{"id":2756,"date":"2012-09-21T11:56:10","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T14:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/?p=2756"},"modified":"2012-09-23T20:35:38","modified_gmt":"2012-09-23T23:35:38","slug":"boom-teardown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/2012\/09\/21\/boom-teardown\/","title":{"rendered":"Boom: Teardown"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is yet another follow-up to\u00a0my posts<\/a> about Apple\u2019s new Lightning mobile connector<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The cool folks at iFixit have now published their comprehensive teardown of the iPhone 5<\/a>. (Hopefully the other 2 new devices will also be done soon.)<\/p>\n

Here’s a detail view of the Lightning connector inside the case: (click on all images to see the hires version from their site)<\/p>\n

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Notice two screws securing the connector body to the device case, and the metal bracket that keeps the other end from flexing. Here’s a closeup of the disassembled connector and of the plug:<\/p>\n

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Remember that the inside of the case is milled out of a solid block of metal, so this design looks to be much less breakable than the old 30pin version – I’ve been told that the tab end of the plug also feels very sturdy. Here’s a close-up of both connectors:<\/p>\n

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The space savings are considerable. I read that Apple has no plans to do a dock<\/a>, so this looks to be a third-party opportunity. The previous connector had no serious protection against flexing, so previous docks had to grip the back and bottom of the device, which also led to a profusion of plastic dock adapters; Lightning docks should be able to get away with just a simple generic back support.<\/p>\n

Confirming the rest of my speculations regarding the “adaptive” part of the Lightning interface will have to wait until the specifications leak… stay tuned.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> just saw a report about a teardown of the Lightning plug<\/a>: “Peter from\u00a0Double Helix Cables<\/a>\u00a0took apart the Lightning connector and found inside what appear to be authentication chips. He found a chip located between the V+ contact of the USB and the power pin on the new Lightning plug.”<\/p>\n

It’s interesting how people assume that Lightning is just a pin-compatible extension of USB (which also explains why they feel that a cable should cost only a dollar or two). Note also that nobody knows for sure yet which pin is “the power pin”. Unfortunately the picture is very unclear ; it seems that there are three chips and a few passive components, at least on that side. Which, of course, goes far to confirm my hypothesis that the cable contains circuitry to tell the device which sort of adapter\/cable is connected, as well as signal drivers\/conditioners for USB2 (for this specific cable). The large chip, if it is really “directly in the signal path of the V+ wire”, probably switches the charging current to the appropriate pins on the device, once the interface has adapted to the cable – all this “authentication chip” paranoia is just – paranoia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Update#2:<\/strong> it\u00a0says here<\/a>: “Included in the new high-tech part is a unique design which the analyst says is likely to feature a pin-out with four contacts dedicated to data, two for accessories, one for power and a ground. Two of the data transmission pins may be reserved for future input\/output technology like USB 3.0 or perhaps even Thunderbolt, though this is merely speculation.”<\/p>\n

See what I mean about people thinking that all pins are equal? What do they think that “adaptive” means, anyway?<\/p>\n

Update#3:<\/strong>\u00a0John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin agreed with my points in their latest talk show<\/a> (references start just after the 49:00 mark) and they even sorta pronounced my name right. Thanks guys! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Update#4:<\/strong>\u00a0found a good discussion of the Lightning<\/a> (published over a month ago!),\u00a0with somewhat blurry pictures of a disassembled Lightning plug. They seem to match well with the linked pictures in the first update, above.<\/p>\n

Update#5:<\/strong>\u00a0my final summary<\/a>. Please comment there, comments here are now closed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is yet another follow-up to\u00a0my posts about Apple\u2019s new Lightning mobile connector. The cool folks at iFixit have now published their comprehensive teardown of the iPhone 5. (Hopefully the other 2 new devices will also be done soon.) Here’s a detail view of the Lightning connector inside the case: (click on all images to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,16],"tags":[15,11],"class_list":["post-2756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-hardware","tag-ipad","tag-iphone"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Rainer Brockerhoff","author_link":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/author\/rbrockerhoff\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1q3Zc-Is","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}