Apple's got a good thing going with the iPhone and iPad lines, as they are some of the most well known products in the world and earns the company billions, but when it comes to their accessories the company is not without its flaws.

Take for example a very simple idea: The idea that you want to connect your phone or tablet to your HDTV and transmit the content to a bigger screen.

On many Android phones, this is a very simple thing to do via their HDMI port.
On the iPhone, well, it all depends on what version of their phone or tablet you have.

I found that out this week firsthand when I purchased Apple's AV Digital Adaptor, with this goal in mind. This is a pretty simple concept, I was told by people who had used it, and all you need is this little adaptor.

One problem I didn't anticipate: I was connecting an iPhone 4 to the HDTV, and that apparently doesn't work so hot. Nothing on the phone transmitted to the TV with an image other than a few YouTube videos. The rest were sound only; which doesn't do much for me.

After doing some research, I found that the only Apple devices the adaptor works fully with are the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2. Anything older, and it's hit or miss as to what you can transmit to your TV.

Sorry, Apple. But this is unacceptable. If you want to be a top-level phone (and the iPhone is a top-level on most levels), it shouldn't be that hard to transmit an image from your phone to the television. The fact that this adaptor costs $40 (far too much for a simple connector) and doesn't even work properly with a device as recent as the iPhone 4 is just crazy.

It is little things like this that make people unhappy with Apple. Quite frankly, the company is worth endless billions, so this oversight should be quite fixable.

My theory on this: They want you to buy the latest and greatest, so devices like this don't always work with older models on purpose.
And if my theory is true, well that's just disrespectful to the consumer.

Matt Myftiu can be reached at matt.myftiu@oakpress.com.