Why the iPhone 5 Lightning to 30-pin adapter costs so much
We’ve had a chat with Apple and found out why their Lightning to 30-pin Adapter is a steep £25
If the thought of buying an iPhone 5 and then having to shell out a further £25 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 on What Hi-Fi starting at £150 and topping out around the £500 mark, the £25 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 for just £15, but that may not help much with your Apple speaker dock.
Swayed to get a new iPhone? Check out our iPhone 5 hands on review. Or if you’re still not convinced but want an EE compatible 4G handset there’s always the Nokia Lumia 920, the Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE, or the incoming HTC One X+ or LG Optimus G.
Read our in depth iPhone 5 review.
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Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
