iPhone 5 connector to make accessories obsolete

Apple’s new iPhone will drop the wide dock connector used in its gadgets for the best part of a decade in favour of a smaller one, a change likely to annoy the Apple faithful but which could be an advantage for accessory makers.

The iPhone 5, the latest iteration of Apple’s wildly popular phone, expected to go on sale in Oct, and will come with a 19-pin connector port at the bottom instead of the proprietary 30-pin port “to make room for the earphone moving to the bottom”, two sources have revealed.

This means the new phone would not connect with the myriad of accessories, such as speakers and chargers that form part of the ecosystem around iPods, iPads, and iPhones, without an adaptor. That means new business, analysts say.