Other Hotel A/V panel Apple 30 pin Dock Connector port - how was this supposed to work?

[shaun3000]

I travel a lot for work. On several occasions I’ve seen this old A/V panel and wondered how the heck the Apple 30-pin Dock Connector was supposed to work. The dock connector is what attached to the Apple device, the other end was USB. So what did they expect to plug into this panel?

I’ve never seen a male-to-male dock connector. In fact, I’ve only ever seen cables terminate with USB. Was this just a bonehead design that was somehow approved for deployment to thousands of hotel rooms? Or am I missing something?

 

[matsan]

View attachment 2204024 I travel a lot for work. On several occasions I’ve seen this old A/V panel and wondered how the heck the Apple 30-pin Dock Connector was supposed to work. The dock connector is what attached to the Apple device, the other end was USB. So what did they expect to plug into this panel?

I’ve never seen a male-to-male dock connector. In fact, I’ve only ever seen cables terminate with USB. Was this just a bonehead design that was somehow approved for deployment to thousands of hotel rooms? Or am I missing something?

Impressive collection of legacy ports!

 

[retta283]

View attachment 2204024 I travel a lot for work. On several occasions I’ve seen this old A/V panel and wondered how the heck the Apple 30-pin Dock Connector was supposed to work. The dock connector is what attached to the Apple device, the other end was USB. So what did they expect to plug into this panel?

I’ve never seen a male-to-male dock connector. In fact, I’ve only ever seen cables terminate with USB. Was this just a bonehead design that was somehow approved for deployment to thousands of hotel rooms? Or am I missing something?

That is beyond strange. The only thing I can possibly think of is it’s meant to accept the old video adapters that used the 30-pin cable, but there’s already HDMI and VGA on this panel so it’s entirely redundant. The HDMI adapter Apple sold has a female 30-pin input on it as well, meaning there must be something more to this.

Edit: the point of the female end on the adapter is so you can charge from the wall at the same time, don’t know how I missed that.

 

[shaun3000]

That is beyond strange. The only thing I can possibly think of is it’s meant to accept the old video adapters that used the 30-pin cable, but there’s already HDMI and VGA on this panel so it’s entirely redundant. The HDMI adapter Apple sold has a female 30-pin input on it as well, meaning there must be something more to this.

Edit: the point of the female end on the adapter is so you can charge from the wall at the same time, don’t know how I missed that.

Yeah the old 30 pin HDMI adapter works like all the others with an HDMI port and a pass-thru for power. https://www.apple.com/ph/shop/product/MD098AM/A/apple-digital-av-adapter

 

[shaun3000]

Google-fu for the win! It is a product line called guestLINK. They sold a special cable that plugged into this port. I’m not entirely clear if the port on this panel is an actual Dock Connector or some generic 30-pin connector. Supposedly each panel included one of these cables that I’m sure never saw the light of day after installation. I bet every hotel that installed these has a box of the cables lost in a storage room somewhere in the bowels of the hotel.

guestLINK - Smartech - USB group

Ritek

www.control4.com.tw

 

[floral]

I’ve never seen a male-to-male dock connector.

We need to have LGBTQ+ inclusivity somewhere. :P

 

[shaun3000]

We need to have LGBTQ+ inclusivity somewhere. :P

🤣