The Apple iPhone 5 19-Pin Scheme

The first reveal of the upcoming design change. (Via)

Editorial ahead! Now that we're clear that some opinions are going to be stated, and I have that out of the way, let me ask you: Do you happen to own an iPhone? Looking forward to getting the next generation? Well as nice as it's probably going to be, you might as well throw away every single accessory you've ever bought for your previous phones. Every single accessory created for the phone since its launch in 2007 might be headed towards redundancy with the latest rumors, which state that all future iPhones will ditch the standard 30 pin charger cable for a smaller 19 pin cable. People are stunned by this possibility, myself included. I mean, why fix something that's seemingly not broken?

Have you guys ever heard of 'planned obsolescence?' It's a practice which encourages planning and designing a product so it's only useful for a limited time, before becoming obsolete. It's common practice, and used by many companies to create demand for the 'newer, better' model of the product. Yet this move is possibly prompted by the major accessory makers facing dwindling sales, as customers see no need to buy new accessories for a smartphone that had a universal dock system for 6 generations. What most tech blogs failed to address was the following question: Did the top accessory makers pad Apple's pockets, or hardball negotiate for an incentive to drop the standard cable as a means of forcing consumers to buy new accessories? We're inclined to think so.

Considering that three of the top accessory makers have been the first to confirm (TechCrunch) that they're working on 19 pin accessories already for the launch of the iPhone 5, the motive is simple : Greed. And why not? It's a fail safe business plan, designed to shake out the smaller accessory makers with tons of unsold '30 pin' stock and a good amount of people will probably conform to this odd decision without question. As for myself, after four years and owning 3 generations of iPhones I don't think I can support such practices anymore. As much as I'd love buying a slew of artificially overpriced accessories again, I'd rather start looking for an Android phone.

Edited 6/21/12 3:06pm CDT for clarity.
Edited 6/23/12 2:38am CDT for further clarity.