Edible Apple

Apple is always scratching the ceiling for ways to make its products better. Sometimes this involves making products smaller, other times it may involve making a battery more power efficient, and sometimes it involves revamping the tried and true 30-pin dock connector Apple has used on the iPod, iPhone, and more recently the iPad, over the past 10 years or so.

According to a report from iMore, Apple is working on an “micro dock” that would enable Apple, with the saved space, incorporate a bigger battery into its products.

The reason isn’t anything political, like a new desire to conform to an outdated micro-USB standard, but typically Apple: to save space inside the iPhone 5 for what are now more important components.

Notably, a number of rumors have pointed to the iPhone 5 not only housing a larger screen, but also support 4G LTE networks. These two factors, even by themselves, but especially when taken together, demand outstanding battery life. The current lineup of 4G enabled Android handsets sport notoriously poor battery life.

The current 30-pin dock connector is by no means terribly large, but when you have a device as advanced and capable as a modern day smartphone, every piece of real estate, no matter how small, is incredibly important. Also, remember that when commenting on Apple’s patience with respect to rolling out 4G equipped iPhones, Tim Cook stated that 4G chipset designs were too bulky to meet Apple’s stringent design objectives.

“iOS devices probably can’t go Thunderbolt since they doesn’t use PCI Express architecture,” the report adds, “but that doesn’t mean the dock port can’t get smaller, doing everything it still needs to do in a PC free world, and saving Apple precious space inside the iPhone 5 package.”