Why the iPhone 5 Lightning to 30-pin Adapter costs so much

If the thought of buying an iPhone 5 and then having to shell out a further $35 for the Lightning to 30-pin Adapter – just to use your own speaker dock – has left a bitter taste, prepare for some sweet news.

Stuff has just had a chat with Apple about the steep price of that Lightning connector and it’s been revealed to us why. As you may have noticed the Lightning port is purely digital, but the old 30-pin connection in your car or on your speaker dock uses an analogue signal. Apple’s Lightning to 30-pin Adapter has its own DAC (Digital-to-Analogue Converter) allowing the iPhone 5's digital signal to be understood by your analogue dock – which isn’t a cheap or simple piece of kit.

With the cheapest DAC costing somewhere around the two or three-hundred collars, the $35 price and compact body suddenly don’t seem so bad. Of course if you just want to charge your iPhone 5, or attach via USB, there's a Lightning to Micro USB Adapter to, but that may not help much with your Apple speaker dock.

This article originally appeared at Stuff.tv