Following on from their previous pictures of a new iPhone 5 dock connector photographed in situ, French site nowhereelse.fr has now posted detailed pictures of what the dock connector will actually look like. According to the site, the new dock connector will have eight gold pins housed inside a substantially smaller dock connector. A USB connector is given for comparison, and it is easy to see how much smaller the new connector will actually be.
The site unfortunately does not offer any details on the construction of the new dock connector and whether it would have a MagSafe connection to bring it into line with the Mac line-up. Certainly, previously published pictures have illustrated a novel dock connector with a metal ring around the connector that could act as a magnet, but this has not yet been confirmed. The other question is that of compatibility with Thunderbolt.
Apple has been rumored to be in the process of engineering an adapter that will allow the novel dock connector for the new iPhone to be connected to the existing universal connector that is currently in use for iOS devices and their third party peripherals. Given the enormous market in place for third party accessories for the iPhone, it makes sense that this would launch at the same time as the new iPhone.
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