French site Nowhereelse.fr continues to post images of leaked next-gen iPhone components. They have now posted images of what it claims is the new iPhone’s smaller dock connector.
Reports from various news outlets and blogs have said that Apple would be ditching the present 30-pin dock connector in favor of a smaller version.
The images show the smaller dock connector along with the USB connector, giving an idea of the actual size of the new component.
MacRumors suspects that this could be the real connector that Apple ends up shipping:
The site notes that it can not confirm the validity of the images, but they do appear to show some features that could be consistent with what has been claimed about the new smaller dock connector. The connector shown in the images is considerably smaller that the existing dock connector, and the metal insertion piece appears to have 8 gold pins for making contact inside the corresponding port on the device. The insertion piece also appears as if it could be inserted into the iPhone in either orientation, as has been rumored.
Although multiple reports have predicted Apple’s switch to these connectors, the number of pins on the connector haven’t been consistent across these reports, with the number ranging from 8 to 19.
At first it might seem that these leaks point to an 8-pin connector, but MacRumors notes that the metallic frame around the connector counts as a grounding pin, bringing the number to 9 consistent with what has been seen in the iOS 6 SDK. This might also explain the metallic ring as seen in an earlier leak.
[via Nowhereelse.fr (Google translation)]
