Apple Patents A Stronger, More Flexible Lightning Dock

A couple of months ago, Apple released the official Lightning Dock for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Just like most of Apple’s products, the Lightning Dock was minimalist in its design and was rather straightforward – it was a platform with a Lightning connector to dock your phone on. It was simple and straight to the point.

However it also looked a tad fragile due to the way the connector was sticking out. This meant that it could be easily broken or have its connectivity severed if you were a little too rough with taking the phone out or putting it on. Interestingly enough, it seems that Apple has a patent that seems to address such concerns.

As you can see in the diagram above, it basically depicts a Lightning Dock in which the Lightning connector is able to rock back and forth together with the movement of the phone, meaning that if you were to pull out the phone at an angle, it should not damage the connector. According to Apple, this would absorb “undesirable forces … reducing a likelihood of the connector breaking from misuse.”

Oddly enough Apple did not implement such a mechanism in its official Lightning Dock even though the patent was filed for back in 2012. Perhaps it was too expensive to manufacture a more elaborate design, or maybe Apple decided that it did not work as well as it should. Either way we suppose if the current dock is too flimsy for your standards, perhaps you should look towards third-party docks instead.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: iphone 6, iphone 6 plus