CRAZY OT - apple and stereo mini-plugs

why is it that apple is so hell-bent on making ALL their products so unfriendly with garden variety mini-plugs?

i was just at a clients party this evening and could have saved the day because their ipod battery died and the party music was no more. i whipped out my trusty iphone, full of fun party music and sadly, their mini-plug wouldnt fit...

from my old quadra days and now even my iphone, they recess their mini-plug jacks such that typical garden-variety, off-the-shelf, radio shack (and others) cables dont fit. hell, even the vinyl on my apple branded earbud/microphone is getting peeled back after only about 4 months use! i remember back in the mid 1990's i had to take a utility knife and strip back the rubber on most mini-cables, even once had to take a hand grinder to a metal collar.

GRRRR!

The recessed 1/8" jack on the iPhone has gone the way of the dodo. Currently shipping iPhones have flush jacks.

The original jack was recessed as a form of strain relief. If the phone has a flush jack and you've got it in the pocket of a pair of jeans with the headphones in, when you sit down stress on the plug in the jack can cause wear and tear on your headphones, and eventually failure. The jack was recessed in order to minimize this, by putting the stress on the molded part of the plug rather than on the joint where the business-end meets the molded part.

I guess the inconvenience of not being able to use any old plug outweighed what was actually a very sensible feature.

WOW, that dodo sure had a short lifespan...
okay, and the logic for doing that on the back of a tower was...?

poor - POOR design logic. yet apple never has been on the forefront of UID. hell they STILL havent made a mouse that was worth a crap since the apple ll days!

Them's fightin' words.

Signed,
a Mighty Mouse loyalist

uhmm... ok.

Yup.

BDD--Brain Dead Design!

- Loren
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I got a mini adapter when I purchased my iPhone.

Tiny, simple piece of plastic and metal.

$20.

Not brain dead at all. Just milkin' your customers.

OK, no secrete here, I'm not a big Apple fan, but I have grown to love my Mighty Mouse...