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This Is the Ugly iPhone 5 Lightning Adapter You'll Need For All Your Old Accessories

If you're gung-ho on upgrading to the iPhone 5 and have a mountain of old accessories from previous generations of the iPhone and iPod, this is the ugly adapter you'll need to buy for all of your deprecated gear. The iPhone 5 introduces a new, and considerably smaller, Lightning connector that's incompatible with every single Dock Connector accessory ever released.

It's officially called the Lightning to 30-pin Adapter and is available for pre-order for $29 starting today, while it ships in October. Wait, what? If you were hoping to use your new iPhone 5 with your old accessories next week, that's apparently not going to happen for at least a few more weeks.

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And if you have an iPhone dock that's perfectly sized for the current generation iPhone, using that inch tall adapter simply isn't going to work. So Apple's also graced us with a more flexible option—literally—with a cable version of the adapter that's $10 more at $39. We all knew this day was coming, but who knew it would sting so much? [Apple]