Remember there is a chip inside every Lightning plug. I imagine that chip will be responsible for negotiating with the device to decide what pins to run each signal over as appropriate, part of which will change based on the orientation of the plug.

Did you ever see how the Lightning to VGA or HDMI adaptors work? They have a full SoC in them, and the device it's plugged into sends a slimed down kernel to that SoC to boot it quickly and launches an AirPlay daemon.


As an aside about the likely lifespan of Lightning for the iPhone. Rumors are currently pointing towards the iPhone 7 ditching the 3.5mm headphone jack. Headphones would plug in via Lightning instead, and such headphones have already been out for a while. Not sure I agree with the rumors, but also wouldn't put it past Apple to do this. The 3.5mm jack is already somewhat awkwardly added into the current iPod Touch and iPod Nano.