iPhone 5: no third-party Lightning adaptors until New Year?

Apple cornering Xmas market for adaptors.

Apple will not begin hammering out terms with would-be manufacturers of accessories using the new Lightning connector until next month, reports reveal, apparently leaving iPhone 5 owners with no choice but to shell out for Apple’s own adaptor if they want to use older accessories with their new phone any time soon.

According to Apple Insider, the Cupertino-based tech giant has scheduled a meeting with accessory manufacturers in November to “discuss the terms of implementing the devices' Lightning connector”.

That news, coupled with the fact that the festive season is fast approaching, means it’s pretty unlikely that we’ll see third-party dock adaptors in the shops before Christmas.

Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, this will leave Apple’s own adaptor (yours for a not inconsiderable outlay of £25) as the only one on retailers’ shelves and leaves Apple looking at a(nother) nice little earner, as tech fans’ other halves search stores for apt stocking fillers.

Apple's conference is purportedly set to take place in Shenzhen in China on November 7th and 8th, with the aim of establishing guidelines for the Lightning standard.

The replacement of the 30-pin port that has been a fixture of every iPhone since 2007 in favour of a new 8-pin port has sparked no little controversy among Apple fanboys. Not least because it rendered accessories bought for earlier models obsolete – unless punters paid out for Apple’s adaptor.