Apple’s iPhone 5 will shrink the classic 30-pin connector and relocate its headphone jack to the bottom of the device, reports confirmed today.

Reuters confirmed reports that Apple is indeed scrapping its 30-pin connecter for a smaller connecter dock in an effort to further update its design and make room for the headphone jack, which will make its way to the bottom of the iPhone, compared to its current position on the top left corner.

“The iPhone 5, Apple’s next-generation iPhone expected to go on sale around October, 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,’” sources told Reuters.

Reports in the past month claimed that this shift in design was going to happen, basing the rumors upon leaked parts and insider sources. When larger media outlets, such as Reuters, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal begin reporting the findings, however, people tend to listen.

With a smaller dock connecter, third-party accessory gadgets for charging and syncing music, video and photos, will also have to be updated. iMore, who sparked the rumor about the smaller dock, confirmed after the Reuters report was released that Apple will produce an adapter that will allow users to continue using their 30-pin chargers

“While this seems like it should have been filed in the obvious drawer, because of all the questions we’ve been getting, and posts we’ve been seeing, iMore reached out to the original sources that gave us the new Dock connector story way back in February just to make doubly sure — and yes, there will be an adapter for the iPhone 5′s smaller dock connecter that will let it work with many of the accessories designed for the old 30-pin dock connecter,” iMore reports.

The key there is that it will work with “most” accessories. Apple has a knack of limiting third-party accessories after awhile. When you plug in certain chargers on certain devices, an error message could pop up saying the third-party accessory is not compatible with the device.

Apple has used its 30-pin dock in all iOS devices and early iPods since 2003.

Reaction Monday was mixed across the blogosphere and on Twitter to the news of the redesigned dock connecter.

“If they change the dock connecter every nine years, that’s fine with me,” one MacRumors forum writer posted. “This is quite normal in the world of computing. Nine years is a long time to keep using the same dock connecter.”

Others weren’t as forgiving.

“Earphone on the bottom?” One forum writer posted. “Cumbersome.”

“Is this a freaking joke?” One upset Apple fan writes. “You mean all the accessories that I have bought would be obsolete soon?” Way to tell people to use Android instead, Apple!”

The iPhone 5 is rumored to be released in October and feature a complete refreshed designed. That new design not only includes the smaller dock, but also a thinner body and larger, 4-inch screen. It will run on a quad-core A6 processor and have 1 GB of RAM.

by Andrew Dodson
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