Apple Digital AV Adapter
The iPad does HDMI at last
Review It’s not often that a mere cable merits a review of its own, but the Digital AV Adapter that Apple recently launched along with the new iPad 2 is worth a closer look.
HDMI ready: Apple's Digital AV Adapter
The cable plugs into the dock connector on the base of the iPad 2, and is also compatible with the original iPad, the iPhone 4 and the current fourth-generation iPod Touch. The other end of the cable provides a full-sized HDMI interface so that you can connect it to an HD TV, along with a pass-through dock connector so that you can still charge up the iPad at the same time.
There are two options when using the Digital AV Adapter with an iPad 2. If a specific app – such as Apple’s own Videos app on the iPad – has been designed to provide its own external video output then you can view the app’s output in full-screen on your HD TV.
The cable itself supports full 1080p output, and there are games on the way that will support 1080p as well, so you’ve got the potential for a pretty handy games console there.
Surfing mirror
However, the iPad itself currently only supports 720p output for video content, so that’s the resolution you’ll get when watching any HD films and TV programmes that you’ve downloaded onto the iPad.
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COMMENTS
Speaking as Idiot 3
I am a cable manufacturer, and specifically a China based, OEM supplier or Video cables and adapters.
When i said $5 tops it wasn't a figure i plucked out of either the air or my arse.
That pie you are eating, humble enough for ya?
+1
Apple rip folk off on video connectors. It's a fact of life. I have a box containing 9 different adaptors for connecting various MacBooks to external displays for visiting speakers (who refuse to pay the Apple after sales tax). I'm missing about 6 or 7 for the complete set, so some folk have a problem.
Oddly, my HP desktop, which has a video card which has 2 HDMI outputs came with 2 HDMI-DVI connectors. At no extra cost.
Similarly the Dells.
Giving an 80% rating for something that should be supplied as standard, or at most be a fiver, is a complete joke.
£35 for a cable.
At no point should this ever be deemed acceptable. By reviewing this product you are only helping to maintain this practise and support Apple and other OEM's in ripping off the end user. This assembly is manufactured for $5 tops, giving Apple a margin that would make Heroin delears green with envy. At some point in the process fo becoming a fanboi i would suggest that your common sense fell out of your ear.
Gonk because Muppet Icon is not available.
Pandering fail
"It’s not often that a mere cable merits a review of its own" Indeed.
Actually come to think of it, my new HP laptop came with a power lead. Review please. It's very good, I'd give it more than 80%. It works with ALL applications, and never says "I'm not going to charge from this socket". Oh, and I didn't have to buy it separately!
(However my wife's new iPod does say that it cannot charge from this accessory when plugged into our HiFi iPod dock, or plugged into the laptop using the Apple supplied iPod lead - FAIL 10%)
£35...??
'You could argue that an expensive gadget like the iPad should have HDMI as standard – but it doesn’t and that’s that.'
Erm, alternatively, you could mark it down for being a complete rip off?? £35 for what, £1 worth of manufactured cost cable?
I hook my Advent Vega up to my TV with a 3m flat HDMI cable that cost me all of a fiver.
£35 for a crappy cable is not value in any world I am aware of - 80% is absurdly generous given the price IMO, and that all it does is connect your iPad to your TV as expected, oh, except for when it doesn't work...
