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Lightning is/was actually pretty great. Also remember that it was introduced before USB-C even existed.
Yeah alternative was MicroUSB which is dogshit.
I’m using my wife’s old android for YouTube. It has a microusb port and I really hate it.
Lighting was leaps better than that, but usb-c is really the king of ports at the moment.
This is the only valid opinion.
Perhaps one day we get a magnetic replacement for USB-C.
Why a replacement? You can already buy usb c cables with detachable magnetic heads if you fancy that
Would be a nice thing to have in the spec for the cable, as those ones aren’t compliant with the spec, and can in some cases cause problems, like on disconnect it might be possible for one of the PD pins to short against one of the data pins before the side delivering power has had time to process the disconnect.
It’s a pretty specific edge case and I’m sure not a problem most people have had or will run into, but would be nice if it could be part of the spec.
Fair enough, an officially sanctioned extension would also be fine!
We can call it the USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Magnets, How Do They Work Edition
Because it is usb-c, the magnetised version is also officially sanctioned.
It’s the king of ports at the moment but I have concerns about the fact there’s that “prong” in the middle of the female connector. It seems like it could be something to break. I did like the fact there wasn’t anything in the middle of the lightning port, made it seem more durable to me over time (at least the port side, but that’s what you want with these things…)
Nevermind that the same connector could be USB 3.1 Gen X fuckton-gigabit, USB4, Thunderbolt 3 or 4… USB needs to learn from the WiFi groups recent rename scheme…
Lightening cables have easy to clean contacts and a hard to break jack, I have broken many many usb-c cables just stepping on them or rolling over them with an office chair or getting filled with lint on the inside of the jack.
No hate, but I cannot fathom feeling the way you do about Micro USB and not spending $200 on some of the very solid Android phones that have come out in the 9 years since USB C has been the standard.
I only started using it like a month ago and I’m already looking at a used galaxy s10e. They are like $140 where I live. But I will get a new iPhone first.
Fun fact: Apple was part of the group that designed USB-C
That was really weird, actually. Apple was frustrated that the USB consortium wasn’t making progress. So they developed Lightning. Then sent people there to help develop USB-C, when they already had a competing connector…
They should’ve been more patient, and sent people there directly, before developing a competitor, and adopted USB-C from the start.
With that move, they isolated themselves and their customers. It’s this arrogant “we’re smarter than anybody else” attitude they show sometimes, that irks a lot of people and end up being detrimental for their image. (And I say this as a long time Apple customer).
Nah it was a great move, earned them a couple billions in licensing fees
To the disadvantage of literally everyone
Capitalism in a nutshell.
Also why is it awesome on iPad Pros since years but no good on iPhones? The marketing was always contradicting itself.
The reason is money.
It’s more complicated than that. There are lots of people that will be very annoyed when they unbox their iPhone and their plug that they don’t think about at all doesn’t work in the 7 places they’ve left them.
Just wait.
I already did this moving from micro to USB-C and it wasn’t that bad. Plus if they’re apple people and have MacBooks/iPads they already got a few.
Those Apple cables die very quickly, so replacing them with longer lasting cables is actually cost effective.
Sure, instead of 1 cable every 3 months it is 7 cables at the same time, but still no excuse.
Oh well
I’d wager part of it was because of the outrage when they switched from the 30 pin was significant
When was that? Was Obama already president? Move on, people.
I think they did promise to (it suggest they would?) support the lightning connector for a decade when they changed it from their original big connector.
I’m not naive enough to think that takes precedence over “money” as an answer, but maybe it was a factor?
Connection technology was good, but materials used in cable and design of strain release was horrible. Never seen a cable disintegrate without any reason after couple of years.
It cost tens of millions of dollars to engineer a product that disintegrates on their own
Truly revolutionary
So… every Apple first party cable?
Funnily enough my first ever Lightning cable that came with my iPod Touch 5G is so worn out you can see the 4 wires in it. Insulation and shield are completely gone at one end but it still works fine.
Thats how fires start.
Incidentally, I have a micro USB cable that came with my Nokia N97 (must be 2012 or something).
It’s flawless still and even after more than 10 years of service (now charging my xbox controller) it’s working fine.
I’ve tried purchasing identical “original” cables of same kind since then, but they all last a few months before getting lose our stop connecting.
5v are not going to start a fire 😅
Depends on the components you attach.
Something rated for 3v will start smoking, and if it is touching something flammable, it can start a fire.
I totally have.
Just not on a cable I paid $30 for because I don’t buy overpriced trash.
I think the problem is that between lightning cables and USB-C, one is made by an asshole company who wants you to use it for your phone and literally nothing else, and one is useful for your phone and literally everything else.
Funnily enough, Apple co-developed USB, introduced it in their laptops and everyone complained.
They complained because they literally stripped away most or all the usb-a’s in that process, forcing people to have to use hubs.
Apple does this shit all the time, and people always hate it.
Apple is successful dongle company that also makes some hardware.
Because they ONLY did it to the laptops, you fuck. People complain about change just to complain it changed.
No need to insult me. Are you a teenager?
No need to simp for a trillion dollar company, are you a paid troll?
I’m not simping. Is that your alt?
Dafuq, also yes you are
lightning suffered the same fate as FireWire before it: excellent protocol that would have benefited the users with mass adoption, hampered by Apple and their co-developers (in lightning’s case, Intel) charging too steep of licensing fees, rendering them niche
USB-C wasn’t really useful for anything when Lightning was introduced, on account of it not even existing as a spec, let alone actual hardware, until 2 years later.
At the time it came out, definitely, considering its main competitors for a standardised connector were Mini USB and Micro USB, which were serviceable but not that great…
Could be worse though, you could’ve been stuck with “superspeed” Micro USB like some folks were, those were just plain awful to use.
pretty sure my samsung Note had that
The problem with mini and micro was that they were asymmetrical and very small, imo. at least you could tell which side the indent was on without looking with superspeed. Good luck getting it in the hole without looking, though.
I’m pretty sure Samsung released a couple phones with it. The Note 3, S5, and I think the active that year had it. I worked in retail then and everyone in awhile people would come in looking for the specific cable and had no idea it would charge with standard micro USB.
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No
You can always tell the Apple fans, can’t you? This cable was hated by everyone when it came out because it broke everyones docks.
It also wasnt much faster, in fact, I’m almost positive the first phones were throttled, not unlike the new iPhone’s with type c.
Yeah, it’s amazing what people will stand up for. It’s quite odd.
Appledrone
Not fair. It was a great cable. It came out when everyone else was using mini and mico usb which both sucked hard ass. They weren’t reversible, and they broke easily.
It was a good cable when it came out, but as soon as USB-C became common it was obsolete. It was limited to USB2 speeds and did not support fast charging.
Which, seeing how Apple is still hellbent on continuing to only have USB2 speeds even with USB-C, plus lockout chips, their new connector is obsolete as well.
I still don’t understand the reason for the speed limit tbh. It just makes their product look like shit.
Faster USB chipset is more expensive and potentially also physically larger with more traces on the circuit board to deal with I imagine. And faster data speeds require more attention to how the traces are routed to prevent interference. I very much doubt this is anything other than to save a relatively small amount on materials and engineering costs, on an already overpriced phone, and/or to try and “encourage” you to use iCloud by making offline sync and backup painfully slow.
As someone involved in engineering boards with both USB 2.0 and 3.0 the costs are negligible. You’re not wrong about more traces or about it requiring more attention but per phone this cost less then a few cents.
I think it’s more about the upsell to the Pro line or as you suggested encouraging use of iCloud.
As I remember it the USB 3.0 chips can cause interference in 2.4GHz range unless shielding is used and the USB chipset is kept far away from the 2.4Ghz antennas. Probably just “juice not worth the squeeze” on the smaller non-pro model, if there’s a significant chance it could interfere with Bluetooth and wifi.
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USB-C is still not “common”. There are now all kinds of different cables with nothing in common except a form factor. Also, USB-C came out 2.5 years after lightning and didn’t match feature parity until the Thunderbolt spec and that was 5 years later. At that point, accessories and cables that used the Lightning port numbered in the millions, if not billions.
Also, what do you mean? The new phones support USB3…
How is USB-C not common? It’s the default for every remotely modern android phone I’ve seen, all the modern game consoles I’ve seen (eg, the Switch and PS5 controllers), and many other random electronics use it (I even had a covid tester that was plugged into USB-C). All my laptops these days use it (including two Chromebooks, a high end MacBook, and a Windows laptop) and of those, only the Windows laptop even had USB-A ports (ie, the other laptops only had USB-C).
I won’t pretend it’s perfectly ubiquitous. There’s lots of older electronics still using micro or mini USB (there’s been no reason for manufacturers to update older devices). But it’s definitely common in my book.
It’s not “common” in the sense that a USB-C connector can be all kinds of different implementations of the USB2/3 standards. To use your example, using a USB-C charger other than the default Nintendo one can short out a Switch completely and kill it. Compared to products that use Lightning, the number out there dwarves the current USB-C landscape. There are tons of devices that still use USB-A and USB-B and USB-C hubs don’t really exist.
In that case either the charger or the Switch was faulty, no matter the protocol in use, the devices should negotiate which charging profile to use. You can’t blame a non-spec implementation on the protocol, that’s on the manufacturer.
From what I’ve been able to see, that specific issue stems from a combination of cheap chargers/docking stations and Nintendo changing the USB-C port tolerances to allow smooth sliding in and out of the dock. Again, don’t blame the standard if the manufacturer decided to implement their own crappy version of it.
Only the Pro models, I believe. Funnily enough, typical Apple too, since they are bundling only a usb2.0 cable in the box for the Pro as well.
And technically the connector itself is way beter by clicking into place.
And they made sure no one else could develop a design with the same characteristics by patenting the fuck out of it. Thanks apple
What’s funny to me is that the solution to long term use was in their hands. They could have licensed it cheaply to other devices until it replaced the mini USB, then charged whatever they wanted for use once it was the defacto standard. Instead they clasped too tightly onto it and now it’s being forced into retirement
With how many cheap android phones have been produced, they’d be making money even if someone wasn’t buying an apple product, essentially taking a piece of the market share that wasn’t theirs.
But they did not see themselves as a utility supplier. They preferred having the superior charging cable over licensing it to others. This way they protected their market share on Iphones.
And then bundled it with a 5W charger?
I don’t know, maybe I’m just in a minority but personally I don’t care enough about what port is on a phone that that’s my primary concern when choosing a new phone. Sure, if a similarly spec’d phone at a similar price point drops I might take it into account, but for the most part I buy the best phone I can with the budget I have
No, if the clamp-mechanism breaks, you habe to replace the connector on the phone while with UsbC you only have to use a different cable.
I like USB type C, it’s a great connector and lightyears better than micro-b, or even micro-b 3.0 but the biggest issue I’ve come across is that it’s so easy to get dirt in the phone connector.
In fact a couple months back I had to sit there with a super thin safety pin and clean all the compacted shmutz that had gotten in my phone connector, bexause it was so bad the clamp wasn’t engaging at all, and cables were getting more and more unreliable. Once I got it cleaned every cable I’ve ever bought worked perfectly.
Ive never seen the dirt issue or the clamp mechanism breaking on a lightning connector before - neither on my parents phones, or on the spare phone we keep as one of those old backup phones if someone’s phone gets smashed or drowned. But it’s not really saying much as I never kept the backup phone for long, as I hate apple and iPhones, so it’s entirely possible that under longer term use with me specifically that it could’ve got broken or dirty due to my uniquely rough way of handling things .
my current pixel 3a has a thick protective case, which has kept it mostly undamaged over the years I’ve had it, despite many drop events. The only thing that has stopped working on it was the NFC reader, and so far I’ve managed to avoid breaking the screen. I’ll probably keep using it till it stops functioning at this rate, as options for new phones don’t really fit my needs or wants.
I used to run a repair shop. USB-C is definitely a dust magnet. Lightning is no better though. I cleaned just as many Lightning ports as I did C ports. They were slightly easier to clean though, without that fragile central post getting in the way.
I’ve also worked on literally tens of thousands of iPhones, and have never seen the clamp break on a lightning port, so idk what that dude is talking about. The actual clamp is on the cable, it just sits in a hole inside the port along either wall.
I’ve cleaned out plenty of Lightning ports over the years. Filled with gunk. Most of the time the connector would still work, but in some cases intermittently or not at all.
Huh, I guess you’ve proved me wrong with that one. I will say though I wonder which one is easier to clean out. Can someone whose done both comment?
I am on my third usb-module on my phone. Luckily it is replaceable. I would really like the concept of sticking a . in a o (as it is with lightning) than to have an . in a O and fiddling a o between both (as in USB-C). I have never lost a cable through wear and tear so far though…
Yeah if… the rest of your comment is nonsense. If a usb-c connector breaks on the phone a new cable is just as useless.
Doesn’t matter how great the cable is, when it is proprietary it stinks.
It was a piece of shit, always. Doesn’t matter if it was technically better, it was not standardized so fuck lightning cables forever. Good riddance to seriously awful bullshit rubbish
As someone who has had 2 small fires started in their cup holder with that so called “technically better” cable I will never understand how apple was ever able to market an exposed contact charging cable in the first place.
Wow, hadn’t heard about that but it makes sense. Yeah this thread is way weird. So many people simping for a cable.
Doesn’t matter if it was technically better
Do you approach your life with such black and white emotional reactions? Fuck nuance, details, and critical evaluations, amirite? Bad guy good guy hurrdurr.
I’m not going to argue why standards are good, that’s self evident. Sorry you’re blind to this.
How’s this for nuance? Apple made billions of dollars by just choosing to be dicks. That’s the honest truth here. Simp all you want.
Standards can be good, it’s not black and white, and dismissing the technical merit outright is batshit insane. You lack critical thinking. It has nothing to do with any other meaningless term you want to throw around.
Right the person looking to advance society with standards can’t think critically but the person who sucks off apple against logic is a brain master.
sucks off apple against logic
Your lack of assessment is even more evident. I never one mentioned the company. You did.
Lol yeah that’s how it works
Yeah, I still think it’s a great mechanical interface, if not the best. Would’ve been great if rather than killing it, regulatory bodies had forced USB to adopt the lightning design for the C type.
Lightning doesn’t have near the capabilities of USB C. Lightning had its time but it’s pretty clear that USB C is superior.
Lightning doesn’t have near the capabilities of USB C. … pretty clear that USB C is superior.
Are you talking about the capabilities of the USB protocol 3.x, or the mechanical design like I was? I don’t know a single property where the mechanical design of USB is superior to Lightning, but I’m ready to be enlightened.
For example having 3x the pins is a big plus. I don’t know why you are so focused on not including the protocols a port can use. Apple will most likely use USB to make connections between PCs and their Phones possible. And you have to have connectors capable of carrying the signals for those protocols.
The huge speeds of USB 3.0 (USB 3.2 Gen 1x1) and up are because of added twisted pairs carrying the signals in duplex (Plus a new USB A connector). Anything above USB 3.2 (USB 3.2 Gen 1x2 and USB 3.2 Gen 3 2x2) needs to use USB-C because the older USB-A Connector doesn’t have enough pins to allow a connection to a cable with 4 twisted pairs (plus one for backwards compatibility).
I think the lighting connector is enough to allow for a USB 3.0 connection, but you would have to switch the signals after it comes out of the port somehow, as the 3rd pair is not used during FullSpeed (I think there’s an adapter that does this)
Even if they don’t use USB and develope their own protocol, it’s gonna benefit from more parralel connections
The mechanical design was patented by apple, THEY decided that others were not allowed to use it (unless they pay).
One area where that is the case is the clamping mechanism. With USB-C, the moving parts/springs, which are the part of a connector that is most prone to failute are in the cable, which is both easier and significantly cheaper to replace than the charging port/device.
I don’t think this design could have work for USB 3.1 and more, even apple put USB -c as PD on there MacBook because it can deliver more watt (I think)
but yeah it was much better design than micro usb
This was a crucial step in Apple’s journey into becoming a trillion dollar company. Dongles.
Holy fuck I thought this was a joke
Wouldn’t that be a Lightning to USB C adapter? That naming doesn’t make sense.
The usb-c is at the top in the picture so I’ll have to disagree with you
Wait doesn’t that mean it’s a Lightning to USB C if the top is USB-C and the bottom is Lightning?
No, the USB-C port becomes a Lightning port.
The way I think about adapters is that you have a Lightning cable and attach the adapter so it turns into an USB-C cable. I guess you can also think about adapting the port. Wild.
Who is this for? Looking at the Apple Store, they sell an official USB-C cable for less ($19, but you can obviously find good quality third-party cables for much less).
This is 100% made for uninformed people in how that insurance will make money.
People who have accessories with a lightning adapter probably. Speakers, docks, etc.
Alternatively the adapter might be a cheaper option for third party cables that aren’t usb-c or usb-a on the other side of the cable.
People who have accessories with a lightning adapter probably. Speakers, docks, etc.
Are those common? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a speaker with a built-in Lightning dock.
I remember these iPod docks were very common at the time of the 30-pin connector. However by the time Lightning came around wireless audio became more commonplace with Bluetooth, AirPlay and other related technologies (CarPlay, smart speakers etc.)
Not in the last couple of years, but 11 years ago when it was introduced, probably.
Airplay was already around when the 30 pin connecter was still there, and they were also popular back then. I remember using a 30 pin connecter speaker with a 30 pin to lightning connecter also because it could charge my phone at the same time.
Realistically, the market for such accessories is likely fairly limited, but that in the end also results in a higher price (no scale in the market after all).
People blindly jumping on the USB-C wagon are completely forgetting how much money people spend on accessories that still work perfectly fine…
And they can use their current phones with them, no? No one is forced to upgrade - they can easily buy another lightning-having iPhone when their current one croaks and should be safe for the next 20 years (buying used iPhones) if their stupid accessories are so gd important
People so engraved into the Apple Ecosystem, they only have lightning cables/devices and not a single usb-c cable
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It’s probably for accessories
I can get an usb c cable cheaper than that
We all know about monoprice it’s cool
Lightning was significantly ahead of the competition when it came out in 2012. Micro-USB is a terrible collection of ports. C came out two years later though, and quickly surpassed Lightning in almost every way.
Lighting was a good cable when apple made the switch from 30 pin connector and android was still trying to figure out whether they would use microUSB, miniUSB, and whatever the sam hell
is. And there was no interoperabilityOnce USB became the standard their was no real reason to hold onto lightning other than it being proprietary and them wanting to hand hold their users
Lol what? Android used micro USB all across the board on flagships. They then went straight to usb-c.
I had USB-3 for a bit on my my Note.
I kinda liked it since you could still use a regular micro USB cable in a pinch.
I had one on a Samsung as well, I did enjoy how a regular micro USB was still usable, I just needed the one at home to be more powerful.
That is straight up not true. I have multiple flagship devices with mini-USB and, within those, some have mini-A while others have mini-B. Google’s own Nexus devices had mini-USB connectors.
The first “Google phone” was the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) with MiniUSB. Next was the Nexus One with MicroUSB. Everything after used MicroUSB until the Nexus 5X with USB-C.
It feels like you’re arguing semantics. Are you only counting Google-branded devices? What about other Android flagships made by Samsung? HTC?
Google’s own Nexus devices had mini-USB connectors.
I was addressing this point in particular. There were no “Nexus” devices with MiniUSB, so it was clear quite early that Google considered MicroUSB to “the right port” for Android.
That’s not true. I have a Nexus tablet with mini-USB. So either you only mean phones or you’re wrong.
Which tablet? I checked every device on https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?sQuickSearch=yes&sName=nexus, and none have Mini USB. There were two Nexus 7 tablets with Micro USB.
This might be true for a very select few devices. Before usb-c I have never seen something else besides micro USB on an android device (besides the micro USB 3.0 connection, but you could put a normal micro USB cable in those)
Yeah, the common EPS initiative (mandating USB 2.0 micro-B) was in effect since 2009. That’s right around the time smartphones were getting popular. Even my last slide phone had micro-USB. Maybe there were different models for different markets though, a product doesn’t need to follow EU law if it’s only sold in the US.
I had multiple phones with mini USB-B.
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Incorrect
LoL people forgetting the massive ball of random USB styles hrydra-ing from a single cable that existed just labeled “Android” that I had clipped to my backpack to help people charge their phone.
All micro USB my ass.
Well that and the made for iPhone program made them apparently 5 billion a year on the lightning cable alone. That’s not just first party. That’s also third party connectors.
That cable had one awesome feature.
You could just plug in a micro cable and get a charge, so old cables in the car or at the office worked fine (well…as fine as Micro-USB ever worked), just more slowly
Once USB became the standard their was no real reason to hold onto lightning other than it being proprietary and them wanting to hand hold their users
Well if the lockout chip rumors are true, they’ve basically just made Lighting 2, Electric Boogaloo that just happens to be shaped like USB-C but is incompatible with all non-Apple approved connectors.
And is now illegal lol
It was never a good cable. Only one reason is needed to prove it: it was not standardized.
Once USB became the standard their was no real reason to hold onto lightning other than it being proprietary and them wanting to hand hold their users
Other than the fact that they promised when they switched to lightning they wouldn’t change connectors again for a decade.
Wow good guy EU, making them hold their word lmao. Lightning came out in 2012, so this would have been the 11th year.
I believe that is USB 3.0 Micro B.
The reason to hold onto it after USB-C was the literally millions of devices that had been released at the time that used it. There’s a reason people made a stink about moving away from the 30-pin despite Lightning being objectively better. It’s the same situation here.
At one point, after normal C came out, I gave up and threw out all the stuff I had that took the giant C connector. What an abomination.
That is for external hard drives, the same ones that plug into Macs…
That is micro-USB 3.0 and it’s an annoying connector that now is just as obsolete as micro-USB 2.0 and for some reason, around 2014, sone smartphone manufacturers thought it was a good idea adding it on their phones. Didn’t last long and got replaced by normal micro-USB again (which is much worse than lightning imo).
My Samsung S5 had one of those. You could just put a normal micro USB cable in them to charge.
It’s for devices that require more power usually, many external harddrive/ssd cases still use them.
Yea, and since usb-c there’s no reason why. Micro b 3 is worse in every way
Good. Apple’s whole ecosystem can go.
They never would if switched if it wasn’t forced on them. I’m glad they were forced no matter how apple spins it
would if
They took it further than the incorrect “would of” just to fuck with us.
Boneappletea
would if is the new would of
Wake up babe, new torture method just dropped
There is no God
Yes, Lightning was better than MicroUSB but by now I hope we can all agree, that it has overstayed its welcome
When apple changed to lightning it was in the middle of the accessory hype where there were loads of accessories using the 30-pin. People where outraged because they could no longer use any of their accessories. Apple then commited to lightning for 10 years in order to sooth the public image. This was 11 years ago, and they didn’t switch last year to cut costs, but I’d argue it only overstayed it’s welcome for a year.
It was technically batter, but they limited it on the iPhone 5. Nobody wants to remember that, do they?
Maybe it got faster in later models, but within just two years usb-c had come out.
It was almost 4 years before the first usb c phone was released and that was only in China. No clue where you’re getting 2 years from. And even then Apple helped design the USB C standard.
Completely untrue. The Nexus 6p had USB C and it was available worldwide.
Ok, I have to take issue with this. I will never be an apple user, but until USB-C came out I was honestly jealous of the lightning cable. It is reversible and consistent, two things other phone chargers never were. Sure, for data transfer it’s outdated as hell now, but it is still good enough for most uses
It is reversible and consistent
consistent in what?
Consistent in frying pins and fraying cables.
I worked cellular retail for 8 years I’ve never really seen fried pins on iPhones. The frayed cables are pretty much inevitable especially if it is apples first party cables. Shockingly I have had contamination in usbc ports though. It caused several devices of mine to no longer charge due to corrosion. Still not sure what exactly caused it but I suppose it was juice from a vape that leaked into the connector. Basically fried my laptop c ports, my iPads port and my pixel’s port. I still think the move to c was pretty necessary.
Only complaint is cables that have contaminants can easily travel between devices now.
Other than that the protocol support is all over the place.
Everyone I know who uses an iPhone has had fried pins on the cable, not necessarily on their device. No one I know personally has had any issues with USB-C.
Though both experiences are anecdotal, I think we can take this away from our conversation at least: no cable design is perfect. Lol!
Consistent in that they used the same type of charger for almost all their devices after they established it. Mini-USB outdoes them in ubiquity, but the connector is usually a piece of shit.
Mini-USB wasn’t very common. Micro-USB was common.
Right, that one. My point about micro-usb being good pretty much only because everyone uses it still stands. USB-C fixed all of my problems with it.
Consistent in connecting /charging on first try, compared to micro usb.
Lightning’s data transfer and charging are subpar, although I’m not sure if Apple is implementing PD fast charging on the new iPhone either.
They are not, unless you get the pro as far as I have seen/heard. The regular iPhone is artificially limited to USB 2.0 speeds.
It is not artificially limited. It’s using the board from last year’s Pro model. It doesn’t have a USB3 interface.
The Pro still doesn’t have PD charging.
When they go portless (I’m guessing next year or 2) they don’t want people bitching that the charging is slower, so they’re not going to support wired charging that’s faster than wireless.
The same law that forces standardised cable by the EU also forces Apple to not go portless, since it needs a standardised port on the device that can be used to charge.
USB 2.0 vs. 3.0 data has nothing to do with USB PD charging wattage.
This is to force users to use cloud solutions and lock users in the apple ecosystem
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I didnt say it was great, I said it was good enough for a very long time. And in all honesty i think its data transfer speeds were always subpar.
My personal pet theory is that it was designed the way it was in order to make a cost-cutting measure look fancy and luxurious.
Inb4 apple places a chip in the cable that only handshakes with apple devices?
welcome to 2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C
Prefacing this question with the fact I’m an Android user and have never owned an iPhone. Saying this in the hopes people won’t think I’m an Apple fanboi trying to make a point…
I haven’t been that interested in the EU legislation around this until now; I’m curious what happens when something comes out that is better than USB-C? Are companies stuck until new legislation is passed or is there some sort of auto update to the standard written in?
The same thing that is happening now. EU mandated micro USB on all phones and Apple pleaded exceptionalism. Industry has moved on to USB C and EU is updating mandate. Apple is not being allowed to plead exceptionalism again.
The law is ready for that. If and when the USB association agrees on a new standard thats not USB-C, then the new standard will be required after a transitional period. Right now it doesnt seem likely that this will happen in the near future, but in 10 years? Maybe
It is expected that the industry will continue the work already carried out on the standardised interface under the auspices of the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) with a view to developing new interoperable, open and uncontroversial solutions.
Kinda how the web industry comes together in the W3C to set standards for the web, so websites work the same on all devices and browsers and there’s been LOTS of improvements.
It’s kinda been agreed that it’s the best connector right now, with a lot of future-proofing built in (you can already see it f.e. with Thunderbolt, the same cable, massively different capabilities over ther years OR, from the power distribution side, it going all the way up to 200(ish?) watts lately
The law is about standardised ports and cables, not usb-c specifically.
It is just that usb-c is about the only current standardised port, and for good reason.
It WAS a good cable about 6 years ago when even flagship phones still used micro USB. I would have killed for lightning on my old android phone. However, usb c just takes the cake, every cake. It has its own problems but the tradeoffs are miniscule compared to lightning.
I’m pro USB C all the way, but I definitely appreciated the lightning connector. It’s smaller, fewer things to go wrong with it, less delicate… so to speak… at least the female side seems to be from my experience. The male side isn’t half bad either, but the cables apple used for their USB to lightning wires was basically trash. Every time I witnessed someone with a bad iPhone charging cable, the connector was generally fine and the wire was torn to shreds.
The biggest weakness of the standard was that it was stuck on USB 2.0. Beyond that it was pretty good.
I still like USB C more, both for speed and for how ubiquitous it is; but, being fair to lightning here, the center area were the pins are is a failure point, one wrong move and it’s toast. Granted it’s nestled in there pretty good and the chances of that actually happening is pretty small, but lightning doesn’t have this issue.
Lightning is far from perfect, but they did a good job… for the time. Right now the only benefit to lightning is twofold, it’s everywhere, and the connectors basically never broke with normal use. At the time micro-B was horribly fragile. C is way better than micro-B was, but I still think that lightning has the crown for durability IMO.
With all that being said, USB C all the things. Lightning was a shining example of a better way, and hopefully we learned from that. I don’t know what comes after USB C, but I hope the improvements are significant. It will be a while before C goes anywhere though.
I may be stupid.
But I have no idea how people are comparing “better” or “worse” cables. I always just assumed they were just cables.
Edit: for people downvoting me, I’m not saying they are just cables, I’m just saying I don’t know what the difference is, and asking for an explanation. Please calm down.
There is physical connections between devices. The pins that make electrical contact. There are 24 on UsbC and 8 on lightning making a lot more things possible.
Also there are structural benifits. Lightning connectors are held in by the device which makes replacing the clamp a lot more difficult than just switching the cable like UsbC, where that mechanism is inside the cable.
And last but not least is Usb an open protocol while you would have to pay Apple if you wanted to implement Lightning.
You just had me unplugging my cable to shine a flashlight down it to look for the pins haha. Thank you for the info!
Though lightning had 8 pins, for being reversible it is actually 2 pairs of 4 pins.
USB-C works around this by using cc1/2 pin which indicates the orientation of the connection.
I think the Lightning-Protocol was a little more difficult, because there were Display Adapters which probably need more than 4 lanes. And who could forget: some iPad actually had Usb 3 over Lightning.
There are different dimensions for this, balance of importance differs between users and application:
- data transfer rate
- power transfer rate
- durability
- reusability with other products
- length
- price
- someone made it white and engraved a pictogram of an incomplete apple on it
Don’t worry, apple is still limiting data transfer to usb2 protocols except on the pro models
Oh I always expect them to find a loop hole to sell their ridiculously expensive peripherals. My best bet is a chip that forces you to use an apple usb c cable.
They planned to something like this, but EU regulators made clear that this is an violation and would lead to consequences.
Nice
See it’s at this point I get lost haha, but I think I’m starting to understand the gist of it
There is zero technical reason to limit the speeds. Apple is just being an asshole and wants to misrepresent USB-C to their customers. Because again, Apple are assholes.
Apple is using the last year’s Pro chip in this year’s standard iPhone. That doesn’t have USB 3 support. They could have added a USB 3 chip for that but it’s Apple.
The newest a17 bionic chip has USB 3 support built in. It is only present in iPhone Pro hence USB 3 support for the cable.
Okay, so getting information and energy to and from the phone (what a cable does), how long it lasts, how many different types of cables you’d have to buy to work with similar devices you have, length and price are self explanatory, and whether or not apple is being apple.
I think I got it, thank you!
Well, they aren’t.
Yeah, I’m learning that, which is exactly why I asked the question
Usually it’s about the time it takes to charge the phone or transfer files. I have never used the lightning cable so I can’t personally compare but as USB C is compatible with USB 3.0 whereas lightning isn’t, I assumed USB C is faster
I’m also seeing things about not using the phone while it’s charging which is a rule I’m currently breaking as we speak. Whoops!
Lightning is more convenient to clean the port which I like. I fully admit usb c is better in every other way. I personally don’t need it though - I don’t want to kill my battery with uber fast charging and I never connect it to my computer these days. But I’m excited to see if this makes Apple Carplay faster.
Yeah, I recently made the switch from apple to Android after my second apple device in a row had a major internal hardware malfunction out of nowhere and the people at the store just went “yeah no I can’t fix this sorry, you need a new phone”, so I’m still figuring out the complex world of not apple. I didn’t even realize you had to clean the ports, but I guess it would make sense. I recently found out my android and my computer use the same port (usb-c) and I got really excited so that’s the level of “tech savvy” I’m on haha
I’m curious what Android phone you picked up
My dad gave me his old Razer 2 since he doesn’t use it anymore. It’s not in great condition, but it works
If you are afraid of hardware malfunctions, may I propose the Fairphone?
It is literally designed so you can replace the hardware yourself. USB-C port broken? 15€ and 10 minutes later you have a new port (even if you don’t know anything about phone repair). Screen broken? 80€ and you have a complete new one. Battery replacement is 30€ and that is just pop-and-go like in the old days.
They also give at least 5 year warranty, and you can still buy parts for the Fairphone 2, which is about 7 years old at this point.
