A New iPhone 5 Connector Means You'll Need To Buy New Accessories

According to the geeks over at TechCrunch when Apple releases the new iPhone 5 customer will see that the company has replaced the standard 30-pin dock port with a new, smaller 19-pin connector. This means that all the current iPhone, iPod and iPad accessories Apple lovers covet will need to be replaced.

TechCrunch claims to have “independently verified” through three independent manufacturers that Apple is “working on” a new 19-pin dock connector, which will debut in the new iPhone 5 later this year. The smaller connector port will replace the long-used 30-pin connector that was seen as a "standard" for all the current Apple products and accessories. Apple has used the standard 30-pin connector since it released the third-generation iPod back in 2003.

If these reports are true, then any cables or other accessories like speaker docks currently on the market will be made obsolete and Apple customers that already shelled out money for their accessories for their previous generation iPhones will need to open their wallets back up and re-buy everything they already own.

I'm generally a bit skeptical about iPhone rumors, as we have seen them be a major miss in the past. In this case though it's not all that unlikely that Apple would redesign the connector. After-all Apple loves to change up the game a bit and put in place proprietary designs that earn them a bit of extra cash flow (not that they need it). The 19-pin design would also make sense since it would save valuable space for the shrinking designs we see.