I know fans of Technology come in three stripes: Ones who think Apple has the best technology in the world, ones who love Linux and other open-source things like that (nobody outside their little circle pays any attention to them, though), and those that are just wrong. However, that being said, if you get an iPhone 5, all your previous iPhone gadgets are about to be rendered useless.
most docks for the iPhone I've seen don't have height limitation. the iPhone5 is the same width as the old ones. they can easily make a 19 pin to 30 pin adapter to support basic functions like charging and audio. HTC used to use their own USB plug that no one else use. it was also mini USB compatible.
I realize that there will be a number of cheap but effective third-party adapters. But when Apple comes out with its own brand new device for three times the money, I know which one *I* am going to buy.
Unfortunately, connectors and cables do change over time, often for good reason. Some examples: VGA->DVI Serial->USB USB->Thunderbolt In this, many people tend to say "why mess with something that works?" Well, in this case, by making the connector smaller, they have more room in the device for other stuff - a bigger battery, a better camera, more memory, etc. The biggest annoyance of this is going to be the iPod cables I have scattered around for charging my phone... They've all been gradually accumulated through a couple of different iPods, iPhones, and an iPad, such that I can have one everywhere I need it (at work, in the car, next to my bed, next to the couch, at my desktop at home)... having to replace all of those will be a pain. I'm not worried about third party accessories... The only one I have is a car dock, which has my old 2nd gen iPod hooked up to it permanently (that iPod has only ever left the car for content updates in the past 6 years).
The first rumors for the new iPhone connection was that it was going to be a micro-USB port, which has become the standard interface for many mobile devices. I'd prefer a micro-USB, because then all I'd need is one cord when traveling. But Apple is Apple: just as they refuse to have micro-HDMI output for HD displays (without another adapter at least), it seems that having their own proprietary interface is always going to be part of their marketing. There's no functional reason why the device's interface shouldn't be USB when the other connector is: but there's a sense of luxury if the interface is not as universal a standard. In the long run, the *yet another* new Apple interface won't render older ones obsolete. I'd jump on the iPhone 5 if it has 4G support: I could care less if it has the old or a new interface...especially since there will be a USB cable included. Since there are many 3rd party iPhone/iPod cables on Amazon going for under $5, the new interface is not what's going to render older iPhones/iPods obsolete. It's the overall software, processor, display, connection speeds that's driving smartphone advancement. There are enough consumers for the *soon to be older* iPhone interface that third party manufacturers will be making products for quite some time. *edit* on the issue of serial interfaces: it doesn't look like thunderbolt will be supplanting USB. The main popular data interfaces are eSATA for highspeed data transfer, and USB for general serial connections (standards 2 and 3 are well fast enough for general mobile transfers). The main issue computer companies have had is with digital display and audio outputs. HDMI requires a license, and there are a number of guidelines for being HDCP compatible for having digital video and audio. DisplayPort has been the digital display interface that many video card manufacturers have been including because it doesn't require the licensing fees/ is most like HDMI in specs. Thunderbolt was originally developed by Intel as a long run optical cable spec with LAN/USB3 speeds. Apple has changed the spec so that it's part of the PCIe bus (which most all devices are video). Most all of its applications are DisplayPort.
It'd be irresponsible for Apple not to include LTE on the iPhone 5 when the Ipad 3 has it. I think they learned their lesson on the first iPhone by not including a 3G radio. As for changing the plug to another non standard interface, I wouldn't to happy about that if I have a bunch of iDevices. All the previous iphone gadgets won't be compatible. That shiny new speaker dock you just bought for the new ipad won't work with the new iP5. All the cars out there with iPod interface won't work with the new iphone. It's sad. Maybe the new interface supports a host of new standards.
