Apple's Lightning cable, up close.
(Credit:
Apple)
Apple is changing course on a technical specification that recently put a third-party charging accessory out of luck.
The company today said it's now allowing its newer Lightning adapter specification to coexist with the older, yet still quite popular 30-pin adapter in the same accessory.
"Our technical specifications provide clear guidelines for developing accessories and they are available to MFi licensees for free," Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told CNET. "We support accessories that integrate USB and Lightning connectors, but there were technical issues that prevented accessories from integrating 30-pin and Lightning connectors so our guidelines did not allow this."
The company added that the guidelines have since been updated to allow accessories to work with both types of connectors to charge devices.
The change comes on the heels of controversy involving a Kickstarter project called POP, an accessory designed to charge multiple devices -- including ones that used both of Apple's charging specifications. Despite getting $139,170 in funding to go ahead with the project, its creator ran into an issue once it came time to build the device because of Apple's MFi license, which would not allow both charging specifications to be included without added hardware expense. That resulted in POP creator Jamie Siminoff announcing plans to refund money to the project's backers, at a considerable expense.
CNET has contacted Siminoff about the change, and will update this post when we know more.
Lightning is Apple's new plug technology, which replaces the 30-pin adapters that date back to early iPods. Its key benefit is the smaller iPhone connector, which is 80 percent smaller than the previous connector. Users can also plug it in with either side up. The technology was first introduced in
Apple's iPhone 5 and new iPods, and has since spread out to the iPad and
iPad Mini.
Apple tweaks Lightning spec following Kickstarter project gone awry
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Apple tweaks Lightning spec following Kickstarter project gone awry
