In the fall of last year, Apple presented to the whole world the Lightning dock and Lightning connectors for iDevices, the new standard turning the entire industry of accessory manufacturers upside down. The technology thought by Apple for its iDevices is very complex, has a special security system, and is now protected by 3 new patents registered by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Patents registered now protect Lightning connectors and their ability to adapt their pins depending on the orientation in which the cable is inserted into a Lightning dock, one of the extremely complex parts of the whole system.
The present invention generally relates to connectors for connecting two devices. Specifically, certain embodiments of the present invention relate to reversible connectors with configurable contacts. Embodiments of the present invention provide techniques for dynamically configuring contacts of a host-side connector that is associated with a host system. In one embodiment of the present invention, a contact in the host-side connector is capable of being assigned one of several functions. The function to be assigned to the contact (and other contacts in the connector) may depend on the accessory coupled to the host system and the signals provided/used by the accessory. For example, when an audio only accessory is coupled to the host system, at least one of the contacts on the host-side connector can be configured to carry audio data.
Apple has a habit of fiercely protecting the technologies it implements in its products, patent registration being a normal process for such a large company.
