing that they don't license it, and they aren't popular enough for Apple to sue yet. You don't have to ask Apple if you're just going to violate the license anyway... as long as you're small, Apple probably won't care. I think these guys tried to do the "right" thing. I'm sure there are a few dozen chinese companies that violate all kinds of licenses that nobody really cares about. There's this chinese company that makes an iPhone knockoff that is actually called "iPhone" -- saw on the streets of Hong Kong. How do you think they do it?
- hamey 14y agoSomething seems off about this whole thing.
- tonetheman 14y agoIt was a good idea I think, just apple being apple. Daring Fireball will spin it so that Apple looks great or write a poetic post on how Lightening connectors will solve world hunger.
- MBCook 14y agoIt's not a bad idea, I can see how it would be very useful for some people. The thing I'm having a problem with is they must have seen this coming. Everyone knows Apple is a control freak. This was entirely foreseeable, and getting the requirements from Apple shouldn't have been due diligence. At a minimum, they should have planned for this possibility from the get-go.
- joering2 14y agoall the way on the bottom: Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. [...] oh, irony!
- HannibalLecter 14y agoThey really are being a bunch of assholes. I won't buy anything else from Apple.
- jsiminoff 14y agoJust want to add some points to this thread as I am the inventor of POP. For those who question our motives, your reasoning is fair but let me clarify some things. We started Christie Street because of our our experiences with POP. We have been getting closer and closer to this decision since Apple announced Lightning and began its new rules on the adapter. While we were going back and forth and waiting to see if we could still build POP we realized that we did not have a good way of refunding to our customers. That is why on Christie Street we built a automated refund system for our inventors. So when we finally realized that POP just could not be made to what we promised, we wanted to use our platform to do the refunds as it would be easier for us to manage. Also it would allow us to test and tweak the system with real customers. We are all trying to build better companies/products and looking at a loss on POP this seemed like a good way to at least salvage something out of it while delivering a above average experience to our customers, I would call that a win-win. Lots of people also seem to want POP even without Lightning and our upset that we did not poll our customers to see if a USB only version. But they are missing the point, we said in our campaign that we would support the iPhone 5 and at the time had no reason to believe that would be impossible. Why would we have thought that they would sell the new adapter any different then the old 30 pin? We are not willing to compromise on the product or deliver something that was not as promised. If that brings skeptics, so be it but at the end of the day today I know that we are doing the right thing, not the easy thing but the right thing.
- julien_p 14y ago> Why would we have thought that they would sell the new adapter any different then the old 30 pin? Before the new connector was announced there were rumours that licensing for it would be more restrictive. Also notice how you can't license MagSafe at all. I'm not saying Apple's decision is the right one, but IMHO it was clear there was a risk regarding licensing.
- monochromatic 14y agoWhat does it even mean for Apple to license this connector? Do they have a patent on it? It's just a fucking plug. Or are they just refusing to let these folks use some trademark to mark their product?
- veemjeem 14y agoI think most of the lightning cables actually have a chip inside, like thunderbolt. It may look like a simple cable, but there's some electronic stuff inside.
- josteink 14y agoWhat does it even mean for Apple to license this connector? Apple built DRM into it. You cannot work with it without Apple giving you the keys first. Yes. Apple managed to sell the iFanboys a proprietary, DRMed USB-connector and make them believe they were getting something better than everyone else. If that make Apple geniuses or Apple's customers retardec is your call.
- gregcohn 14y agoI applaud Jamie and the POP team for going for it -- everyone who develops on a proprietary platform like Apple's (apps, hardware, whatever) faces this risk. It's a risk you have to take if you want a shot at success. Sometimes it doesn't work out.
- mrchess 14y agoWhen life gives you lemons make lemonade. 1. Apple rejected the cable. To those who say "just go USB", it was supposed to be a seamless product and that destroys aesthetics. Image is everything in product design. 2. In parallel they were working on Christie Street, to solve the issue of non-refunds on Kickstarter. 3. So why not turn something bad into something good? Get some press for their new site, and also issue refunds for everyone. How else would they issue refunds? And how does anyone lose in this situation? If anything, this seems like a great and fair way to deal with the issues at hand.
- olgeni 14y ago> "Apple would not approve" To think that in 2012 we still have to worry about things like this...