Photos of the much rumored new mini-dock connector have surfaced on nowhereelse.fr. The site says its unable to verify the authenticity of the part; however, it lines up with previous reports from iLounge and 9to5Mac.
iLounge had indicated that the connector has 8 pins while 9to5Mac found evidence in iOS of a 9-pin connector. The images show a connector with 8 pins; however, when adding the frame as a grounding pin you get 9 total.
With a 9 pin connector it wouldn't have been reversible with a plug in type... Go maths!
USB pictured is most likely the other end. It's a shame they didn't go for micro USB, I believe that the eu was trying to get phone makers to agree on a standardised port, makes a lot of sense.
If you read how they hired engineers outside to get this smaller connector to work and all of there outsourcing of specially jobs Then you'd understand they don't like too many specialty employees