Making sense of sharing video with iPod and iPhone
As the iPod evolved, so did its features for sharing pictures and video out via various ports. With the introduction of the iPhone and iPod touch this year, Apple upped the ante with new capabilities, some requiring new accessories.
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's video-out story has been tightening all year. In September the company locked TV Out in the new iPods, breaking a wave of third-party video add-ons that had grown up around earlier players — a sharp turn for an accessory market the iPod ecosystem reporting had already framed as a business in its own right back in 2006.
This piece lands as the practical follow-up: with the iPhone and iPod touch shipping since mid-year, getting pictures and video onto a TV or projector increasingly means buying new Apple-sanctioned docks and cables rather than reusing what owners already had.
First-order effects
- Owners of pre-2007 iPods who relied on third-party video cables find those accessories don't work with the iPhone and iPod touch, forcing a fresh purchase of Apple-compatible docks and AV connectors.
- Accessory makers whose video products were orphaned by the September TV Out change now face a market where only licensed gear functions on the newest devices.
Second-order effects
- Third-party dock and cable vendors must either license Apple's authentication requirements or cede the video-out segment to first-party accessories, shifting that revenue toward Apple and its licensed partners.
- Retailers gain a higher-margin attach category: every iPhone or iPod touch sold carries a likely follow-on sale of a video-out accessory that the device cannot do without.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the dock connector hardens into a controlled gate for everything leaving the device — display output included — letting Apple tax each new capability through accessory licensing rather than open standards.
- That structure pushes the industry toward proprietary port economics on portable media devices, where compatibility is granted rather than assumed and revoked at each hardware generation.
The trend: Apple is converting media output from a free port feature into an accessory-licensing business, with each new device generation resetting which cables and docks still work.