[Spheric Harlot]

Well, it WAS pocket lint if canned air fixed it.

I had the same issue with the 30-pin connector on my iPhone last week, and I pulled quite a bit of pocket lint out of there. Yes, it was pocket lint.

[subego]

Canned air didn't really fix it, only made it more likely to work. What fixed it was them pulling out the lint. There was so much the connector wasn't going in all the way.

[The Final Dakar]

Next time, just hold a lighter under the port.

[shifuimam]

According to Wikipedia, Lightning just provides an interface to USB 2.0. Apple's own product page for the Lightning to USB cable indicates it is USB 2.0.

Lightning is an all-digital eight-pin connector (with the metal shell serving as a ninth ground connector), that can, unlike the 30-pin dock connector or indeed most other similar connectors, be inserted into the device with either side facing up. The Lightning connector only provides an interface to USB 2.0 (for data and charging) or a 30-pin adaptor (for USB data and power or analogue audio).

As far as the speed, I don't know. the extra pins are for the authentication/identification portion of an accessory, so they may not be able to be reused for something else (like USB 3.0).

[P]

The included cable is USB 2.0, but that doesn't mean that a device can't send something else over it should Apple decide to do so. Many connectors work that way - for instance, the regular DisplayPort to HDMI works by telling the GPU to send HDMI signals instead of DisplayPort, and then wiring up the connections.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Well, it WAS pocket lint if canned air fixed it.

I had the same issue with the 30-pin connector on my iPhone last week, and I pulled quite a bit of pocket lint out of there. Yes, it was pocket lint.

Wait... I'm not saying it wasn't pocket lint. I'm saying I'm an idiot for not figuring that out for myself.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by P 

The included cable is USB 2.0, but that doesn't mean that a device can't send something else over it should Apple decide to do so. Many connectors work that way - for instance, the regular DisplayPort to HDMI works by telling the GPU to send HDMI signals instead of DisplayPort, and then wiring up the connections.

Lightning works differently. It doesn't have enought pins for HDMI and actually includes an ARM SoC in the lightning-to-HDMI adapter to decode the video and convert it to HDMI.

Edit: sorry, you're aware of this and were just pointing out an example.

I agree; there is nothing stopping Apple from running USB 3.0 over Lightning once the chipsets and necessity are there, eventually (if ever).

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by subego 

As an aside, why is no one laughing at me about the pocket lint thing?

Maybe because nobody thought you were serious.

I thought it was a joke.

-t

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

According to Wikipedia, Lightning just provides an interface to USB 2.0. Apple's own product page for the Lightning to USB cable indicates it is USB 2.0.

That's not accurate, have a look at the link I've posted before: The reason Lightning can currently only transmit USB 2.0 (+ charging) at the moment is that this is all that Apple has chosen to implement on the device side so far. But Lightning itself is not USB 2.0, it's a, well, »intermediary meta interface«. As long as the Lightning cable provides sufficient sustained bandwidth, you can transmit anything over Lightning as long as you have chips on both end of the cable which convert the incoming protocol (e. g. USB2, but you could also transmit FireWire 400 or so over a Lightning cable).

If Apple decides to switch to USB 4.2 with the new iPad 10 and iPhone 12S, they can do that. This way, you could continue to use your USB 2 cable to charge it, but the new USB 4.2 cable would also work. Whether you could transmit any data depends on whether the iPad 10 still speaks USB 2.0, of course.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

As far as the speed, I don't know. the extra pins are for the authentication/identification portion of an accessory, so they may not be able to be reused for something else (like USB 3.0).

I think you're too focused on authentication of accessories, I don't think Apple cares about that aspect at all. What I think motivated Apple to go this route was that Lightning is future-proof: it can switch to a completely new connection standard without changing the plug on the device.

The absence of a »pin problem« is, I think, the beauty of Lightning: It does not merely map pins, you can transcode signals coming from multiple pins onto fewer Lightning pins and then go back on the other end.

[subego]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Maybe because nobody thought you were serious.

I thought it was a joke.

-t

Sad bear means embarrassing confession.