iPhone 3G won't charge on the iPod Hi-Fi

by Volker Weber

iPhoneG3wontcharge

This is more than annoying. Whoever bought iPod equipment not sanctioned by Apple won't even be able to charge their iPhone 3G on those devices. That includes all the Bose and JBL speakers you bought earlier in good faith.

The joke here is that the iPhone is sitting on a genuine Apple product. Nice way of saying FU.

The original iPhone with 2.0 shows a different warning:

iPhonewillcharge

Comments

That is beyond rude. It’s bad enough they kept changing the proprietary docks with the original various iPod ranges, but to carry on with the iPhones is beyond the pale.

I know, I know, they love to make money out of the whole over-priced accessories market, but I do wish Apple would just make iPods and iPhones connect and charge via normal (i.e. at both ends) USB leads.

Ben Poole, 2008-07-18

I can live with the normal iPod/iPhone cable. The connector on the iPod side of things has a lot more contacts than you need for USB. What I demand however that Apple does not break existing equipment, especially not stuff they have sold themselves.

Volker Weber, 2008-07-18

I agree, this is ridiculous but couldn't somebody in charge at Apple just have overlooked this?
Perhaps it will be fixed in a upcoming update.

If not, I go along with Ben's comment: this is beyond rude...

Pieterjan Lansbergen, 2008-07-18

I wonder if that can be fixed through a software update. I mean, they *have* to do something, not even the iPod dock works...

Frank Koehntopp, 2008-07-18

I'm surprised that it specifically won't charge, but I've seen the "accessory is not made" message lots of times... Usually it's just an annoyance..

My impression is that the iPhone and newer video iPods have the dock connector locked down and any addon needs a specific chip to get full functionality from the connector. The chip is to protect and videos from getting off with DRM on them.

Apple's the only one that sells the chip so it's another revenue stream for them. I think this is the main reason why there isn't better bluetooth functionality... if there were, you could probably create add on's that didn't need the dock connector and as such accessory makers wouldn't need to buy the chip...etc....

David Leedy, 2008-07-18

Well, you don't buy apple for backward compatibility or 'value'.
You buy it because it's slick and well-designed.

Craig Wiseman, 2008-07-18

Apparently there are two ways to charge an original iphone, by sending power via the firewire dock-connector pins, or via usb pins. Apple has changed that in the new 3G phone...

This is from a MacWorld article :
...
We learned a while back that iPhone 3G doesn’t support charging “via FireWire.” The thing is, there are lots of devices out there that don’t actually have a FireWire port, but are technically FireWire chargers because they’re sending power on the dock-connector pins that were used for power by the FireWire interface. There are a lot of reasons for this, chief among them the fact that the FireWire spec allows as much a 18 volts, while USB is a 5-volt connection. Since cars provide 12 volts of power, many if not most car-chargers used the FireWire method to send power.

However, in the interests of space and simplicity (i.e., not having to engineer for two separate power paths), Apple has dropped support for FireWire charging with the iPhone 3G. This means that many accessories won’t charge an iPhone 3G. Borchers said that Apple gave accessory developers a strong hint that this was going to happen a while ago, but he said that some companies have continued to implement FireWire-based chargers despite the warning.

But there’s some hope in sight: Borchers told me that at least a couple of third parties will be releasing converters that will pass through the dock connection, but convert the power to a USB standard. That adapter may make many of those charging devices come back to life.
...
So there might be hope yet for an adapter. Still stinks though.

Alex Boschmans, 2008-07-18

Well, you don't buy apple for backward compatibility or 'value'.

I hate to be picky, but actually I do. For example, I buy Macs because they’re well-made, you get longer use out of the same machine, and they last, full-stop—that’s the value for me. As for backwards compatibility, again, look at the Macintosh platform:

680x0 line -> PowerPC -> Gx PowerPC -> Intel
System 7 -> System 8 -> OS 9 -> OS X & Classic

Ben Poole, 2008-07-19

The irony is not lost on me:

Apple gave accessory developers a strong hint that this was going to happen a while ago, but he said that some companies have continued to implement FireWire-based chargers despite the warning.

I am working with an Apple accessory here. :-)

Volker Weber, 2008-07-19

Alex has hit the nail on this one. In the past, dock connections powered both via firewire pins and USB pins. Now, the connection only powers via the USB pins.

Having just installed the be-all end-all entertainment system in my vehicle:

hands-free blue tooth phone via car stereo
xm radio
high def radio
cd
2 dvd players
2 video screens with a/b switches
350 watt power inverter
game plate with Wii infared bar

...I was quite worried that my damn iPhone (original version) wasn't going to work. As it turns out, the iPhone library works well, the blue tooth telephone works well (and doesn't require airplane mode), and my notes address book displays and can be navigated through the car stereo UI.

I won't be upgrading to the 3G, or it's follow-ons until I know it will work in this car and GPS topo maps are available for hiking through Colorado.

Lance Spellman, 2008-07-19

@Ben: I'm fully aware of macintosh, and have been using them since the Mac Plus. I don't want to turn this into a religious conflict. Macs are EXTREMELY well made and durable.

Re: Backward Compatibility - can your System 6 or 7 software run on your current Mac? My point is that exactly yours - Apple has moved chip architectures so easily by just mandating that your old software just won't work anymore - sorry just buy some new stuff.

Vowe's example is typical Apple - sorry, your old stuff won't work. If IBM or Microsoft did that folks'd be screaming. If Apple does it the reaction is, "Wow, that sucks. Let's buy 2 more iPhones to punish Apple."

This is precisely why Vista sucks SO much. The principal strong suit for M$ has been compatibility. You can run win16 apps on WinXP, and they function correctly. Not on Vista. Microsoft has tried to pull an Apple, but it runs contrary to what we expect of M$' operating systems.

Apple, by virtue of it's understanding of what's possible in computing gets a (justified) by and can charge a premium price as well.

It's a good deal if you can get it.

Craig Wiseman, 2008-07-19

nothing new, the ipone 1.0 brings the same message for similar (original apple) car docks. it still works ... but is not customer satisfaction driven, i guess.

ingo harpel, 2008-07-19

Re: Backward Compatibility - can your System 6 or 7 software run on your current Mac? My point is that exactly yours - Apple has moved chip architectures so easily by just mandating that your old software just won't work anymore - sorry just buy some new stuff.

Yes, my System 6 & 7 software does run on my Leopard machine. Come on, that’s not difficult to do on any platform nowadays. Anyway, I’m just being picky: we agree on this whole iPod accessory thing.

Ben Poole, 2008-07-19

Ingo. Read the message on the original iPhone very carefully. It is NOT the same.

Volker Weber, 2008-07-19

same here with my car ;-(

Marco Foellmer, 2008-07-19

- If IBM or Microsoft did that folks'd be screaming.

well at least Microsoft does that reguarly

Flemming Riis, 2008-07-19

How about the environment? Don't they care about that at Apple? Steve Jobs may be a nice guy, but why doesn't he take responsibility. I love Nokia's initiative to standardize on USB.

Feliz Canto, 2008-07-20

I have two docks for my original iPhone - both don't work with the 3G. Which, needless to say, pisses me off.

Stefan Tilkov, 2008-07-20

@Ben - sorry I was off camping with the scouts this weekend.

I'm glad your experience was (and is) far better than mine. I'd have to go and dig up versions and apps, but my memory was that I either had to ditch or upgrade just about all the apps I used.

Guess I'm just lucky....

Craig Wiseman, 2008-07-21

i just got a Sony CD Receiver MP3/WMA/AAC Player with iPod Direct head unit for my car a few months ago and the ipod connection cable worked fine with the first iphone and could charge and play music through the cable but it will only play music now and not charge with the 3G iphone. weak

matthew wright, 2008-07-22

I don't have this exact dock, but I was experiencing the same kind of problem with my H+K Dock. I bought this Charge Converter from CableJive and it fixed my charging problem. They said it works with many docking systems. I recommend checking it out:

http://cablejive.com/charge-converter

Bill Williams, 2009-05-19

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