Not all of them follow it ofc (like micro USB when released) but a bunch of them do, and I'd recommend buying compatible for compatibility sake AND for support for it:
And I guess that means we won't get any more cable interface innovation for a while. Are we really that certain that micro USB -- I mean, USB-C -- is the format to standardize on for the foreseeable future?
Couldn't agree more. I don't understand why the HN crowd is so supportive of government telling people what to do, as evidenced by your rapid downvotes. I don't use an iPhone but I'm disappointed Apple caved.
hacker news was overrun with non-technical people (with no real engineering or economics knowledge) long ago (like 6+ years). hardly any interesting discussion or deep understanding here anymore
It's not much different than governments regulating electrical power oulets/plugs. And no one thinks that that should be a free-for-all.
Of course, there's still fragmentation among different continents/countries, but that was inevitable given the time periods these things were standardised. It's unfortunate that the world didn't decide on one standard, but at least almost all countries are internally consistent. There's no need to make the same mistake with USB.
We should allow electrical and networking companies to innovate again. If Cisco wants to use something else instead of RJ45, they should be allowed to be.
And all because Apple refused to play ball and just adopt USB-C like the rest of the industry. They're too used to US regulators that just roll over and don't follow through with their threats.
For over a decade the EU has tried to get the industry to adopt a common standard without mandating it in law (we got microUSB on all phones instead of the previous proprietary ports thanks to the 2009 voluntary EU memorandum of understanding that had no problem with manufacturers upgrading to USB-C when it came out), and only Apple kept on refusing to do it.
USB-C exists because apple didn't "play ball" and use USB-mini or USB-micro like the rest of the industry and developed the lightning port [0] (see comments on this article).
I'd say the one exception here is removing the headphone jack. I'm still really salty about that one. Even as a Pixel owner...the downstream ecosystem effect was everyone removing the headphone jack. And most Android phones didn't even get the waterproofing benefits!
Bluetooth just STILL isn't there from a reliability perspective. Even with the latest Gen 2 AirPods, I talk to friends who continue have sporadic stuff where a single bud cuts out, or you have to reconnect to get the mic working, or etc. etc... Just give me a damn analog plug and let me hear/talk!
Anecdotally, I haven't had any problems of the problems you describe on the latest AirPods Pro. And I like the ability to wander the house without dragging my MacBook Pro around -- I can get surprisingly far away before it starts to cut out. It's not perfect, mind you; on rare occasions they won't connect to my phone at all, requiring a restart, but once connected they're fine. And one time the left and right AirPods became veerryy slightly desynced, which was a bit trippy ...
The main problem I have with bluetooth is that some devices make it kind of a pain to connect. It's not a huge deal, but it's not as simple or as quick as simply plugging in a cable.
I'm aware, but it's just one more thing to carry, keep track of, break, lose, etc.
Except in the case of USB-C headphones, but I like to be able to use my headphones with _any_ device, and not just a USB-C device. Plus, it turns out that headphones like my bluetooth Sony...XM3 or whatever...they _have_ USB-C for charging, but you can't actually use that interface for anything but charging. In fact, they don't even support BT while plugged in.
Plus, given I like to use analog headphones for my PC and home receiver, it's frustrating the way that the ecosystem has been bifurcated according to all these lines. E.g. if the headphones I want to buy are USB-C only, now I need a USB-C -> analog adapter as well in order to plug them into my stereo.
> And all because Apple refused to play ball and just adopt USB-C like the rest of the industry.
History lesson: Apple worked with the USB-IF to create USB-C, to make sure it met their needs for both USB and Thunderbolt. They were the first to put USB-C on a laptop, the 12" MacBook in the spring of 2015 — an amazing feat considering that the spec was just finalized in the fall of 2014. They were also the first company to release a laptop with just one USB-C port for power/expansion.
Lightning was pre-USB-C. When it was introduced, Apple committed to support for 10 years.
If you want to invent a conspiracy theory that makes Apple look bad, here it is: If Apple would've switched to USB-C without an EU mandate, they would've received mountains of bad press about the unprecedented amount of e-waste and confusion that will result because of this switch. So they pressured the EU to mandate the change to a standard that Apple helped pioneer so that Apple's environmentally-friendly record would remain unblemished.
>So they pressured the EU to mandate the change to a standard that Apple helped pioneer so that Apple's environmentally-friendly record would remain unblemished.
Remember when they made us trade our 30-pin cables to Lightning cables?
Remember when they made us trade our headphones with 3.5mm jacks to wireless ones or get a dongle?
Remember when they made us trade our Lightning cables to USB-C cables?
Remember when they made us trade our MagSafe chargers for MagSafe 2 chargers?
Remember when they made us trade our MagSafe 2 chargers for USB-C cables?
(At least we can still use those USB-C cables alongside MagSafe 3 cables)
Remember when they made us trade our first-generation Apple Pencils to second-generation Apple Pencils?
If switching support for one type of hardware for another type of hardware is an environmental blemish by creating e-waste, then Apple's record surely is not spotless.
> So they pressured the EU to mandate the change to a standard that Apple helped pioneer so that Apple's environmentally-friendly record would remain unblemished.
Is this why apple's repairability index is always so low? Because by allowing their devices to be repaired they avoid being put in the landfills?
They totally don't use proprietary screws, and glue to help you repairing your device.
And again, they are changing thanks to.. legislation...
Companies are trying to move to wireless charging anyway, so innovation would have been expected to be in that direction, and that will not be hampered.
Lightning? Certainly at the time it was released it was a far superior connector than the alternatives. USB-C wins out IMO but only because of its now-ubiquity. Lightning is still, I think, a slightly better connector for a handheld.
Lightning was 10 years ago, and that was to replace the then nine-year-old 30-pin Dock connector. And I think the only feature that the Lightning connector had over the 30-pin was that it was reversible. Unless we count the size as a feature?
Actually, the 30-pin connector had a bunch of functionality that was lost when Apple moved to Lightning. The 30-pin connector could for example carry analog audio. The Lightning to 3.5 mm headphone jack adapter needs to have a tiny DAC inside it to actually convert to analog signal.
So if the suggested premise is that we are not going to be seeing "any more cable interface innovation", I'd argue that we weren't seeing much from Apple anyways.
Though the timing is uncanny because when Lightning was announced they said it was going to be around for ten years.
Obviously that didn’t factor into the EU ruling, but 2022 is the tenth year of lightning. So if they switch next year that’s an amazingly accurate prediction.
Not an expert but I would think not putting a board in is way easier than putting in a different one. It's also harder to manage supply for two different boards with different connectors, making different cables, split the accessories ecosystem etc.
Apple, esp. under Tim Cook, is super efficient when it comes to this stuff.
True, but that sounds like a PR nightmare. In that case I would expect them to go no-ports worldwide and claim that their amazing MagSafe charging is superior and how bold they are.
Don't forget Apple's Lightning patents run out soon.
I think rather than ride it alone in the carnage of out-of-spec Lightning kit that would undoubtedly flood the market, getting switched to USB-C (while the customers blame regulators for having to buy new accessories) is probably better for Apple.
You really think Apple applied for a patent for Lightning in 2002? 5 years before the first iPhone and 10 years before the first iPhone that had Lightning?
>Apple sold more than 2.2 billion iPhones and more than 360 million iPads before they stopped making numbers public.
>Say for every second iPhone or iPad sold, a user bought just one extra Apple Lightning cable for $19 which probably costs Apple around $1 (if not less) to make.
>That’s give or take $43.5B on Lightning cable sales alone.
I don't follow, `(2.2B + 360M) / 2 * 18` is not 43.5B.
That number is pulled from deep inside somebody's bowels.
The one spare cable per two devices attach rate seems pretty high to me. One, because people won't necessarily buy apple-branded cables when they can buy cheaper third party ones instead. Two, because a lot of the people who are sufficiently deep into the Apple ecosystem that they would buy original cables probably have a bazillion of them lying about anyway, because you get them with the Apple TV, and the Magic Keyboard/Mouse/Trackpad, and the airpods, and all your old phones, and probably some other devices I'm not thinking of right now. So the actual revenue from cable sales seems awfully inflated.
Then there's the counterfactual: Whatever revenue they do get from cables, they wouldn't lose it all. If you consider the people who buy Apple-branded Lightning cables instead of third party cables, I'd hazard guessing that most of them would still have bought Apple-branded USB-C cables if the devices used those. Apple sells USB-C charge cables (like the ones that come with the iPad) for the same $19 as the Lightning cables.
Put the two factors together, and I can't see the economics of cable sales being the driver for something as fundamental as the ports on their flagship products.
I’m glad the WSJ is covering that but have you checked energy prices in Europe when compared to last year?
Newspapers can say whatever, the reality on the ground is that energy prices have gone up 5-10x in the past year.
Some problems are not even worth mentioning before the big ones are solved. Sometimes you have to hone all your energy to solve the big problems and worry about the small ones later. Priorities and such.
As far as I see the EU govt is more interested in image than actual solutions. Taking on Apple and winning looks sexier than fixing the very unsexy problem of energy or inflation.
The law has been on the books for years and has been enacted for a while already. It's Apple who's making an announcement here -- that they are bravely deciding to follow the law.
And the EU has multiple employees. They can work on different things at the same time.
When we're constantly adding more data transfer functionality and power capabilities to USB-C, I don't buy the "but muh innovation" argument.
The magic of USB-C isn't in the physical interface, it's in the chips that connect to the interface (both in the device and the cable). And if those chips want to change the pinouts after bootstrapping via the current pinout configuration, they can and will.
I don't see anybody complaining about the RJ45 format, or NEMA. If you let companies run wild they would probably come up with a way to shove DRM into connectors.
Oh, people complain about NEMA all the time. It's objectively the worst commonly used socket+plug system from a safety perspective. It's somewhat mitigated by the common voltage being half of what the Europlug etc sees.
RJ45 (akchually 8p8c) also has its issues: people complain about how easy it is to break off the stupid plastic tab all the time.
There's proto-DRM in SFP connectors though, you're right. There's an EEPROM in the connector since it needs to negotiate with whatever it's plugged in to, and companies like Juniper and Cisco will only support their own optics (at least, they used to).
No argument there. The Europlug is another innovation stifling regulation though. We should allow developers/homebuilders to select the socket of their choice, even develop their own proprietary ones.
Sounds great. I want to buy a new charger or adapter every time I travel to a different country.
If we're at it we should also stop using SI units and go back to the times where every city had a different unit of measurement. Maybe we should go further and let companies develop their own units of measurement to allow for more innovation.
Sadly, that is the state of discourse that's coming from the innovation POV. The entire tone of these arguments boils down to an appeal to "common sense" with nothing backing it.
And, as repeatedly pointed out, it's not like the EU is preemptively stifling all potential replacements. They're explicitly carving room in the laws for those replacements when they're ready.
It stifles innovation because anyone who wants to use a new connector has to lobby some EU bureaucrats.
How long have we had to click through cookie consent popups on every website? You’d think the EU would be able to update their laws to fix something so simple and annoying. I expect their phone connector standards to be administered with similar competence.
Except that the regulation doesn't do any such thing (the USB-C mandate will expire automatically after a few years) and the innovation angle is just bloviating from people who haven't read the regulation and need a desperate need to defend their rich mega corporation.
> Except that the regulation doesn't do any such thing (the USB-C mandate will expire automatically after a few years)
The precedence has been set.
> and the innovation angle is just bloviating from people who haven't read the regulation and need a desperate need to defend their rich mega corporation.
lol dude, aside from your clear lack of knowledge in economics - you're never going to learn anything with that attitude.
>Caring about precedence
>On roman Law
lmao precedence of this kind would mater if this was the commonwealth but historically precedence has meant nothing in the EU
That's the thing about roman law, just because one judge decided fucking people in the ass is correct it does not mean everyone should agree. So don't use the tools for the analysis of anglo law in this.
You realize that “magic” isn’t being enforced by the as usual short sighted EU?
There is no requirement to ship USB cords that actually transfer data at USB3 speeds or actually any mandate to have cables that support data at all. What do you think the chances are that cheap Android phones will ship with more expensive cables that can transfer at USB 3 speeds?
Not to mention that I doubt that the cheap USB cords will support video over USB C - something that USB C iPads already support.
All I expect out of a USB-C cord shipped by apple with my phone is the ability to charge (which is what I get with an iPad, which uses USB-C). I'd love to expect more, but a Thunderbolt cable is stupidly expensive and not worth including by default.
Standardization around the markings and marketing for USB-C cables would be f'ing awesome. But I'll take this win regardless.
It’s not Apple that you have to worry about not supporting the full spec - they already do with USB C iPads.
It’s the Android manufacturers and your local convenience store. Meaning it is still “contributing to ewaste” when you can’t use your old USB C cords to get all of the functionality that is part of the USB C spec.
This is yet another example of EU regulators not thinking through their proposals — see also the GDPR whose only consequence is a bunch of cookie pop ups.
I'm sorry, but I don't see how we can lay the blame for corporations cutting corners on completely unrelated legislation.
I get that there can be unintended consequences with passed legislation, but these seem too disconnected to be relevant. As in, there have been substandard USB-C cables since USB-C first came out.
The existence of those cables can't be laid at the feet of requiring Apple to use USB-C on the one remaining device they offer which doesn't use USB-C.
The aim was to “prevent ewaste” by “standardizing cables”. The “standard” that the EU is mandating doesn’t do any of that if an Android user who bought an iPhone can’t use the “standard” cable to its potential.
So exactly what did it accomplish? Did it affect Facebook or Google at all or any adTech company?
When ATT was implemented by Apple, many ad tech companies announced it impacted them. You didn’t hear a whisper after the GDPR. Websites just started putting up annoying cookie banners and life continued.
What do you want exactly? Make tracking illegal? Make advertising illegal?
The law demands you ask the user for consent, if it made tracking illegal people would complain about their freedom to sell their private data for cat pictures.
There are consequences for GDPR, maybe you did not see any but I can assure you that there were news about fines and you can Google for that.
I can also inform you that at my work place GDPR also had an effect.
What you need is browser makers to get involved and improve the situation, I am sure you would have hated EU to tell you how to implement a ""do not tack" in your browser. The main issue is that Chrome is controlled by Google and they don't want to help with privacy. But who knows maybe your favorite company Apple will push and implement a consent for tracking API .
Btw here in EU GDPR also has effect in real world, just an example before GDPR you would get exam results published publicly with names, now you get a serial number and instead of names the results will ahve this serial number, nobody will know what your results are. Same if you go to a clinic to do a blood tests, they need to give you a paper and specify exactly what they will do with your data.
Big tech is trying to avoid doing the right thing as much as possible but they will pay larger and larger fines until they will have to respect the users.
> Btw here in EU GDPR also has effect in real world, just an example before GDPR you would get exam results published publicly with names,
In the US, for decades not even parents could know about their college students without the students signing paperwork.
> Same if you go to a clinic to do a blood tests, they need to give you a paper and specify exactly what they will do with your data.
HIPAA in the US never required cookie pop ups and has been the law for decades.
Its not exactly making a strong argument that there is one really complicated 11 chapter 99 section law that tries and failed badly to address different goals.
Yes, but HIPA is like EXTREMELY limited, GDPR apples to everything not only websites, mI attempted to clarify this since many confuse GDPR with "cookie law", so GDPR can't tell web-developers how to implement the popups or buttons since is a generic thing, the law specify that accepting and rejecting should be similarly easy , if it is not then you will need to report this bussiness and it takes time for them to get fined.
I am not sure why you guys in US see those popups, the websites could just continue tracking you and sell your data.
I actually sprung for a new phone this generation (14) since it was rumored that it would be the last of the Lightning models. Gotta get maximum usage out of all the Lightning stuff laying around the house.
It's sad that it took legislation to make this happen, but I can see why.
I worked in a pseudo-Apple-store during the height of the 30-pin dock connector and I sold so many cases, speaker docks, charging cables, and all sorts of weird accessories that were built for the 30-pin connector.
Then Apple switched to Lightning. It was better in every. single. way. And yet people got burnt. There was so much hardware that was now incompatible that people understandably didn't recognise the benefits of the Lightning connector.
This mattered far less for other companies because of the lack of brand recognition. If someone switches from one non-Apple device to another non-Apple device, they don't necessarily expect to keep using the same cables, and back in the day every manufacturer had their own. The expectations of Apple were higher only because of that brand recognition.
Sadly, the fact that so many got burnt in the Lightning transition means that there is _still_, a decade later, a resentment among many. I've spoken to so many people who don't like Apple devices, who when asked why say things like "they're always changing their cables". It's obviously not true, but to most people who aren't familiar it might as well be.
I think this even burnt the MFI manufacturers. 30-pin compatible speaker docks and other accessories were very widely available, but there are far fewer devices made for Lightning. There are other factors here like the rise of Bluetooth and Wifi enabled devices, and the demise of the iPod, but I think manufacturers also knew customers didn't want Apple specific connector hardware anymore – I know I didn't.
Ironically, the long-delayed USB-C transition has probably had the opposite effect. In attempting to compensate for the public view of Apple changing connectors, they've become somewhat known as being the company with the wrong connectors. It's sad, given Apple's core role in defining the USB-C spec, but it's understandable.
I look forward to a USB-C iPhone. It's a shame it took legislation to make it happen, but I understand why given how long customers' memories are about the 30-pin connector. As much as we'd like to think USB-C was the "right answer" several years ago, it's a bit more complicated than that.
Try asking the same enthusiasts who are adamant that switching to USB-C is no big deal and legacy cruft needs to be eliminated what they think about switching to a new PCIe power connector.
Forget the 12VHPWR problems, we had a push for a new connector last gen too and it was universally reviled for some reason. People do not want a new connector, let alone a new voltage rail to help move that power a little more safely, they just wanna keep doing 8-pin forever even when it swells to 4+ connectors and starts dictating PCB layouts etc.
If people want to be evenhanded and honest about seriously looking at legacy standards, it's time to have a chat about ATX and PCIe add-in-card form factorand their relevance in the 21st century. It's time for a new connector and new voltage rails and new form factors for GPUs in general, that standard dates back to the original AT PC (ATX is literally "AT eXtended") and a PC no longer looks anything like it did in 1980.
The "add-in-card" is now pulling more than the actual CPU and the growth of the coolers makes supporting them physically difficult, and the chaos in the market has made solutions impossible because there is no standard for physical dimensions or connector plug-points etc. This is textbook, it's the exact same situation as pre-USB connector standards, everyone is doing their own sizes and layouts and it's chaos. Why should we not have government intervention to impose some common standards and get everybody on the same page so solutions can be engineered and we move forward? Why should a GPU not be a 6x4x12 inch box (or a set of other standard sizes) that slides as a module into the case with high-current connectors in a standardized location? No more GPU sag, no more 4x8pin, just one XT90 jag that contacts as you slide the module into its receptacle on a rail. Sounds like heaven to me.
EU should look at giving a standards body a mandate to move forward past that and we can work towards mandatory adoption of the new standard and outlawing the sale of legacy ATX within 5-10 years. That sounds extreme but it's what we did for USB-C, right? But it's different when it's your sacred cow and you have to pay for new hardware...
> The contrast between "force Apple to stop adhering to legacy standards, USB-C is the future!!!" and "gubmint hands off muh 8-pin aux connectors!!!" is interesting.
Both of these are the same stance to me, "existing industry standards appear to suffice, why foist something different on the market?"
I don't think governments are behind a lot of these changes so that last bit is probably exaggeration but seems misplaced; it's Nvidia, Apple, etc choosing these connectors for their products.
reminder: lightning came first, because the industry couldn't get its shit together and agree on a successor to micro-b, despite acknowledgement of the shortcomings.
lightning is the pcie 8-pin in this comparison: you may not like the technical limitations it imposes, but, it works well enough that you can build products around it. So why impose a change to The Current Thing and do this whole big changeover if it's already working well enough?
could it be better? sure. And you could do better than pcie 8-pin too. But that's the hardware that's in people's hands right now.
> I don't think governments are behind a lot of these changes
sure they are, what do you think this article is literally about? The EU handed a technological monopoly via legislative fiat to the USB-IF here. You don't have to follow it, but you can't sell your goods in the EU if you don't.
Why could we not require DIY parts sold in the EU to adhere to a new "pcie module" standard and outlaw sale of legacy form-factors outside enterprise/specialty use-cases (like engineered HPC systems and other enterprise, non-consumer products)? Most of those guys are on their own mezzanine standards anyway for the important stuff. Just declare "we're gonna make the change" and give companies a few years to implement it and get hardware into consumer hands, and then flip the switch and ban sale of the legacy products. It's not a big deal to update if you actually get buy-in from companies, but you can't have half the industry go one way and half the industry go another, because then it's a mess, and in the meantime if you have half the companies digging in their heels nothing changes. Just like USB connectors.
The really ironic thing is that if PCIe could make the same transition as USB - towards 48V power delivery - it would all be a lot easier and safer. USB is literally the model for moving forward here lol, and if you upgrade your PSU you could even keep your legacy connector (48v lets you deliver 4x the power at the same current). But people aren't interested in moving forward for the sake of moving forward - the interest in ditching legacy standards vanishes as soon as you bring up a standard their brand favors.
It's just an extension of the brand wars. It's not about USB-C vs Lightning, you could simply mandate adoption of the power delivery standards and usb 3.0 speeds (ipad pro already supports usb-3.0 over lightning) if you wanted. It's about Android vs Apple and people are only interested in ditching legacy standards when it can be tied to their brand war. People absolutely don't care about the connector, and it's not about what came first (which was Lightning). They care about The Other Guy getting a thumb in their eye and having the EU legally outlaw the Apple standard. The thrill of having the EU legislatively confirm that Android Is Better.
And ATX vs future-power is turning into a proxy war for AMD vs NVIDIA too. It's mildly disgusting, like sure I'd love to move forward on eliminating legacy standards cruft, but if you want to talk sacred cows then ATX/pcie-add-in-card are #1 and #2 on the list. People aren't raising the "legacy standard" thing in good faith at all, it's just brand warriorism and the instant you ask them to change their crufty legacy standard the answer is no.
Brands are now competing and marketing to customers on the basis of refusing to adopt the new standard despite its official adoption into ATX - that's so obviously problematic that it invites the same kind of governmental action as the EU took with USB. This is how you're supposed to do it according to the USB model and industry-consensus model that the EU favors. But oh, this is my brand and my sacred cow, you can't make me change a cable, that's not fair! And literally it's the most mild possible change, ATX working group is bending over backwards to maintain PSU compatibility and it's causing problems with heating/connection quality/damage. Really we need to move up to 48V like USB did, but enthusiasts are going to pitch an even bigger hissy fit over that.
DisplayPort is a standard too. So is HDMI. They're not USB-IF standards, but they're a standard. And there can exist more than one organization promulgating standards in an area, sometimes even (gasp!) private, closed, for-profit ones (like HDMI). Like HDMI is so closed and proprietary you can't even implement HDMI 2.1 on linux lol, it's still a standard.
If you want to make a HDMI cable, or have HDMI on your device, step 1 is opening up your checkbook and writing a big fat check to the single, private, for-profit company who controls that standard. Just like Belkin, OWC, Sonnet, etc all license Lightning from Apple. Still a standard, even if you don't like the licensing terms.
Also, post on your main, you coward. Like did you literally spin up a throwaway to post edgy one-liners about fucking USB lmao
"A de facto standard is a custom or convention that has achieved a dominant position by public acceptance or market forces"
I think we were using the word standard to mean something different here, I apologize.
Going back to your argument, the reasons I typically see push for USB-C connectors are generally not technical and more about USB-C being _the_ standard connector and cutting down on e-waste.
like HDMI doesn't have DRM, or onerous licensing controlled by a singular, for-profit entity?
oh right "Apple bad, barely even a standard!!!"
Sorry if it sounds frustrated but this just isn't a very interesting tangent, either you or the throwaway coward. It's still a standard even if you don't like the licensing terms or the feature set/implementation/etc. Stop being pedantic, it's not interesting, it's not even technically correct, it's just tedious.
Terminal HN brain in action.
Anyway: much like HDMI, the licensing dollars of hundreds of companies and the worldwide adoption % says that it is a standard, even if a for-profit entity controls it, and even if you don't like the features/licensing. If you're going to be pedantic and tedious, at least be correct, nothing in Webster ever mentions that a standard has to be controlled by an industry body or names USB-IF specifically.
Again though, this is a ridiculous tangent that people are doing to avoid actually addressing the core point about the obvious parallels between USB-C and a new ATX power connector.
We're moving away from proprietary "standards" more and more every year, weather Apple likes it or not. If Apple wanted a different outcome, it should have made lightning an open standard an gifted it to USB-IF.
Closed "standards" are bad, but in this case even if it were an open standard the industry was forced to chose one of them so every device can use same cables and peripherals. It is not EU fault that the industry except Apple chose USB and is not EU fault that Apple decided to use USB in US.
Proprietary anything is bad. Apple is bad because it uses proprietary hardware. There is no "Apple standard." There isn't a "brand war" either. USB isn't a "brand," it's an industry consortium that designs connectors that anyone can use. Apple is bad and it should feel bad.
> lightning is the pcie 8-pin in this comparison: you may not like the technical limitations it imposes, but, it works well enough that you can build products around it. So why impose a change to The Current Thing and do this whole big changeover if it's already working well enough?
That would be valid if everyone was using it.
If all phones had lightning I would be much less inclined to make them change it.
> But that's the hardware that's in people's hands right now.
The hardware that's in people's hands right now is overwhelmingly USB C. That's why the motivation exists to get Apple to be compatible.
> 48V power delivery - it would all be a lot easier and safer
I don't know, that's getting pretty high. Do you then convert directly from 48v to 1.1v or do you need to add a second conversion stage onto GPUs?
1. As you mentioned, most accessories have moved to wireless. I still (usually) use a physical cable for charging, and I guess I have a 3.5mm dongle, but I think those are the only two things I've plugged into my iPhone in years. Docks with a physical port, in particular, were super popular 10+ years ago and don't really exist anymore. People won't be throwing away speakers.
2. They aren't switching to a new proprietary port, they're switching to a standard port. Which means there's already a thriving ecosystem of accessories that will now be usable with iPhones (some of which people may already have, for use with their other devices!)
I'm more cynical in my interpretation of Apple's motives: I think they just wanted those licensing dollars
I already use my laptop charger for giving the phone extra juice when I'm sitting, now my wife will be able to do the same with her iPhone. Same in the car, only one cable.
> I'm more cynical in my interpretation of Apple's motives: I think they just wanted those licensing dollars
They've switched every other non-iPhone device to USB-C. The more plausible interpretation would be that they don't want to piss off a core constituency of customers who've built up 10 years of Lightning cables. The number of people who care about standardizing on USB-C are definitely less than the vocal folks who will now complain loudly that Apple just forced them to buy a whole bunch of expensive new cables.
At least USB-C is more durable by far than Micro USB was, even if it's not as durable as Lightning. Nothing can fix the stupidity of USB-C cables, though. What a mess.
> They've switched every other non-iPhone device to USB-C
The only device I know of that started out on lighting and switched to USB-C was the iPad, and that was specifically because they're pushing it as a "creator" device, for which people needed to be able to plug in things like flash drives, SD card adaptors, cameras, mice and keyboards, etc. There's significantly less drive for those kinds of accessories on iPhone
People expect to be able to charge the headphones they use for their phone the same manner they charge their phone. I suspect they'll be quick to change over such accessories once they change the phone port - they have had several smaller revisions to the non-pro AirPods, such as adding support for wireless and MagSafe charging cases. We will likely just be able to buy a new case when that happens.
The real surprise is that the mice, keyboards and trackpads haven't gotten a meaningful update in a long while, so there's no USB-C on any of them. You'd think they would have long ago decided to switch those to USB-C, since the computer ships with a C charger - and because they could justify removing the bundled cables from the packaging.
I think there's more drive for that than you'd expect. The camera breakout kit is really popular in my circles. Not for cameras, but for talking to USB audio interfacs.
> The only device I know of that started out on lighting and switched to USB-C was the iPad
The new AppleTV remote
> and that was specifically because they're pushing it as a "creator" device, for which people needed to be able to plug in things like flash drives, SD card adaptors, cameras, mice and keyboards, etc.
Apple has sold a USB to Lightning adapter for ages.
Last week, with the new Apple TV the remote switched from Lightning to USB-C charging. That indicates that they are now in the process of transitioning accessories. It’s a pretty clear indicator of an overall shift in their plans.
> ”The number of people who care about standardizing on USB-C are definitely less than the vocal folks who will now complain loudly that Apple just forced them to buy a whole bunch of expensive new cables.”
I don’t think that’s true. Even hard core iPhone users likely already have multiple USB-C devices and cables, and the existing chargers are already USB (A or C) and will continue to work just fine. Apple does still include a charge cable in the iPhone box.
It’s not like the old days when people were invested into all kinds of accessories with 30-pin connectors. Most people just don’t care that much about a few Lightning cables and will be glad to rid of them.
We have 2 recentish iphones and an old c. 2016 ipad, but we have at least 10 lightning connections around the house, car, etc to plug into.
We obviously aren't going to replace all 3 devices at the same time, so it means that the first device we replace will suffer from not having the places to plug in that we currently can (sofa, kitchen, bedroom, car, office, bag, etc), or we have to get more power supplies in those areas, and over time we'll have to get another 10 cables to replace them (and usb-c cables are a total mess)
We'll adjust of course -- we were burnt when they dropped the dock connector meaning we couldn't use two of our radios any more, but we didn't make that mistake again
The good news is that all functional USB-C cables will generally charge at 30W. They might not be able to go above 30W, they might only have USB 2.0 speeds. The USB-IF has only just now come up with IMHO their first passable attempt at labelling.
However, for a couch or car charger for a phone, just about any cable that is wired correctly should do everything you want.
The problems come with alt modes and fast charging - the cable might not support the full capabilities, or the device itself (points idly at Nintendo Switch and Raspberry Pi 4) might not have shipped as USB-compliant, breaking with certain valid setups.
My opinion, the problem here isn't just cabling but troubleshooting help - how do I know the cable or charger I'm using isn't charging my computer at full speed? And which one is the problem?
From what I'm guessing, a lot of the problems can stem from either parts that don't meet the spec because it saves some money, or sloppy QC on the solder joints. Unless I'm missing something, USB-C doesn't inherently solve problems of manufacturers picking out of specification parts or bad QC.
The main thing USB-C and Lightning have going for them, which Micro-B doesn't, is the redundancy of two connection pads.
I've had more than one female Lightning port start to get tetchy about which direction a cable goes in.
All I'll miss from Lightning is being able to clean the port with a toothpick. Then again, that's not a small thing. When I hear/feel a bit of grit in a USB-C port I get a sinking feeling, with Lightning I just reach for a dental pick.
You can clean out a USB-C with a toothpick too, I did mine a few months ago when the connections got flakey and I got a ton of fluff out and now cables click in (which I forgot was supposed to happen).
> Maybe? The USB specifications calls for USB Micro-B to have the same 10,000 connect/disconnect cycles as USB-C
Micro USB was such a dumpster fire. I never got within two orders of magnitude of that spec, I'm pretty sure. It's a terrible connector, easily broken.
Mini USB was terrible, and would typically fail well below 1,000 on the device side. Mobile phones might not make it through their first year with a mini usb port back in the day, depending on how many times a day someone attached it to a charger.
It was replaced with Micro USB and effectively removed from USB - but a lot of devices still shipped it because it was cheaper.
And just in time for MagSafe's return...the iPhone will go to USB-C! Of course, you can still charge a Mac over USB-C — it's just not as much of a unification as it seems.
Cool (ha!) good to know. The times I've noticed mine getting pretty toasty when charging was from the left side, so I consciously try to avoid it (apparently a sibling suggests it's Intel only, so it totally could just be selection bias on my part). Regardless, I'm glad MagSafe doesn't have that problem. Thanks!
If it is, then I've just had rotten luck, because every time I notice "hmm, that's toasty" it's plugged in on the left side. Absolutely no science done, to be fair.
In short there is no way of knowing by looking at a USB-C cable or socket what it supports because there is a myriad of standards all using the same connector - USB Power Delivery, USB 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 4.0, Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4, DisplayPort over USB
You have to usually measure to know what does the cable support and what speeds and or voltages are possible.
USB-C is only a connector spec, and the actual USB protocol it supports could be one of many different versions and options. Or it can be Thunderbolt 3 or 4!
We replaced trying to figure out which plug fits in which of the many ports we have, with trying to figure out which identical-looking cable will do what we want when we plug it into the single kind of port.
This is arguably still an improvement at least for some people, but does suck.
They are opaque. For a given use case you need to know which USB-C cable you need, and they all look just alike, but can have varying capabilities. You can't even make a do-everything cable, either.
All these are existing variations of cables with a USB-C tip: Quest link cable, thunderbolt cable, charge only, data only no video, video but not 120hz, etc. It's not like you'll have fewer cables to manage if one device changes its port to USB - C.
The biggest change will be in people's backpacks and suitcase. Now they'll have one cable instead of two(or two instead of three if they carry an apple watch). All your other devices still need their own dedicated cable. I'll still carry two cables though because sometimes I want to charge two devices simultaneously.
If you mean cables that have a USB-C tip at one end, that's true, but I could cite thousands of distinct cables that have a USB-A tip at one end.
Also "charge only" cables violate the spec, and thunderbolt-only cables violate the spec.
When the cable is USB-C at both ends, there are different speeds and that's pretty much the only thing you need to care about. Occasionally you need to check whether it's a 60 watt cable or something higher, but not often.
Unlike every other connector, with USB C the male end is in the phone and the cable is female. Since the male end has a thin piece that inserts into the cable, it both invites lint to get stuck the port and makes it somewhat risky to clean out, as snapping that thin piece requires replacing the port (and maybe the whole phone depending on how it's made).
Compare to lightning, which AFAIK is indestructible, and lint can easily be cleaned out of the phone port with a toothpick.
I'm sure people more knowledgeable than me will have other facts as well.
Did anyone ever snapped that "thin piece"? It is not that thin, and in fact, I never managed to break even the much thinner micro-USB tongue.
I have broken USB sockets, and seen broken sockets, but every time, it was either wear or the connector being torn off a PCB (they are not always mounted properly). The only times I have seen a broken tongue was with USB-A connectors (the big ones), probably from a plug being forcefully inserted the wrong way. Micro-USB doesn't have this problem because of the shape of the connector prevents it and USB-C is reversible.
Mostly it's a mess of unknowns as to weather the cable you buy will actually do perform well. With USB-C cables it's all fine print and advertising.
This article is from 4 years ago and gets updated each year.
https://www.androidauthority.com/state-of-usb-c-870996/
I’m more hopeful that they’ll actually include drivers for those devices (probably not). It’d be nice to hook up a screen via hdmi instead of needing an Apple TV. Or plugging in a dock with regular mouse/keyboard attached.
USB-C iPads already support all of that, and you can already do those things today on current iPhones with an appropriate adapter -- search for "Lightning Digital AV Adapter" for an example.
Are you proposing the alternative was that Apple kept supporting 30 pin connectors?
And despite your anecdotes, evidence shows that switching didn’t hurt Apple sales. What were the people who were “burnt” by Apple abandoning 30 pin connectors going to do? Switch to Android and still have to switch cables?
For us old Apple enthusiasts there were many many upsides to apples success and mainstreaming, some of the downsides include the hysterical reaction to anything they do.
Not at all. It was an old connector that needed to be replaced. What I'm suggesting is that as a brand with that level of public recognition there is No Good Answer. Every option sucks in some way.
And the same is true again now for USB-C, "just switch to USB-C" is not an answer that sounds good for most people, and Apple is still paying for the bad will from customers from the 30-pin connector transition. The USB-C transition is only going to add to that.
Something I found interesting when discussing this with my wife..
All my friends are tech heads and champing at the bit to have usb-c in their iPhones.
But when she asked me why people were mad about the switch to usb-c it took me by surprise. Then she showed me a lot of online responses from non technical people who see the change of port as annoying and wasteful because now all their stuff won’t work without adapters.
I think it’s really interesting to see the difference in mind sets between different demographics.
USB-C appeals to techies, people with an engineering mindset, because it's an elegant solution. It's one connector, with graceful handling of different use-cases from charging, through peripherals, to high-speed high throughput data transfer.
But practically speaking, I've bought several HDMI adapters, had a hard time choosing a mouse that had USB-C a few years ago, have bought a new charger, lost MagSafe on my laptop. This is how most people view it, and it's hard to convince them otherwise, and rightly so!
I have had Android phones where the USB-C port has failed bricking the device (can’t charge). Micro-USB was far worse, but USB-C still fails to often.
Lightning appears to be much more robust (anecdotally watching friends devices, I have had few Apple iDevices). Mechanically and electrically, I like the lightning connector (although I loath proprietary shit generally).
There are some technical pitfalls of USB-C too. Solvable but still present.
Probably the biggest thing people don't think about is how rare USB-C hubs are. I don't mean the ones that adapt to other ports (if you thought of that first, it illustrates my point), I mean one that takes one USB-C and gives you more. For years after 2016, the chip to make this simply didn't exist. Even now, it's expensive. For this reason, it actually makes sense to use USB-A accessories even if your PCs take -C, cause you can always get more -A ports for cheap. So companies still make -A accessories, and even a lot of -C ones tend to come with an A-to-C cable in the box (and no -C to -C cable!).
Non-tech people tend to understand these things without knowing it. They see new port, they say no.
Having one port profile front for multiple technologies (USB, USB-PD, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt), and multiple versions of those technologies, with the cables being random able/unable to support any particular matrix of them, has been a usability nightmare.
Also on a purely functional level the actually-a-male design of the Lightning plug has made it—in my opinion—a far superior physical plug than the looks-male-but-is-female-in-disguise design of the USB-C plug.
One time my mother ordered a power cable for an old coffee maker, I think a Revereware percolator or something similar. I remember she found one specifically for it and waited for it to arrive so she could test this and re-sell it. I took a look and it's just a regular ATX computer power cable (type C13 but I had to look that up), and I was like, I've got a pile of those and could just have given you one.
People just don't realize what are standard cables vs what are bespoke for their application, and this sort of thinking has bitten me personally as well.
But even those non-tech people should have some USB-C cables lying around at this point
Android phones have used USB-C cables for many years. The Nintendo switch and PS5 controllers use USB-C cables. Chromebooks use USB-C cables. The alarm clock I just bought uses a USB-C cable. My keyboard uses a USB-C cable. Every MacBook made in the last five years (and most iPads sold in the last couple years) uses a USB-C cable.
It's very possible, if they're nontechnical, that they already have cables that will work with it and don't even realize it (which to be fair might be its own problem, but it's certainly a smaller problem)
We have 5 iPhones (no usb-c connectors), 5 tablets (no usb-c connectors), 1 desktop (no usb-c port), and 6 laptops (only 1 of which has a usb-c charger). So, we have a grand total of 1 usb-c cable in the house. And that one is already in use charging a laptop. I sure hope Apple is planning on including a cable and charger with future iPhones so I don’t have to purchase a separate cable.
Frankly, hardware doesn’t become as obsolete as fast anymore, so there has been little reason to purchase usb-c replacements for our non-usb-c hardware.
If they do have a usb-c cable they likely don’t necessarily think of it as one. It’s just generic charging cable that works with this device that they probably leave plugged in all the time.
But when you tell them that the thing they plug in and out every day is changing cables that ruffles feathers.
I have about twelve Lightning cables (2 in car, 4 permanently installed at convenient locations, a few in my work bag, an couple in another bag and some currently missing) and one USB-C cable, which I use for charging my laptop.
At some point soon, perhaps when I get a new iPhone, I am going to have to start buying more USB-C cables.
I will then spend years looking at the end of cables to see what the connector looks like. Just like USB-A and B where I had to make sure they were the right way up, which takes at least three attempts.
At some point, my iPad and iPhone - and my family’s iPads and iPhones - will all be dead, and replaced with USB-C versions.
We are quite good at hanging onto devices until they can no longer have new safe batteries (installed by Apple) or have no real use, so this could be around ten to fifteen years.
This drive by the EU seems to mainly talk about power adapters, and how it’s a waste to have separate ones, but all the power adapters I use for phone and iPad have USB-A sockets.
With USB-C on both ends of cables, I expect I’ll have to buy some new power adapters soon. I will then have to have two adapters everywhere (one for my USB-A to Lightning cables), or buy lots of USB-C to Lightning cables for the transition period. To go with the USB-C cables for post transition period.
I’m not at all inconvenienced by Lightning and not at all desperate to have USB-C, and USB-C will be replaced by USB-D in a few years, probably many years before the Lightning devices have given up, to USB-C, so I will probably carry several Lightning to USB-A, several Lightning to USB-C, several Lightning to USB-D, several USB-C to USB-C, several USB-C to USB-D and several USB-D to USB-D.
* not counting the Switch. I’m not gambling with that - it gets its original PSU only.
> With USB-C on both ends of cables, I expect I’ll have to buy some new power adapters soon. I will then have to have two adapters everywhere
Recent lightning cables already have USB-C instead of USB-A at the other end; that's not a part of the EU mandate as far as I know. In fact I'd bet USB-A would be explicitly allowed, because it's a standard port.
I'm using a power adapter that has 1 USB A and 2 USB C output. Theses new generation chargers are very small and powerful. I can charge a laptop, a phone and a ereader at the same time.
Hardest line is when the cell carrier drops support. I held onto my iPhone 5 until the very day it could no longer work as a phone, and that was also far after it stopped receiving security updates.
Or what happens is they stop running the latest OS, then newer apps you might need stop supporting old OSes. Old versions of apps might even stop working with whatever servers. That or the latest runnable OS doesn't work with whatever 2FA bs you need to download free apps from the App Store, as was the case with the iPad 2 last I tried.
> But even those non-tech people should have some USB-C cables lying around at this point
I do have a couple of these, from my old MBP and my iPad Pro. What I don't have many of are USB-C bricks. I have tons of USB-A bricks that work with all of my micro USB devices (wireless keyboard, Beats, bike lights, etc.) and my Lightning devices (iPhone, several iPads, several AirPods).
If all of these devices move over to USB-C and don't include bricks, I'll end up going out and buying half a dozen of them to replace the ones we have around our house currently. We'll also need cables, and in all this will probably cost $100. Not a huge deal, but not something I'm looking forward to shelling out for, especially since there's no gain from my perspective.
> Every MacBook made in the last five years (and most iPads sold in the last couple years) uses a USB-C cable.
Current Apple laptops come with USB-C to MagSafe cables. They are USB-C in the sense that they fit USB-C bricks, but the cable itself (which is very nice/braided, and hopefully will last a long time) is single-purpose. It won't work in anything but an Apple laptop.
Maybe this'll broaden that perspective a little: Apple devices since the iPhone 8 support USB-PD with C-to-Lightning cables now, and it's much faster. Decent USB-C chargers are a noticeable quality-of-life improvement.
So you're saying my iPhone will charge faster? I probably won't notice, since I only charge overnight. My phone actually pauses charging until 7 AM to manage battery health.
Also, if this is already available with USB-C to Lightning cables, is there an additional speed bump if the iPhone itself has USB-C?
I also just realized this means I'll have to buy new power banks, since the old ones are USB-A. That's another $40-60 total.
I also normally charge my phone at night, but I find the USB-PD charging super valuable when traveling, because if my phone is at 20% it will very very quickly be back up to 60% or so off of a USB-PD charger. Apple A-to-Lightning fast charging isn't slow, but it isn't that fast, and it's one more thing to think about.
You don't have to buy new power banks, either. And really, you don't have to buy new adapters either, if you don't want to! A-to-C is supported for both data and charging. iPads already fall back to Apple's old fast charging over A-to-C when your adapter or power bank supports it, I don't think there's a reason an iPhone wouldn't. It won't be as fast as USB-PD, but that upgrade's a choice.
Your concerns are definitely not nothing, but I think you're really overthinking it. It's not a step change, you can do it gradually, and when you go to USB-C on both ends, you'll get something for doing it. (USB-PD is currently available with C-to-Lightning cables, but you've said you don't have any of those right now, so I would assume it's not a big deal to you and you will realize the benefits when you upgrade.)
Sure, I also fast-charge sometimes when traveling. But I have found that USB-C is not available on planes, in airports, or in hotels. So if I want to be able to charge conveniently, I actually would rather have a USB-A to Lightning cable.
But regardless, it sounds like there is no additional speed advantage to having USB-C to USB-C versus the currently available USB-C to Lightning. Is that right? As for getting a bunch of dongles, that's one solution, but means spending more money.
I've never used one. In fact, my phone charges off a keyboard USB port so it's 0.5A and stresses the battery less. Of course not as much of an issue now that there's optimized charging.
But even those non-tech people should have some USB-C cables lying around at this point
Dont most people keep some devices permanently connected to the cable it came with though? I don't use my monitors USB-C cable to charge anything else. I don't use the quest link cable for anything but the quest. In theory it's "one cable for every device" but in practice the only place that happens is in a backpack power bank or car. Every device comes with its own cable and whether the new iPhone comes with a USB or lightning cable all it does is add one more cable to your collection.
I have a FLIR camera that plugs into the lightning port on my iPhone. I'm not sure if it will even be supported with an adaptor when/if I get a USB-C iPhone.
I know many people that mentally only perceive connectors as "the iphone cable" and "the android cable". The "Android cable" could be anything from micro-usb to usb-c to old propietary connectors of old nokia and motorola.
To this people this change effectively removes what's familiar and understood for something unknown, but I think it will still be for the better if eventually they will only perceive it as "the cable" that just works with pretty much anything.
Those "non technical people" want the same thing that the "tech heads" want: One type of cable that is compatible with all their devices. They just don't necessarily realize that they have already organized their lives in a way that excludes mismatched cables.
I would be just as happy to have everything switch to lightning. I really don't care what it is I just want all my cables to be the same.
I stayed at a hotel in Italy a few years ago, and the radio alarm next to the bed _still_ had the 30 pin connector. No doubt that there are probably a ton of people still annoyed at Apple.
Yep, Apple probably wanted to switch to USB-C earlier but you can see why they also wouldn't want the backlash. Now, they can switch to USB-C and also blame the regulators when people are mad, so this is kind of win/win for them.
What makes you think they wanted to switch sooner? I get that this gives them cover, but what competitive/cost benefits would they have gained by switching?
> competitive/cost benefits would they have gained by switching?
It would make the rest of their customers happy -- the ones that do want one standard cable. I mean, it's their only computing device that they haven't switched to USB-C yet.
My family is all Apple, and we have precisely one device that charges USB-C to USB-C: an iPad Pro. Everything else is Lightning (4 iPhones, 3 AirPods, 3 iPads), MagSafe (2 MBA/Ps), or micro USB (Beats, wireless keyboard, bike lights). I'm not dreading the transition, but I'm definitely not looking forward to it. If I were 20 years old and just starting to accumulate devices/chargers, I'd probably be more in favor of it. But after a decade-ish of collecting Lightning chargers/cables, I'm not at all eager for the iPhone to become USB-C.
Ya, for sure. We've got a very similar device lineup to yours. Apple got a lot of backlash last time and I'm sure there will be a lot of upset people this time too. But, there's also a group of people looking forward to the change.
I stayed in a hotel recently with one of those clock radios with the 30-pin connector on top. It would have been nice to have it use the larger speakers for background music and the alarm. But with over 200 rooms they probably weren't in a rush to replace all those units with Lightning and now USB-C.
I have yet to find a hotel that has upgraded their lamp-mounted or bedside USB ports. This is super annoying because I typically travel with a MagSafe charger for my MBA and a USB-C to Lightning cable to charge my iPhone. I would plug in my phone next to the bed if I could, but typically end up just leaving it with my computer to charge there.
Has anyone seen a USB-C port in a hotel? I've seen that some car manufacturers are including them (sometimes in lieu of USB-A; sometimes in addition to it).
I don't travel as much as I used to, but I was commenting on this in a hotel room in Schenectady just this past weekend. We've just barely gotten to the point where it's a surprise not to find at least one or two USB-A ports in a room, whether built into a lamp or otherwise. USB-C is probably going to take as long to appear as those did, and that was what? Five years? More? Certainly not less.
I have a compact four-port charger that lives in my travel bag, and I suspect I'll be plugging it into still-too-rare AC outlets in hotel rooms for a long time yet. At least I know it's wired correctly, has overcurrent protection etc., and will charge my devices at a known rate. Can't say any of those things about a random port built into a lamp, so I don't really trust those anyway TBH.
I‘ve seen a few, not many. I think the Mariott Marquis in New York had them and I just came back from the Hilton La Defense in Paris that had them as well, at least in the recently renovated room we stayed in.
It‘s like cars and airplanes. The change is happening it will take a long time for the existing investment to age out.
If resentment from rendering existing accessories obsolete due to changing connectors is the root cause of the delay, maybe Apple has been secretly waiting for the EU legislation so it can deflect the blame? e.g. "it's EU forcing our hands so we have to change."
I think this is exactly what is going on. The last change saw a few long threads here decrying Apple as the AntiChrist for daring to make the change, and arguing for Micro USB, which was and remains a bad standard.
As someone in the Apple ecosystem looking out, I disliked that the 30-pin connector replaced FireWire, but understood it was thinner. That connector then stuck around for around 10 years.
Look at nearly every other device manufacturer when the 30-pin connector was being used - Palm, Motorola, Samsung, LG, Sony, etc. all used proprietary connectors that were not only incompatible with each other, but often didn’t work between devices from the same manufacturer. There was no devices to replace (except chargers), because no accessory makers would take the risk of 30 SKUs to support devices that wouldn’t be sold in 6 months and whose bespoke connectors would vanish with the device.
Late in that evolution, device makers decide to standardize on micro-USB, but even that “standard” didn’t last as long as the 30-pin connector.
Lightning was almost universally better (unless you wanted audio and power easily from the same connector), and it also lasted for around 10 years.
USB-C hasn’t even been around as long as lightning, so even though most devices have standardized on it, it has a shorter product life than Lightning has had. Even now, it’s still a mystery to me whether a USB-C adapter and cable will charge my device or fry it.
I’m hopeful that USB-C and whatever charging standard du jour sticks around for a while. The physical connector seems robust enough (though Lightning’s single metal block with no flimsy plastic blade seems pretty optimal), and small enough (again, Lightning).
The idea, however, that Apple is always changing cables when they’ve had two (2!) over two decades is an amazing feat. It’s suboptimal that they were proprietary, but the idea that there is a mountain of e-waste because of them ignores how long they were compatible and the effect of their ubiquity had on accessory makers.
I welcome a new USB-C world, but really think the issues with the 30-pin and Lightning cables ignore everyone else in the industry. I’m also concerned that when USB-D is released, will this legislation prevent device makers from adopting it for stupid legal reasons. This seems specifically like something that should be left to markets.
It's not astonishing that not following the spec can lead to things getting fried, though? Splice a mains jack onto a USB cable and you'll see some smoke too ;)
But I agree that the level of incorrect implementation was shockingly high initially. Luckily it's much better now!
Looks like the Etherkiller[1] needs updating for modern times. I wouldn't be surprised if usb -> serial plus the serial etherkiller would do the trick though.
OTOH, USB Killers do exist, but they only kill hosts; Mains -> USB-C could kill hosts and targets indiscriminately.
I think this meme started due to Nintendo (very inadvisedly) adopting a non-standard USB-C implementation for the Switch. It wouldn't have been nearly as bad if they'd used a proprietary connector on top of their modified implementation, but they left the connector unchanged and simply added a "use only official Nintendo chargers" warning which of course no one was going to follow.
This did then, in fact, predictably lead to people frying their Switches, and has only further muddied the waters around the standard (which, to be sure, if you're using chargers and cables from at least minimally reputable manufacturers, will never fry a device under normal circumstances).
is it still a problem?? recently bought a switch and only plugged to the official adapter that came with it, but my first thought was “too bulky” so was wondering if I can use my M1 air USB C charger on the go instead.
I've certainly charged my Switch with the charger and cable that came with my 2018 MacBook Pro, and it never caused an issue. Nor is the Switch in question of particularly new vintage (it's closing in on three years old now).
> To oversimplify things quite a bit: The Switch uses a M92T36M Power Delivery (PD) chip, which isn't quite like anything else on the market. The chip can tolerate six volts of power — and that's it. Docks like Nyko's can provide up to 9V of power, meaning it's only a matter of time until the chip burns out.
I've charged the switch with the charger that came with my Samsung phone. I have the impression charging the dock with a third party charger may be more dangerous than the device itself.
Wasn't that meme only due to one third-party docking station putting 12V on the data lines? I never heard any stories about regular USB-chargers or USB-C cables frying the Switch.
> The expectations of Apple were higher only because of that brand recognition.
I think the expectations were high also because Apple had a really strong marketing push on the concept of "docking" your devices. I remember even cars had dedicated iPhones docks as additional selling points, along with speakers and many other devices. There was a promise that if you bought an iPhone you could dock it everywhere and so there was this big ecosystem of things you could plug it in. Then apple switched to lightning and quietly retired the whole docking thing.
My MacBooks would like a word. The Magsave cable changes every few years, regardless of outside forces. None of the ‘older’ ones fit my newer MacBooks…
There have been three versions of MagSafe (not "Magsave"). The first one was in use for 6 years, the second for 6 years before it was dropped for USB-C. The third version has been around for two years worth of devices now.
> Apple switched to Lightning. It was better in every. single. way.
This is pedantic, but the 30-pin connector did have one minor feature Lightning didn't -- the interface supported a design where it needed to be squeezed to be released, like DisplayPort or RJ45, and a small number of products took advantage of this to build very secure mounts. When switching to Lightning it was no longer possible to build a 3rd-party accessory that had such a secure attachment to the phone.
EDIT2: that page has a comment "This cable came with my Ipod Touch and all i have to say is , what an improvement. it was a wonderful idea to do away with those silly squeese tabs. all i have to do is give it a quick yank and its out." so maybe I'm not imagining things?
There were two different models I believe, one that had the squeeze grip and another that didn't require it.
I believe the design was changed because the original squeeze cable had a tendency to cause damage to the iPod/iPhone/iPad when inserted and then yanked/pulled out without squeezing. At least, that's what I remember.
As are their AirPods (unfortunately). I just bought the new AirPods Pro and will attempt to keep them for a while if I can prevent my golden retriever from eating them this time, so it seems I'll have to keep some lightning cables around.
My resentment with the change from the dock connector to lightning was that with lightning, at least initially, they refused to license the tech to anyone for a reasonable fee so it completely eliminated entire classes of products from the market for newer iPhones. I specifically kept my iPhone 4S longer than I would have otherwise to be able to continue using an external DAC and amplifier for driving high impedance headphones for this reason, as an example. I had no problem with the lightning form factor, I had a problem with the unnecessary and punitive DRM they included within it for /no reason/ other than their greed. I believe it's for this same reason they've resisted offering USB-C, which would mean anyone could make an accessory by abiding by industry standards without having to pay for an mFI chip and certification.
> "they're always changing their cables". It's obviously not true,
Last year Apple switched from USB-C charging to a new MagSafe charger on M1 Macbooks. USB-C was first introduced in 2018, moving away from the old MagSafe design. These are a very recent changes, so I'd say this still applies.
I do quite like the usability of lightning, and I was quite upset when they cut it. I tried using 3rd party USB-C magnetic adapters, but they mostly suck. I welcome the dualism of new lightning + USB-C charging, the best of both worlds.
USB-C was 2016 but yeah. 2006 to 2022, the changes were MagSafe 1 -> MagSafe 2 -> USB-C -> MagSafe 3. That's enough changing that every new laptop you bought probably had a different way of charging, and the MagSafes were hardly different from each other.
But the alternative was you got a Dell/whatever laptop with some one-off charging mechanism.
I suspect that Apple has been in progress of moving things over to USB-C for a while (see the recent Apple TV and iPad changes). They have already moved off of USB-A chargers completely, moving onto USB-C chargers.
My understanding is they are also pushing the upper limits of what lightning charging cables are rated for, my suspicion is that it can't support PPS, so the lightning port is now limiting them both in charging speed/flexibility and in data transfer.
But in some markets (like the US) you have more lightning-charged iPhones than android phones. It is a lot big cost for their customers to bear, throwing away a decade of chargers and cables when Apple is not really going to be able to express it as an improvement to them - for instance, most phone users don't use the data channel at all, getting updates and backing up data with the cloud.
I find it odd people think their reluctance has been to defend profits on some sort of lightning cable ecosystem. Their margin on phones is likely $100+. Their margin on the licensing for a third-party cable is likely below $0.50.
I'd argue this regulation is great for Apple, because it gives them a scapegoat. Apple then claims didn't necessarily _want_ to cost their customers a bunch of money, but the EU mandated it. So Apple is going to go ahead and make the change worldwide.
But hey, look, at the same time we improved phone charging speeds and look how fast we can transfer ProRes media you captured with your phone now to your computer? Feel free to tack those new official charging cables and data transfer cables along with any chargers you need at purchase, if you don't have any already.
You're skipping how Apple made Lightning a closed standard and charged big royalties for it. I can reasonably point to that licensing as the reason a legitimate Lightning to USB cable costs at least $15 instead of $1.50, cause the latter is how much a good knockoff costs.
If you can find a $5 one that's truly MFi-licensed and not a counterfeit, that's a new thing. They used to always be $15 minimum. Not talking about luxury ones.
You care when it stops working one day because Apple changed something (maybe intentionally). Out of a combination of spite and cheapness, I've only ever bought unlicensed cables for several years, and this is the price I've paid over time.
So how well are the USB C cables going to work that follow the minimum “mandate” that doesn’t require cables to support data at all? How well are they going to work when people pick up a “USB C” cable and wonder why they aren’t seeing video when they connect their phone to their TV?
Not very well, but you can buy decent cables from a variety of manufacturers for cheap, and there isn't this one license-holder (Apple) out there trying to take a big cut from that. If someone wants to make a good Lightning cable for cheap, first they have to break the law by skipping the licensing deal, then they have to get around Apple's own mechanisms.
It doesn’t prevent “ewaste” if phone makers (mostly low end Android phone makers) still bundle shoddy cables, stores are still allowed to sell shoddy cables, etc.
A “good” USB C cable that supports all of the things I said - high speed data, video over USB, etc - costs around $15. The same price as an Anker Lightning cable.
A random USB C cable doesn’t support video over USB - something I need for my portable secondary display.
The iPads with USB C already support this. I have no reason to believe that the next iPhone won’t.
You're actually right about the video -C cables. That feature costs extra, and I didn't notice the first time. But it's rare to need one, and they'll get cheaper over time.
That 3-pack MFi Lightning for $10 is a new phenomenon. It was never like that before. I can believe it's not fake, just cheap cause it's old tech and on its way out.
> A “good” USB C cable that supports all of the things I said - high speed data, video over USB, etc - costs around $15. The same price as an Anker Lightning cable.
But the Lightning cable won't support high speed data. And if you want video over Lightning you can't just use a cable, you need an adapter with an embedded computer to decompress the output.
A USB C cable that has the same capabilities as that Lightning cable is 2-3 dollars.
The EU is suppose to be mandating a “standard”. What good is a “standard” that doesn’t support the “standard”?
USB C cables that come with the iPad supports all of those standards. What are the chances that unsuspecting users in the EU dancing in the streets go in an buy a “standard USB C” and find out that it doesn’t work when they get ready to plug their phone to the TVs or when they find out the promise of “USB3 speeds” because it was the “standard” is a lie because the EU didn’t mandate that as part of the standard?
People just want to charge their phones. Maybe if someone actually cares about USB3 transfer speeds, they'll go buy the slightly more expensive cable for that. It's not like TVs even have USB-C.
And I don't think this reduces ewaste. It's about the same.
What wattage, enough to charge my phone. What speed, don't really care but it's at least the same as Lightning. Video, never used it.
EU wanted to break up Apple's proprietary control over the iPhone ports and create a charging standard, cause charging is the important part. Anyone can make a higher-spec USB-C cable without going to Apple, and chargers are uniform for all phones.
Worth repeating that I don't agree with the EU's law, just saying why they did it. Nobody in this thread has brought up the real con, which is that tech regulation hinders innovation, and the minor frustration with chargers wasn't a big enough problem to warrant that.
> The purported goal is to “prevent ewaste”. How does it prevent ewaste if you still can’t depend on the cords working the way they should?
For charging, it's fine.
> Is that the bar we set now? It’s no better than what came before?
A charging standard shouldn't care about data except to avoid getting in the way, and it probably shouldn't mandate more expensive cables for devices that don't have data.
Also USB C supports more power than lightning.
But to directly answer: That bar is just fine, because the point is the make everyone use the same thing. It doesn't need to be better, it needs to be good and everyone the same.
> So how well are the USB C cables going to work that follow the minimum “mandate” that doesn’t require cables to support data at all?
Citation needed? I think those are below the minimum.
> How well are they going to work when people pick up a “USB C” cable and wonder why they aren’t seeing video when they connect their phone to their TV?
They probably feel similar to people with lightning cables.
And they all require data wires. The minimum speed is the same speed as Lightning. And the minimum wattage is higher than Lightning as far as I am aware.
They definitely don’t. The USB C cord that came with the previous MacBook Pros were power only as are a lot of other USB C cables especially ones that come with headphones.
The maximum wattage of the little USB C cable that comes with headphones certainly don’t support a minimum wattage that will charge a large iPhone at any appreciable speed.
> The USB C cord that came with the previous MacBook Pros were power only
Which ones? The posts I can find say they do USB 2.0
> a lot of other USB C cables especially ones that come with headphones.
> The maximum wattage of the little USB C cable that comes with headphones certainly don’t support a minimum wattage that will charge a large iPhone at any appreciable speed.
Those cables don't meet the standard, then. The minimum is 3 amps and a single pair of data wires. And that doesn't require much, especially for a little 6 inch cable.
It mandates a USB C connector. They weren’t smart enough to mandate that “all USB C cables sold in the EU must actually meet the standard”.
Then you also have the opposite problem. If the USB cable supports higher wattage power delivery, some low wattage USB C devices like headphones won’t charge.
> It mandates a USB C connector. They weren’t smart enough to mandate that “all USB C cables sold in the EU must actually meet the standard”.
Then I don't know why you're spending so many posts purely about cables in complaint of this law. Cables have gone from unregulated to unregulated.
If your underlying argument is "this is in the right direction but they should have gone further", you are not coming across that way with all your other posts.
> Then you also have the opposite problem. If the USB cable supports higher wattage power delivery, some low wattage USB C devices like headphones won’t charge.
Do you mean like the thing with raspberry pis? That wasn't about wattage, their miswiring meant that any cable with a tag would fail.
Otherwise I don't see how that kind of failure is possible.
Lightning doesn't support video over mere cables. You need a complicated adapter that decompresses the video sent by the device. It's like a tiny streaming setup.
If you just pick up a generic lightning cable, you're not getting video.
Yeah, Lightning doesn't run HDMI or DP over it. I think Lightning still has some kind of video protocol for those adapters to work. USB (non-C) to HDMI requires special software on the host.
Seriously. I will not take anyone seriously about how "Apple just cared about a better standard" when they literally don't allow it to be made a standard.
It's just a connector. If you're not letting everyone use it, it's not about it being better... it's about rent-seeking. Which is exactly what the EU legislation seeks to end.
Not to shill for a trillion dollar megacorp, but when you've got lightning and the competition has USB mini, how exactly is that rent seeking? You've developed an objectively better product, don't you deserve something for it?
It was in fact much better for several years, and it probably inspired USB-C. At some point it wasn't, and they kept making excuses to keep it anyway. I don't agree with the EU law btw, just saying Apple wasn't keeping Lightning for actual usability reasons in the end.
Because it's required to use the product, right? Like, if you have a phone, and you can buy a lightning version or a quarter-inch audio version, sure, yes let the free market win. Nope... they removed the audio jack (against large public outcry).
This isn't about lightning being better, because we were never offered a choice. Lightning being the only option when there is a clear market for alternatives is the obvious tell for rent seeking.
> t's sad that it took legislation to make this happen
Every time this topic comes up i still don’t understand what problem is this legislation supposed to solve. We’re not talking about infrastructure standarization like a gas pump, an electrical outlet or a lightbulb (which has hundreds of standards BTW) but a simple cable. Are we making laws just to accommodate consumer’s convenience now?
Last year was the first time I've ever had a Mac product and I really liked it. It was also time for me to get a new phone. The only thing that stopped me from getting the iphone was their connector wasn't USBC. Seems trivial, but for someone brand new to the Apple ecosystem, it provided enough friction and cost them a sale. I might give them a shot a few years from now when it's time to replace my phone.
> 30-pin compatible speaker docks and other accessories were very widely available, but there are far fewer devices made for Lightning
Apple used Firewire in the original iPod, then used the 30-pin connector for ~10 years, following it with Lightning as the "connector for the next decade." Seems to have been fairly accurate.
You've never had a bad connection with Lightning? Every Lightning cable I've ever had has two pins that have become blackened due to frequent arcing. And the "click" is dependent on the quality of the cable. USB-C cables from Apple click in exactly the same as their Lightning cables, for example.
So I had an iPhone 4 which i ditched quite quickly as I thought it was a junk phone and went Android for a while. Picked up again at iPhone 6 when I was paid for some work with an iPhone 6 Plus and have had iPhones since. So that was 2014, 8 years of Lightning ports.
I've had 0 lightening cables break in any capacity.
While the USB-C cables I've had for Headphones, iPad, Asus Keyboard, Corsair Mouse, and a few other little things. I've had to replace 5 cables.
I love the idea of having 1 cable that I can use for everything. But no matter what anyone says, the lightning cable is superior in terms of physical connection.
Been using Lightning models since the iPhone 6 generation and haven't seen this behavior even once. The worst I've seen was a couple of times where the phone's port got pocket lint stuck in it, making it harder to plug in cables which was fixed easily enough with some careful teasing with a SIM ejector tool.
I don't have anything against USB-C but its "click" factor varies a lot between cable/port manufacturers due to much wider tolerances/variances in manufacturing.
I’ve had corroded pins on a couple Lightning cables, always happens after the phone was in a humid environment like a steamy bathroom after a shower. Now I resort to wireless charging if there’s any hint of moisture on the phone and that has kept my connectors fresh.
The click is good until pocket lint accumulates in the phone lightning receptacle. At that point it starts failing to charge occasionally. A couple of minutes with a toothpick and a flashlight and it is back to working great.
I saw the arc once with a cheap no-name cable. I'm guessing the cable tolerances on the conductor placements was off a little bit.
I can't really bring myself to care about any small differences when my girlfriend can charge her (Android) phone at her desk using her MacBook charger, and I can't do the same with my iPhone
Absolutely. I don't discount that technically lightning is inferior in every way now. But the actual physical connection I think is superior. I would love USB-C with the physical lightening port.
> I must be the only person on HN who thinks the lightening port is better than USB-C.
How do you define "better?"
For charging its fine, as long as you aren't going for high power levels. In terms of data transfer, it simply can't support the data rates that usb-c can. If you want a simple, robust connector for moderate charging loads with moderate data transfer needs it is a great connector.
That's not opinion, just simple physics. Lightning has a lot fewer wires. Apple has managed to get base USB3 rates with a couple of devices, but nowhere close to the thunderbolt rates you can get with USB-C.
Having said that, for the vast majority of use cases, it is a great connector. Simple, idiot proof, and robust.
It is. Apple could have licensed it freely to make it the standard before USB-C existed, but chose to keep it proprietary to milk accessory manufacturers instead.
No, I think those that think otherwise are just extra loud. I use MagSafe these days, so its not really something I deal with, but lightning is a bit easier to plug in and out than USB-C. But both are much better than the pain inducing MicroUSB.
Of the 7 lightening cables I own, two of them have stopped working, and one of them only charges in only one orientation (flip it, and it doesn't work). I'm hoping that usb-c on Apple devices will be more reliable.
I often wonder how much money Apple makes from the fact that lightning cables all seem to die after a few months. I have usb cables that are decades old that still work, but lightning…
I’ve bought dozens of cords over the past decade that weren’t MFI certified and not have any issues. Do you think the top selling Lightning cables on Amazon or at your local bodega or convenience store paid Apple a fee?
Why is this even an argument? Lightning is not something obscure. You can go on Amazon now and find hundreds of cables that are not “MFI certified”. You can’t believe all of these Chinese cables are bothering with certification.
I can't remember the last time I had a legit lightning cable break. At least not for any other reason than "kids kept yanking it out by the cord and finally ripped the end off." I still have cables from at least 5 years ago, for sure.
Micro USB cables used to last anywhere from a few days to a few months for me. USB-C is much better, but I still find they fail in less than a year. Not sure exactly why, it looks like it ought to be a sturdy design.
It would be better if EU regulators asked Apple to open their Lightning cable standard so other phone vendors can use it. I very much like Apple’s implementation of their charging cable because it uses less space on the device.
Oh, I could see them mandating not the fastest connector (USB-C for instance if something faster comes along). Speed hardly matters, though. They just won't mandate Lightning cause it's a proprietary connector, so it's out of the question.
Yea but now people who were using the Lightning cable will have to buy new USB-C devices and replace existing cables.
While the parent was being a bit disingenuous, they are correct that this will create additional e-waste that really probably wasn't necessary to do. I'm happy that Apple is switching to USB-C, for whatever that is worth.
Unlikely. How many people in the EU don't also own USB-C devices already?
I don't really care which port Apple uses, but I'd like them to be consistent across the range. It's annoying carrying Lightning cables (phones) + USB-C cables (iPads and laptops) + USB-micro (camera chargers) when I travel.
Anyone who currently has a lightening cable/phone wont need to change it ;)
And yes, eventually it will lead to e-waste as people replace their Lightening based phones with USB-C, but didn't the same thing take place with the 30 pin dock connector?
Apple has been moving their entire lineup to USB-C for a while already (iPad Pro in 2020, iPad Mini in 2021, more devices this year) . Sure, in public they have to oppose tech sector regulation, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were secretly happy as it provides them with an excuse. If some customers who have heavily invested into the Lighting ecosystem complains then can always say "look, it was the EU, blame them".
Absolutely. If Apple would've switched to USB-C without an EU mandate, they would've received mountains of bad press about the unprecedented amount of e-waste and confusion that will result because of this switch. So they pressured the EU to mandate the change to a standard that Apple helped pioneer, so that Apple's environmentally-friendly record would remain unblemished.
Love seeing all the Apple zombies malding over making society convenient for people.
This legislation wouldn’t have even happened if Apple had done the right thing to begin with. Instead of trying to eek out margins on proprietary cables
It could have just enforced that vendors must use an agreed upon standard by X% of industry participants or similar. Thus if you want a competing connector, you have to propose a new standard and get buy in from others.
But the end result is the same regardless. When the need for a new standard comes, the spec will be updated or abandoned in favor of a new one.
As to Apple’s reasoning for not using USB-C, who’s to say? I would think cable revenue is minuscule at the end of the day, yet here they are still using lightning almost a decade after the rest of the industry standardized on USB-C
At their scale they need to operate in a somewhat sensible way or regulators will target them, that’s life. Society is not going to be beholden to Apple’s design choices if it negatively affects enough people
I switched to the magnetic charger long ago. Just keep it near my bed... plop my phone onto it before bed and wake up in the morning with a charged phone. Easy.
As someone that deeply detests Apple and would never give them money, I will admit the lightning connector is superior in durability, inspectability, and safety than USB type C in virtually every way.
The real crime here is that Apple insisted on patenting the design and keeping it for only themselves, forcing the rest of the industry to adopt an inferior connector and ultimately force it on them too.
The pins are on the outside making it easy to visually inspect for damage, or obstruction. With USB C a bit of conductive debris can be in the hollow cavity in the connector and cook your hardware. Or bend pins. Watched it happen.
Also if you work in high security environments where badusb attacks are a risk, lightning makes it is even easy to inspect data delivery pins are intentionally missing before you plug in a cable to an airgapped machine.
With USB C you have to custom make complicated usb m-to-f condom devices with transparent enclosures so you can visibly inspect the PCB traces. I have worked in high security environments where these were a must.
Further lightning is simply a solid metal connector and more structurally sound. It is hard to bend pins or cause a short. I have distributed a lot of usb-c devices and watched people hand them back to me with snapped or crushed connectors many times.
I hate that Lightning was made by Apple instead of the USB standards boards.
USB Type C is a terrible connector. I literally use laptops with barrel jack power to avoid it.
I was thinking the same about both connectors. And then I bought an iPhone. I never broke a USB-C connector nor socket in few years of heavy usage on few devices, but I needed to buy new lightning cable because the pins have worn out after less than a year of just connecting the cable to iphone.
I wore out the USB-C connector on my android phone in about a year and a half of daily charging, so probably lasted less than 500 cycles. I had to resort to wireless charging to keep the phone functioning. This is my first long-lifed usb-c connector and so far it doesn't impress for durability.
My wife has used apple for years, while she does need new cables from time to time the phone side has never had an issue.
I've been using MagSafe (the Qi wireless kind, not the one for macs) for most of my iPhone charging. I guess this is why I don't wear the cables out. I've added a magnetic adapter connector to my oculus USB-C setup, and that seems to work well also.
I've used my USB c phone for two years now, charge once a day and it never failed me. My lightning cable on the other hand, feels so cheap and thin like it could break at any minute and the connector is so tiny that it looks like it could snap on the slightest bend. USB c on the other hand, since it's hollow, feels way stronger to bending.
Another possible issue: arcing/stuff burning on to one of the lightning pins. IDK why it happens, it’s probably lint or something, but it’s easy enough to mitigate: If a cable stops working all the sudden, the first thing I do is wet my fingers and rub both sides of the lightning cable’s connector. Most of the time that does the trick, no new cable or tools needed!
Yep, there's definitely a scorch mark. I already tried cleaning it and the port. It intermittently works and seems to depend on which way the cable is plugged in (still intermittent but better; other cables are usually better but still intermittent).
That's extremely unusual -- I've used Lightning cables daily for years without any issue at all.
Whenever I would notice a cable not working (after about a year and a half), the culprit was always dust buildup inside the Lightning port preventing the plug from entering fully. Clean it out with a toothpick for 15 seconds, and then good as new.
If you were using an original Apple cable, that's bizarrely bad luck. I can't even imagine what could physically cause that.
Cable failure from misuse/abuse almost always happens at the point where the cable meets the connector. Cables with flexible reenforced material at that point can help a lot with longevity.
I had one of those dreadful MacBook Pros where the keyboard keys would get stuck, and all the USB-C ports on that were almost useless inside a month - they all just got incredibly loose and cables would just fall out.
I have two broken USB-C cables next to me. They just wore out and broke. They have only been used to charge my phone. To be fair, it's not the metal connector which broke, it's the plastic parts, but still, that's enough to make the connector flimsy.
I also have a phone with a broken USB-C port (data signals don't get through). This phone was effectively bricked when the display stopped working. It still has files on it I'd like to read, but I can't read them because the USB-C data on it isn't working to use remote debugging, and also means the HDMI out feature doesn't work.
I have another phone where the USB-C port works but its charging is intermittent, probably because it isn't making a reliable connection. Probably due to matter accumulated in the port, as the connection does feel slightly less solid than it should be, but it's a pain to clean it out. A toothpick is slightly too large. I've tried various methods of cleaning it out but the problem persists, and I wonder if it's really matter in there, or if something is wrong with the metal parts inside.
These are just my anecdotes, and I don't have anything that uses Lightning to compare with. But I have read claims that USB-C is a very robust, long-life connector, and my experience doesn't give me as much confidence in it as those claims suggest.
Lighting can be safer and more durable, but it's still a dumb choice when USB C can deliver a ton more power and serve more purposes (like connecting to a monitor, daisy chaining, and powering laptops).
I think lightning has a much poorer data throughput, though?
I seem to remember Apple needing to embed clever video comrpession ICs in their cables to get around this, in cases where it couldn't cope with the data needed for a raw signal?
It's also forever limited to USB2 speeds, state of the art year 2000, and can't do half the things that USB-C does. Of course that's easier to make, but don't worry, the patents notwithstanding, nobody wanted it anyway.
One can lament the inability to adopt and develop a superior connector without disagreeing that USB-C is the future. I think USB-C is better but it's not because the physical connector is good. It's worse in every way. It's also worth noting that there was a usb3 lightning connector in the 2nd generation iPads Pro.
It seems that the patents aren't the only obstacle to ubiquitous Lightning:
> Yes, it's hard to make floating paddle and sheet metal spring indents more robust than a solid metal puck, but it also comes with extra baggage that Apple is willing to eat and most USB committee companies are not willing to. USB has always made the connectors out of stamped sheet metal for mass production, but it is not possible to make the lightning puck like that. Having potentially live exposed contacts also complicates things.
> Apple’s engineers should be left to come up with a solution
That’s precisely what we’re trying to avoid. Every company coming up with their own version that is definitely totally superior to the other companies’ and thus incompatible
And who says it needs to be compatible? Companies design what they feel are the best/better components for their products. If consumers want to have a "standard" connector that works with multiple devices, they have that with the many Android OEMs that choose to use USB.
But I don't see why the government should be forcing companies to use a standard when it has no clear connection to safety of the product.
Reminder, lightning is still usb 2.0 which is a joke with these 4k videos and tons of photos. Apple could still put USB C on there with 2.0 speeds, like Samsung did as recently as the Flip 3...
But this is not a Lightning problem. It is the controller that only supports USB2.
First iPad Pro for instance was Lightning and had USB3 transfer speeds.
It's especially ironic that Apple had to be forced to use usb-c since they were the first to adopt Thunderbolt and they use usb-c/thunderbolt in all their laptops and newer iPads. Seems they held on to Lightning connectors simply to sell more cables (or maybe spite).
I don't think it's either of the reasons you stated. I think it's more about how many accessories are out there using Lightning that will be obsoleted by the switch. It's like the Dock to Lightning switch, but on a much larger scale simply because there are far more iPhones with Lightning (and therefore accessories) than there were with the Dock connector.
USB-C didn't even exist in 2012 when Apple rolled out Lightning. Micro USB would have been the "standard" choice, but it couldn't match what Lightning was capable of. I don't see how you can blame Apple for this.
I've never really understood why they hadn't done it yet. The iPad has used a USB-C connections for a few iterations now, they got a lot of criticism for switching only to USB-C style connectors on their Mac line years ago, yet they've resisted bringing the iPhone into the same ecosystem. There's a lot of third party peripherals that are reliant on lightning, but that doesn't really seem like something that would hold Apple back.
I feel like a Thunderbolt 3 iPhone has been possible since at least iPhone X. If Apple went all-in on a high-bandwidth connector for all their devices, maybe they could resurrect the dead dream of FireWire.
Me too. One of the stated benefits of the Apple ecosystem is how well they work together. Except when iPads and MacBooks all switch to USBC and iPhones stay on Lightning.
I'm generally not a fan of the EU mandating technical decisions, but for me personally, Lightning connections have always been really low quality. Since my iPhone was about a year old, it often won't recognize a new Lightning cable that's plugged in, I have to unplug and re-plug it several times. Or it will charge for a minute and then suddenly think it's disconnected. Or you will bump it slightly and it thinks it's now disconnected. I have never had such trouble with USB-A, micro-USB, USB-C, or even the old 30-pin connectors.
It's especially annoying when I'm in my car, which unfortunately only supports a wired CarPlay connection. Sometimes I'll go over a bump, it'll disconnect my phone, and I have to mess with it while driving in order to get the directions going again.
I've had iPhones since the original came out with the big ol iPod connector on it. Generally upgrading every two years, except the last one which was an Xs to a 14 Pro.
I have never had this happen. I welcome the USB-C change, but I have never once had what you're describing happen in however many years the Lightning connector has been out.. feels like 8+ years, but without looking I wouldn't know. I've had, I think, one Lightning cable fail to work and that was because my cat chewed on the cord.
Yeah, surveying my friends I found one other person with this problem, but it isn't the majority case.
It doesn't seem to be a problem with the cable, it's really a problem with the connector on the iPhone itself. All my iPads charge fine on Lightning cables. I keep my phone for longer than two years, for one. Or maybe there's something specific to my pocket, where the sort of lint that gets into the iPhone is especially degrading to the connector?
CA emission standards are a waste of money and resources.
WA got rid of emissions testing because almost every single car passes, and it’s actually a net increase in carbon emissions to keep the bureaucracy around. That money could be spent on carbon capture or solar subsidies instead.
And why, exactly, does almost every car in WA pass emissions testing? Seems like having to reach those standards to have access to the largest single US market might have something to do with it ...
WA got rid of emissions testing because almost every single car passes
Not anymore, they don't, now that it sounds like we all live on a Fast and the Furious set. Bring back emissions testing just to cut down on the noise, I say.
Additionally, you know why every single car passed? Because it was enforced. Now that it's not enforced, you think that Honda Civic that wakes up your kids at 2:00 a. m. would pass an emissions test?
I don't really have any opinion about that, since I don't know much about vehicle emissions. I know a lot more about cookie warning banners, enough to say that they are dumb.
Yeah, I took my last iPhone to an Apple Store when this happened to it, and that's what they advised. Sometimes this helps, but usually it doesn't. Maybe I'll try a Q-tip.
While I'm against forcing a company to use a specific connector (especially Apple where every millimeter counts), I think this was way overdue because of terribly slow USB 2.0 speeds even on "Pro" models that shoot ProRes and 48MP raws.
Practically, I'd be really really surprised if Apple moved to USB-C but still keep USB 2 speeds.
Moreover, even the cheapest USB-C devices and cables I've seen happily work over USB 3 and I've yet to see anything with USB-C form factor that doesn't support USB 3 even if it's not mandatory.
I never had a device with lightning. My only Apple device, an Ipad Pro, has USB-C. But I found USB-C very delicate and prone to fail with time. I'm not a fan of this connector type.
> Joswiak also claimed that the proprietary Lightning cable and the USB-C cable would not exist if Apple had agreed to the EU original demand of using the older Micro USB charging cable which had poor reliability and could easily be damaged.
So... what happens when USB-C no longer makes sense anymore? Will they have to keep using it no matter what? Wait for the law to change?
USB-C might very well be the last wired connection standard, but I expect a port free iPhone within 10 years that charges via induction and has some way to do some data transfer by that as well.
The EU already allows for a port free iPhone. Just that if they provide a port, it has to be USB-C. But the tech and acceptance isn't really there yet for such a product, but I'm pretty sure it will come eventually.
> So... what happens when USB-C no longer makes sense anymore? Will they have to keep using it no matter what? Wait for the law to change?
According to the amended Directive, the EU Commission should review it every few years and if I remember correctly the law gives the Commission delegated authority to change the annex for the law, where USB-C and USB-PD are specified. Meaning, when the industry want’s to change it, the industry, presumably the USB Implementor’s Forum, needs to go with their proposal for a better alternative to the EU Commission. Which is not unreasonable, I think.
Look at all the defenders of Lightning despite it not being able to handle USB 3, or even HDMI video such that Lightning to HDMI adapters have a processor to decode compressed video to HDMI. Lack of innovation hasn't mattered there. I don't expect many people to care for anymore innovation in a phone port.
Samsung's recently released Galaxy Z Flip4 still has a USB 2 port. Even Apple's new iPad does the same.
This effectively decides that USB-C is the final iteration of phone connectors. Nobody is going to invest in making a new one. Maybe there wasn't much room left for innovation anyway; Apple has been showing for a while that they prefer the lock-in.
It took the industry years to get their act together and leave micro-USB behind, and that was without the replacement being illegal. Maybe Lightning even gave them a reason to look for something better. With other standards, there's at least competition, and adopting a better one can be a selling point.
If a better standard is needed by every phonemaker and agreed upon, and they cooperate in developing it, and the EU (which btw is not where any of these phonemakers are HQ'd) agrees with it.
This right here is the truth. Consumers learn to associate "new cable" with new model aka I'm wealthy enough to grab the latest doodad on launch. Like a monkey wearing a palm leaf, new iPhones or AirPods are a status symbol.
Apple's core market is not San Jose VCs or Mar Vista interior designers. It's Americans living pay-check to pay-check only afloat through credit. Their primary product is the ability to be envied by your neighbours, your classmates, or your colleagues.
This is coming from someone who has completely bought into the Apple ecosystem.
case 1: an cable without chip, conforming to the usb3 spec
both devices transfer the highest amount below the cap that is supported
case 2 wirth chip:
the maximum power transfered is now the minimum between charger, phone and cable.
I'll be happy to carry just one charging cable for everything in my bag in a few years. Hopefully this gives Anker the chance to make One USB-C Cable To Replace Them All with gold connectors and 8 durability
At this point, the only proprietorship Apple holds onto is out of preserving branding by mediocrity.
Not being able to use my friends Android charger is an absolute nuisance. I absolutely could care less about Lightning bolt, Firefly or whatever the fuck it’s called these days…
I have to wonder, when will a company just say, No. Your citizens like our products more than they trust you, we can force their hand by immediately pulling products specifically to spite them while being “compliant”
I'm amazed this hasn't happened earlier. They've switched their laptops across ages ago. I have a MacBook, Samsung phone, Sony headphones, Samsung earbuds as well as several other USB-C accessories and I only need the Macbook power cord to charge any of them.
When I travel that's the only power supply I take. When I need to charge my phone, I just unplug the Macbook and plug in the Samsung phone. But if I had an iPhone I couldn't do that!
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