Well, Duh: Apple Said To Release Adapter For The New iPhone’s Tiny Dock Connector

Earlier today, a Reuters report added more fuel to a particularly nitpicky fire — according to its typically unnamed sources, Apple’s new iPhone indeed sports a smaller, 19 pin dock connector instead of the 30 pin relic the company’s iDevices have clung to for years.

The news itself isn’t particularly shocking — our own John Biggs locked down the 19-pin number last month — but now a new report from iMore points to an even less surprising development. The Cupertino company is allegedly working on a dock connector adapter to keep those iDevice accessories from becoming completely obsolete, or so the story from iMore’s supply chain sources go.

Yeah, There’s literally no way that Apple would risk pissing off longtime iDevice owners by making their scores of old accessories useless in one fell swoop. Sadly, that’s all iMore was able to confirm. At this point, there’s still no word on whether or not such an adapter will find its way inside the new iPhone’s box, nor how much it will cost customers to purchase it separately.

While Apple hasn’t officially confirmed any of this (and don’t expect them to until September at the earliest), there’s more than enough smoke to signal a fire here. What’s more, the incessant clatter of the rumor mill points to plenty of big hardware additions — a larger screen, an LTE radio, NFC, and more — so it’s not much of a stretch to imagine Apple grappling with the prospect of squeezing everything into a slim new chassis.

Like it or not, this sort of move isn’t anything new for Apple. Most recently, the company launched the new MacBook Air and retina MacBook Pro with smaller MagSafe connectors because of their slimmer frames, but Apple has attempted to ease the pain by selling an adapter for $9.99.