Quote:
Originally Posted by sclitheroe
Lightning can be power, USB, audio, VGA, HDMI, 30 pin legacy iPod, etc - it has to be able to do the signalling conversion and physical interface management since the devices on the other end of the connector don't, and because for most kinds of devices you'd plug an iPhone into, there exists no convention for doing so.
In fact, if dumb cables were such a good idea, why hasn't USB adopted the notion of non-keyed interfaces? Obviously the ethernet consortium solved the issue a long time ago, so what's the holdup on USB.
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So explain this. Why can't this "chip" and signal conversion exist in the device? All it is doing is interpreting whether the signal coming in on any pin is power, audio, usb, etc, why can't that interpretation be done at the connector on the phone and needs to be interpreted by the cable? The chip exists in that white jacket right before the male connector you plug into the phone itself.
I'm not challenging that the fact the cable can be plugged in any way is an insane choice (you're right it is a better solution), the insanity is having the that logic exist in the cable and not the phone itself.
As for the question around USB, it's probably as simple as it was never designed in the spec and no one thought it was a big enough issue to have to tackle. The same question can be asked as to why are TOSLINK cables keyed? They don't have to be - they are a single strand of fibre. The mini TOSLINK however are not keyed. *shrugs*