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Modify iPhone 5 cover to fit lightning to 30 pin adapter

I picked up an iPhone 5 for my wonderful wife last week and also got a lightning to 30 pin adapter so it would work with her iHome clock radio.  I had read some reports that the adapter was flimsy and made the phone stick up really high, but after using it for a couple days it seemed to work very well and there really was no problems with the phone being supported by the adapter in the iHome unit.  The trouble started when my wife picked up a nice cover for her iPhone5 and went then went to connect it to the lightning  to 30 pin adapter.  The end of the lightening end of the adapter is the full 30 pin width.  Since most people use a cover on their iPhone common sense would dictate that the adapter should be designed to be narrow enough to work with a cover.  Perhaps Apple demoted the folks that worked on their new maps application to the adapter division, since this is a pretty obvious design flaw.  My original intent was to file the edges of the adapter down so it would fit the cover, but a little googling led me to this picture http://apple-scene.com/lightning-to-30-pin-adapter-said-to-have-extra-durable-structure-several-chips.html that shows the inside of the adapter is actually metal and not plastic that would be easy to cut or grind down to size.  My backup plan was to modify the widen the bottom of the cover to allow the adapter to fit.  I was able to do this successfully by first drilling some holes in the cover (I used my drill press, which was probably overkill) with a slightly smaller diameter than the existing lightening hole and then filing the cover to the size I wanted.  Hindsight being 20/20, if I was to do this again I would simply have filed the cover with a small flat or round file to the size I wanted, since the file provides good control and it gives a nice clean finish (I made the opening a bit wide on the one side using the drill and could have kept it tighter had I only used the file).  Widening the opening also had the added benefit of exposing the speaker port and has improved the sound somewhat.

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2 Responses to Modify iPhone 5 cover to fit lightning to 30 pin adapter

  1. Tiffany December 12, 2013 at 3:14 am #

    I got one from Ohcases.com and mines for some reason didnt work where did your wife get yours from?

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