Apple 339S0196
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Apple 339S0196
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| Designer | Apple |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 2012 (Lightning Digital AV Adapter) |
| Role | ARM SoC with 256 MB RAM — inside a video adapter |
| Devices | Lightning Digital AV Adapter (Lightning → HDMI) |
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The Apple 339S0196 is the famous computer hiding in a cable. When teardowns opened the Lightning Digital AV Adapter in 2013, they found this ARM system-on-chip with 256 MB of RAM inside the dongle: the adapter boots a minimal Darwin kernel sent over from the connected iPhone or iPad, receives video as a compressed stream, and decodes it to HDMI on the fly — because Lightning, unlike the old 30-pin connector, carries no raw video signal.
1 Legacy✎
The chip explained the adapter's telltale compression artifacts and its startling price, and became a running lesson in how far Apple will go to keep a connector simple: put a whole computer in the plug. It earns its place in silicon lists as the oddest member of the family.