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The Lightning connector design exposes all the pins to the hazards of the world (the most dangerous being ESD, pin shorting being another). In order to make the

The Lightning connector design exposes all the pins to the hazards of the world (the most dangerous being ESD, pin shorting being another). In order to make the industrial design work electrically, Apple had to put a tiny chip inside each lightning connector. This chip also handles switching around which side of the connector is active. As you can imagine, embedding a chip inside a connector is pretty expensive. The USB-IF doesn't actually make hardware. They create standards that other companies can use to make hardware. It would be crazy for them to spec something out that requires the kind of NRE that Apple must have paid to produce their connector. The USB-IF gets around the ugly pin shorting and ESD problems by simply adopting the same connector design that every other connector uses. They hide the pins behind a shroud so that fingers and other objects can't reach in to short anything out or cause ESD events.

Someone 12y ago
That chip could just as well sit in the device at the other end of the cable. I bet USB cables have one, too. It is not as if USB connectors are immune to accidental shorting (rain, cables that get crushed) Also, embedding a chip in a connector expensive? I have no idea what the chips Apple puts in cost, but cost depends on the chip and the number of cables you order.
hyperbovine 12y ago
That must be why I have three lightning cables which I use daily, and about 80 USB cables (one with each new device!) which sit in a pile collecting dust and tangling up the cat. Seriously, do we really need the price of usb cables tending asymptotically to zero? "Three cables should be enough for anybody."
- nodata 12y ago
  Tell that to someone who buys a printer.
makomk 12y ago
> This chip also handles switching around which side of the connector is active. I don't think it does actually, think that's handled mostly by the device - the data pins just connect straight through to both sides of the connector.
- M4v3R 12y ago
  Not really, it's a little more complicated as Chipworks described: http://www.chipworks.com/en/technical-competitive-analysis/resources/blog/systems-analysis-of-the-apple-lightning-to-usb-cable/ http://www.chipworks.com/en/technical-competitive-analysis/r...

Someone 12y ago

That chip could just as well sit in the device at the other end of the cable. I bet USB cables have one, too. It is not as if USB connectors are immune to accidental shorting (rain, cables that get crushed) Also, embedding a chip in a connector expensive? I have no idea what the chips Apple puts in cost, but cost depends on the chip and the number of cables you order.

hyperbovine 12y ago

That must be why I have three lightning cables which I use daily, and about 80 USB cables (one with each new device!) which sit in a pile collecting dust and tangling up the cat. Seriously, do we really need the price of usb cables tending asymptotically to zero? "Three cables should be enough for anybody."

nodata 12y ago
Tell that to someone who buys a printer.

makomk 12y ago

> This chip also handles switching around which side of the connector is active. I don't think it does actually, think that's handled mostly by the device - the data pins just connect straight through to both sides of the connector.

M4v3R 12y ago
Not really, it's a little more complicated as Chipworks described: http://www.chipworks.com/en/technical-competitive-analysis/resources/blog/systems-analysis-of-the-apple-lightning-to-usb-cable/ http://www.chipworks.com/en/technical-competitive-analysis/r...