Apple probably realized that they've been selling USB-C cables for years, even in their own stores, and those might have lacked an MFi certification. Better to avoid the ridicule and do the right thing for once.
I’m not saying it doesn’t support existing standards, I’m saying that they debuted MagSafe as a proprietary but superior version of the technology.
The non-proprietary Qi2 version of this technology came out multiple years after Apple already sold millions of proprietary MagSafe accessories and built up a brand name around it.
When lightning came out, it was also desirable because it was durable and reversible, and USB-C didn't exist yet. Its main problem is that it stayed around for too long.
I was going to suggest they confused MFi and e-marking for the USB-C cables, but it appears you only need e-marking for above 60 watt applications, which the iPhone 15 isn't going to require. Good news all round.
Maybe for people new to the ecosystem. Most existing users have had their existing inventory of cables suddenly rendered useless for future phones. When I eventually upgrade, I will have to buy at least 2-3 additional cables (I am not a fan of dongles). I will spend this money even though there is no tangible benefit to me as the only USB-C device I have is a Kindle.
My USB-C devices include: headphones, earbuds charging case, laptop, tablet, VR headset, and Switch
My non USB-C device is: eBook reader
I do have a bunch of Lightning cables, but I also have more than enough USB-C cables because literally everything else uses it, and I'm looking forward to not needing to bother with carrying a special cable around for one device anymore.
The eBook reader is a minor nuisance with micro USB charging, but battery life is long enough that for short trips I don't even bother bringing a cord for it. And around the house I can unplug my Qi pad and use its micro USB cable.
EDIT: forgot one more USB-C device, it's also on my Ryobi battery bidirectional charger. Don't use that frequently, picked it up for power outages. But it means the Ryobi provided charger in the garage which I sometimes use for headphones will be able to charge my next phone as well.
That's great. I recognize most people who do not use iPhones use USB-C heavily. I have 10+ years of Apple devices and no USB-C. Devices which work on the existing Lightning connector:
- standalone speaker
- charging stand
- AirPods case
- and of course all the cables
I don't know how common/rare my use case is, but I can say that this switch is basically all downside for me.
It was always a stupid rumor. Can you imagine if Apple required a different USB-C cable for your new iPhone rather than what already works with iPads and MacBooks? They would never do that.
> Can you imagine if Apple required a different [... snip ...] cable for your new iPhone rather than what already works with iPads and MacBooks?
My alteration of your comment brings it in line with the status quo prior to the USB-C which, keep in mind, Apple fought tooth and nail against. It is a stupid idea, but Apple did it anyway. The world runs on stupid ideas daily; either because they are more profitable, or are too entrenched, or both.
let's recall that lightning came out before usb-c, because vendors within the USB-IF didn't want to upgrade their devices to replace micro-b with something more expensive and were stalling the acceptance of the standard.
for everything you can say about apple, they have at least been consistent on connectors, some would say to a fault. when they deprecated the 30-pin they promised that iphone (not ipad, not laptop) would remain on lightning for 10 years.
I'm not buying it. It's just a cable, and regular wear and tear (user error in Apple parlance) pretty-much dictates a lifetime far less than 10 years. The reason is profit, no more, no less.
How do I get USB3 'superspeed' data transfer though? I regularly shuttle multi-gigabyte files onto my iPhone's flash storage and that takes too much time. One of those sit-back-and-make-some-coffee moments in life that doesn't have to be that way. It would free up so much time if the transfers were near instant.
rather than increase BOM and R&D costs, they opted to not upgrade the USB interface. Having a USB3 capable cup through a lightning connector would be pointless since it would be speed capped. If you truly need fast USB transfer for some reason, they sell a phone model with that.
Because they have a separate Fresco Logic FL1100SX USB 3 controller that would add cost and take space and power which is not much of an issue on an iPad but is on the phone.
The A17 is the first Apple A series SoC with USB3 controller built in while previous chips only had USB2 on the SoC.
I wonder what the conversation was an apple about losing all that additional revenue from the sale of lightning cables. I never believed lightning was anything more than a way for Apple to gouge the customers a little bit more.
Lightning is a proprietary computer bus and power connector, created and designed by Apple Inc. It was introduced on September 12, 2012, in conjunction with the iPhone 5, to replace its predecessor, the 30-pin dock connector.
And now that they are switching to USB-C, they are going to lose all that revenue.
The thin pc board inside the USB-C connector is prone to breaking. Angled insertion/removal also leverages the pins soldered to the mainboard and can eventually break them loose.
The Lightning connector was superior in many ways. I have no idea why everyone is celebrating this downgrade.
Now no one is ever able to improve on the connector reliability because the EU has frozen the design forever by enshrining it into law?
The Lightning connector was superior in many ways. I have no idea why everyone is celebrating this downgrade.
You say it's a downgrade, but the only issues I've had with cables in this context are lightning connectors where the cable connector broke off into the device and required a good amount of work to get all the pieces out.
And that's with only a single device using a lightning cable and many other devices that are USB-C.
Honest to whatever - How?!
Those connectors seem like solid metal, seems like it would take ludicrous force to break it like that.
So would a cable side USB-C connector - but in agreement with the grandparent comment that tab in the center port is pretty flimsy… and the ports themselves seem pretty wear happy, similar to how micro usb tended to break the port first after repeated insertion vs. a more easily replaceable cable.
In any case, this wouldn't be solved by USB-C. In fact, it'd be even worse, because instead of one chunky piece of metal with some bits inside, you'll have a mess of tiny plastic and long, unprotected connector pins, both in the device and on the cable connector.
Also: Apple does not attach the lightning port to the mainboard of an iPhone, and thus it is easily replaced unlike damn near every Android phone where the connector is soldered onto the mainboard, purposefully, along with extremely fine pitch SMD components very close to the connector, to make it difficult to impossible to repair (the tiny SMD components will blow off the board if you use a hot air rework gun.)
99% of my phone charging happens on a Qi pad, this saves me from needing to carry a special cable around just in case I need to charge my phone with it once a year.
They're great, you should try it. My phone was having trouble with CarPlay recently because the port had gotten clogged with lint, I was able to fix it by very carefully cleaning out the port but I'm switching to wireless CarPlay and MagSafe charging to not have to worry about it. That's the one place I still had to use a lightning cable regularly, and a $40 wireless adapter takes care of it.
Wireless charging is the way to go. When the charging port on my iPhone 12 started to go I switched to wireless. The constant plugging and unplugging, etc. put too much strain on that jack.
I use my phone so little that this is not really a concern, but if you're the kind of person who regularly drains your phone battery then I guess it could matter.
My battery health is reported at 81%, though I've seen some speculation that iOS 17 betas changed how this is calculated because people see lower numbers than they did before. Regardless, looking at previous 10 days history my peak battery use was about 60% last Sunday.
The legislation freezes development in time. It's unlikely that anything will be able to replace USB-C any time soon, because it is legislated in place.
I'd rather see the tech continue to improve and let the marketplace decide what tech is superior.
USB C isn't legislated that strictly, it provides a sane baseline, exactly like USB 2 was. Easiest way for you to understand it is C is an official baseline, 2.0 was an unofficial baseline.
You can still easily add your "technologically superior" port to your devices alongside the standard.
I've yet to have a USB C port fail for what it's worth.
Apple had plenty of opportunities to be involved in the development of USB C (they are on the forum). They also could have opened up lightning as an option for USB C. Fighting against using common standards for so long has left them to the whims of others. Be part of the global tech stack instead of a dead end.
Apple likes to shoot themselves in the foot by insisting on keeping things proprietary that don't need to be kept proprietary. This whole episode is one big unforced error on Apple's part.
They are presently being ordered at gunpoint to redesign their hardware, but I can see how some people might consider that a win, given the right combination of drugs and talk therapy.
Turning Lightning over to the USB Forum could have prevented this. Lightning is good enough to supplant the mediocre USB C connector, but it's not good enough on its own to sell phones.
Apple made their bed here, now they have to sleep in it. Supporting 2 different serial cables for no discernible purpose is borderline highway robbery and an insult to their userbase. If they didn't like USB-C, they shouldn't have designed protocols around it and used it for a decade in their Pro hardware. If they didn't want to adopt USB-C, they should have put more effort into making Lightning a viable alternative. You don't get to play the helplessness card when talking about the largest business in the world.
I don't trust any of these companies as far as I could throw them. Circumstantially, I'd rather USB-IF hold Apple accountable, since Apple holding themselves accountable just leads to DRM for serial data.
You do realise that Apple offered Lightning as a design to the USB-IF? It was rejected by the other members in favour of the obviously inferior Micro USB. Lightning’s versatility did eventually turn heads at the USB-IF, leading to the development of USB Type C, which was driven largely by Apple and Google.
They were right to reject it. Lightning is encumbered with multiple royalties and implementation patents that made it more of a glorified prototype than a reasonable proposal. USB-IF would be mocked for accepting Apple's offering as-written.
Hmm, going to have to put a [citation needed] on that. I do not believe that is true at all.
Organizations that wish to use the USB logo and have a vendor ID will likely pay an annual fee and devices must undergo certification[0], but not on a per-device or per-connector basis.
I've never heard of USB charging a fee per connector.
I've had my last four phones get issues due to usb-c. The standardization is worth it, but goddman I wish they had standardized on a better physical port.
This is unquestionably the best physical port. The port you want does not exist.
Find me a connector that does everything USB-C can do. High speeds. High power charging. Alt modes. Mobile friendly size.
Lightning is good for the meager feature set that iPhones support. It is absolutely awful for everyone else that is used to a vast, feature rich ecosystem.
My iPhone 14 charges fast enough. Any file transfers go over airdrop, which is fast enough. The port is smaller than USB-C. I can clean it by rummaging around in it with a toothpick and not worrying about breaking stuff.
USB-C is an unambiguous downgrade for me, and I wish they had just welded an adapter into the port for EU customers.
Why does it have to do simply everything? What's that saying? Jack of all trades, master of none? The "meager" support that lightning supports means it's better suited for things that go in pockets where lint lives, than usb-c ever could be.
That it's not an open standard is a problem, but let's be honest that it does have advantages over usb-c.
Lightning only support USB2 data speeds. The iPad Pro or iPhone 15 Pro have USB3 data speeds because of USB-C (iPhone 15 only does USB2). People don't plug in their phones much, but it makes a big difference for the initial transfer. The Lightning AV adapter is limited speed to resolution it can support. The iPhone 15 supports 4K with USB-C.
The advantage of USB-C that can use the same connector for your headphones, phone, to computer. You can use one charger and cables. The cables and adapters have multiple sources instead of just Apple.
The iPhone 15 Pro supports USB3 speeds. The other ones didn't get the new SoC.
I understand the advantage, thank you for mansplaining that it to me. I, too, will enjoy not having to have a mess of different cables to charge all my devices. I just wish that Apple wasn't such a bunch of proprietary dick heads about the lightning connector and their participation in defining the USB-C connector spec. We could have standardized on a receptacle that is easier to clean out, and harder to break with common household tools.
The U in USB stands for Universal. Doing everything is explicit in the name itself. And compared to how we connected things 15 years ago it's certainly master of all.
I have a cable. It's got USB-C plugs on both ends. What can it do?
Power? How much?
Data? How much?
Alternate mode?
How long is it? How flexible is it?
Can I charge my car with it?
Use it to connect my Cisco router to my Juniper router in my IPX?
What does the cable itself report it is capable of, vs what is it actually capable of?
Don't get me wrong, I'm super happy that we're standardizing on something. I, too, have that box of old chargers "just in case" I have something that matches. I'm so happy that most of the laptops around me can be charged over usb-c.
But they fucked up parts of implementation of it; it's jack of all trades, master of none.
No, it is absolutely not. The lightning physical port is noticeably superior for many.
> Find me a connector that does everything USB-C can do. High speeds. High power charging. Alt modes. Mobile friendly size.
That is not a function of the connector, that is a function of USB 3.0 (or 4.0) and USB-PD. The connector is a USB Type-C connector, which is a related but wholly independent standard. You are mistaking the USB protocol and USB power delivery standards for the design of one particular connector which supports those standards.
Then can you share a device or cable that uses a Lightning connector and supports the USB 3.0 and USB-PD protocols? Who in their right minds would standardize on something that doesn't exist?
> This [USB-C] is unquestionably the best physical port.
It is not.
USB 3.0 is unquestionably better than the USB 2.0 supported by Lightning devices, and you’ll get no argument from me there. But that is completely independent of the design of the physical port.
Additional anecdata. I've never had a USB-C issue. I have like 20 USB-C devices, even some super cheap-ass shit and none of them have ever had problems. Some of my lightning shit has loose connection problems, and sometimes they don't charge when you plug in until you wiggle them just right. I had to buy a new iPhone once because I could only get it to charge when I held the cable in the port at the right angle.
This has happened with my cheap iPhone cables and the OEM ones that come with it. If you want to blame the cheap cables, then fine, but no cheap cables have ruined my USB-C devices.
Did you try cleaning your USB-C port using compressed air and/or a plastic dental pick? I find I have to this every couple of years or so to clean out the pocket lint.
This is the difference in my experience. USB-C ports need to be cleaned more because it has a connector in the middle. So the gap where stuff can get stuck is smaller, thus being worse.
It is easy to clean with a tweezer though. Having a single cable for everything it still the best. Apple has some blame, as they played a big role in the USB-C standard. Also, they could have made lightning an open standard. But now even my electric toothbrush charges with USB-C.
does the law require existence of a cable connection, or just require that a pluggable connector be USB-C?
I can imagine just removing the connectors entirely, for Qi charging, and thereby reducing one port and its consequences on RF noise -> RF desensifying for cellular.
> Now no one is ever able to improve on the connector reliability because the EU has frozen the design forever by enshrining it into law?
The EU has made it clear that if the manufacturers get together and come up with a replacement, technically superior standard, then it will be permitted. However, there isn't one on the horizon anytime soon because USB-C doesn't really have any weaknesses requiring a new connector right now.
> The Lightning connector was superior in many ways. I have no idea why everyone is celebrating this downgrade.
Faster speeds, but primarily consistency with other devices. I can certify that when you travel with a MacBook, Nintendo Switch, iPad, Portable Soundbar, Battery Pack, and they all use USB-C... the iPhone that uses Lightning gets pretty annoying very quickly.
To be honest, part of me wondered if Apple could have gotten away (even though it would have caused shock) with 2 connectors on the iPhone. Lightning on the bottom where it had always been, USB-C on the left side with the volume switches and SIM card tray, just for the EU market. Would've been compliant but the EU would've been furious.
> if the manufacturers get together and come up with a replacement, technically superior standard, then it will be permitted
You can see how that is next to impossible, though. You need to test in millions of phones over several years to verify that something is good. Which means it has to get into production. But that isn't allowed. A Catch-22 situation.
"Verifying something is good" in that sense isn't required.
If there's some other connector that looks compelling for charging and data, phone makers can get together and adopt it, too. We don't need phone-specific experience or to have done an A/B test with tons of statistical power.
USB-C ain't perfect. But it's pretty tough to beat. There's also room for incremental improvements in reliability and functionality within the standard, too.
At some point, just living with something as the standard is the way to go-- rather than hoping something new will be worth forklifting all the infrastructure and/or splitting the market.
I am interested to know how it deals with lint. Lightning on all my iPhones eventually gets packed with lint from being in my pocket eventually with enough to prevent the connector from going in enough to make a good contact, usually it will stop consistently charging or connecting to carplay and I think something wrong with cable until I remember to clean it out with a paperclip or something.
Always thought they should have done a small spring loaded door that the connector pushes out of the way when inserted.
USB-C has even smaller space to stick something in to clean out lint since the pins are in the middle, also looks more delicate so would be worried to do that anyway, and a cover door looks out of the question too due to the pins in middle board.
The failure mode for every plugged in USB-C cable I have owned has been the connector bending on the cable with no damage at all to the port on the device. Cable needs to be replaced but I have had zero USB C port failures at this point having owned around 15 USB-C devices in the last 5-6 years (several of which are Apple devices btw, which is why I'm happy about dropping the last of Lightning).
In any connector of this sort, there are two pieces: the plug on the cable and the receptacle on the phone. Lightning has a very visually appealing and physically durable plug, and that’s the part that you see. But this hides several aspects of the connector that make a poor functionality tradeoff.
On a USB micro B or USB-C cable, the plug is retained in the socket by little spring-loaded clips on the plug. On micro, they’re on the outside and very obvious, and they stop working well if the plug gets a bit bent. On USB-C, they’re in the concealed portion of the plug. In both cases, they are components that can wear out, and, when they do, you replace the cable and you’re in good shape. These spring-loaded clips mate with fixed notches in the receptacle, and those notches are much longer lasting.
Lightning does this the other way around. The plug has notches, and the springs are concealed in the socket. If the springs wear out, replacing the cable doesn’t help.
Similarly, the electrical contacts are springy in the socket. They are very easy to damage with careless cleaning, and they have a tendency to accumulate lint, so they are likely to need cleaning.
Lightning has an additional defect involving arcing. If you look at a charging cable that’s been use for a while, you’ll see that one electrical pad on each side of the plug will be burnt. Presumably this is where the connection arcs every time it’s unplugged. I’m not sure how USB mitigates this, but it seems to be less of a problem. Maybe the contacts are simply thicker and more durable.
Sure, USB-C receptacles have a thin tongue, and it’s a weak point, but it’s much stronger than the 10 fragile moving parts inside a lightning receptacle.
I was on the same page as you, but a fairly knowledgable podcaster made the case that the weak link in these connectors was the flexy contacts, which are in the device on lightning devices and in the cable on USB-C.
I'm currently unsure which to believe, but I also kind of don't care anymore. There was never a future where Lightning was opened to the rest of the industry, and Apple never bumped it beyond USB 2.0 speeds, so I'm ready to just get on with it.
Except that Apple doesn't appear to be ready to make anymore iPhone Minis, so I'll be stuck with lighting for the next five years… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thank you! I’m bewildered and quite frankly truly annoyed by this celebration of an obvious downgrade, forced by a law made by people who (mostly) do not understand the tech world.
Yes, you now have the same port as (all of) the concurrent phone when you have an iPhone. Youplidoo. You succeeded in giving us (iPhone users) something worse than what we had because there were too many of you. By force. Thanks for nothing.
Yup. I love standardization, and I don't even use iPhone - but the USB-C port is demonstrably awful. My failure rate with C ports across three or four devices has been even higher than Micro-B, which is insane. In the latest case, I was forced to switch to wireless charging after less than one year plugging my Pixel 7 in every night. The port is utterly useless now - if I'm ever in a situation where I don't have a wireless charger, I will simply be unable to charge my phone (yes, I've cleaned the port). Lightning is simply the most rock-solid and long-lasting port of its size ever designed.
The iPad Pro used a separate USB controller which adds cost, space, power making it a no go on the phones. The A17 is the first A series with integrated USB3 controller.
I am talking about the 4th gen and prior iPad Pros with A series cpus and USB3, not M series which also have built in USB3 controllers, I thought I made the A series part clear.
M series being much larger and more power hungry would also have the same issues in a phone, hence the two different series, so my point still stands.
yeah, like their proprietary USB connector on iMacs, or their proprietary USB-C connector on Macbooks in 2016, or when they invented Thunderbolt all by themselves, and the time they didn't make Firewire and open standard…
What are you talking about? Proprietary connectors I can think of…
- A bunch of ridiculous digital video ports, necessary because the whole industry couldn't agree on how to move on from VGA.
- The "dock connector" — literally nothing else in the industry, even after its introduction, could meet all the needs of that thing, up until…
- Lightning. USB-C was still years away, and the attempts at small USB were a garbage fire.
So now that everyone is switching cables, what will Apple do to make up all that lost revenue? People were locked into the MFI lightning cable for so long
There are a lot of critics on the lack of USB 3.0 speeds in the base model, but this hasn't been a problem for me. iCloud backups happen over WiFi for the general consumer and even when I do iPhone backups over USB it takes less than an hour the first time, and less than ten minutes for the incremental updates.
If anything, the fact that Android adds a soft-lock to the DisplayPort output on their USB-C port should be under scrutiny. There is absolutely no reason this should be blocked on flagship models like the Google Pixel, in fact brands like Samsung enable it on their phones (DEX). All iPhone 15 models support 4K60 from their USB-C port.
Video mirroring and video out support: Up to 4K HDR through native DisplayPort output over USB-C or USB-C Digital AV Adapter (model A2119; adapter sold separately)
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 320 ms ] threadThe non-proprietary Qi2 version of this technology came out multiple years after Apple already sold millions of proprietary MagSafe accessories and built up a brand name around it.
Maybe for people new to the ecosystem. Most existing users have had their existing inventory of cables suddenly rendered useless for future phones. When I eventually upgrade, I will have to buy at least 2-3 additional cables (I am not a fan of dongles). I will spend this money even though there is no tangible benefit to me as the only USB-C device I have is a Kindle.
My non USB-C device is: eBook reader
I do have a bunch of Lightning cables, but I also have more than enough USB-C cables because literally everything else uses it, and I'm looking forward to not needing to bother with carrying a special cable around for one device anymore.
The eBook reader is a minor nuisance with micro USB charging, but battery life is long enough that for short trips I don't even bother bringing a cord for it. And around the house I can unplug my Qi pad and use its micro USB cable.
EDIT: forgot one more USB-C device, it's also on my Ryobi battery bidirectional charger. Don't use that frequently, picked it up for power outages. But it means the Ryobi provided charger in the garage which I sometimes use for headphones will be able to charge my next phone as well.
- standalone speaker
- charging stand
- AirPods case
- and of course all the cables
I don't know how common/rare my use case is, but I can say that this switch is basically all downside for me.
My alteration of your comment brings it in line with the status quo prior to the USB-C which, keep in mind, Apple fought tooth and nail against. It is a stupid idea, but Apple did it anyway. The world runs on stupid ideas daily; either because they are more profitable, or are too entrenched, or both.
for everything you can say about apple, they have at least been consistent on connectors, some would say to a fault. when they deprecated the 30-pin they promised that iphone (not ipad, not laptop) would remain on lightning for 10 years.
You: “I don’t buy it, cables wouldn’t last 10 years”
It’s a non-sequitur.
As for profit motives, if that were the case then they wouldn’t voluntarily switch their iPad line over to USB-C.
This isn't a formal debate, I am allowed to have different reasoning from the rest of the group.
Do those 2016 Pixels still have unpatched USB exploits?
The A17 is the first Apple A series SoC with USB3 controller built in while previous chips only had USB2 on the SoC.
Is a fast controller only needed for specific types of data?
This reeks of segmentation
What you're suggesting just doesn't make sense.
And now that they are switching to USB-C, they are going to lose all that revenue.
The Lightning connector was superior in many ways. I have no idea why everyone is celebrating this downgrade.
Now no one is ever able to improve on the connector reliability because the EU has frozen the design forever by enshrining it into law?
You say it's a downgrade, but the only issues I've had with cables in this context are lightning connectors where the cable connector broke off into the device and required a good amount of work to get all the pieces out.
And that's with only a single device using a lightning cable and many other devices that are USB-C.
So would a cable side USB-C connector - but in agreement with the grandparent comment that tab in the center port is pretty flimsy… and the ports themselves seem pretty wear happy, similar to how micro usb tended to break the port first after repeated insertion vs. a more easily replaceable cable.
Not that much force. Just a two year old who grabs something before you can stop them unfortunately.
Or alternatively, that 2 year old sticks something in that port and breaks that little tab.
Also: Apple does not attach the lightning port to the mainboard of an iPhone, and thus it is easily replaced unlike damn near every Android phone where the connector is soldered onto the mainboard, purposefully, along with extremely fine pitch SMD components very close to the connector, to make it difficult to impossible to repair (the tiny SMD components will blow off the board if you use a hot air rework gun.)
My battery health is reported at 81%, though I've seen some speculation that iOS 17 betas changed how this is calculated because people see lower numbers than they did before. Regardless, looking at previous 10 days history my peak battery use was about 60% last Sunday.
Edit to add: phone is ~3 years old
Because now all the cables you use are the same (well in most cases is the thought). It's just convenient.
I have never experienced a faulty or broken usb c, but that says nothing off course. Android user for years now so I have have had it for years.
I'd rather see the tech continue to improve and let the marketplace decide what tech is superior.
You can still easily add your "technologically superior" port to your devices alongside the standard.
Apple had plenty of opportunities to be involved in the development of USB C (they are on the forum). They also could have opened up lightning as an option for USB C. Fighting against using common standards for so long has left them to the whims of others. Be part of the global tech stack instead of a dead end.
USB lobbying won over the EU. Nothing to celebrate indeed.
Apple was greedy when it came to something that didn't matter, and they ended up losing out in the long run as a result. An old tale, oft told.
Turning Lightning over to the USB Forum could have prevented this. Lightning is good enough to supplant the mediocre USB C connector, but it's not good enough on its own to sell phones.
I don't trust any of these companies as far as I could throw them. Circumstantially, I'd rather USB-IF hold Apple accountable, since Apple holding themselves accountable just leads to DRM for serial data.
Hmm, going to have to put a [citation needed] on that. I do not believe that is true at all.
Organizations that wish to use the USB logo and have a vendor ID will likely pay an annual fee and devices must undergo certification[0], but not on a per-device or per-connector basis.
I've never heard of USB charging a fee per connector.
[0]: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/450497
Find me a connector that does everything USB-C can do. High speeds. High power charging. Alt modes. Mobile friendly size.
Lightning is good for the meager feature set that iPhones support. It is absolutely awful for everyone else that is used to a vast, feature rich ecosystem.
USB-C is an unambiguous downgrade for me, and I wish they had just welded an adapter into the port for EU customers.
That it's not an open standard is a problem, but let's be honest that it does have advantages over usb-c.
The advantage of USB-C that can use the same connector for your headphones, phone, to computer. You can use one charger and cables. The cables and adapters have multiple sources instead of just Apple.
I understand the advantage, thank you for mansplaining that it to me. I, too, will enjoy not having to have a mess of different cables to charge all my devices. I just wish that Apple wasn't such a bunch of proprietary dick heads about the lightning connector and their participation in defining the USB-C connector spec. We could have standardized on a receptacle that is easier to clean out, and harder to break with common household tools.
Power? How much?
Data? How much?
Alternate mode?
How long is it? How flexible is it?
Can I charge my car with it?
Use it to connect my Cisco router to my Juniper router in my IPX?
What does the cable itself report it is capable of, vs what is it actually capable of?
Don't get me wrong, I'm super happy that we're standardizing on something. I, too, have that box of old chargers "just in case" I have something that matches. I'm so happy that most of the laptops around me can be charged over usb-c.
But they fucked up parts of implementation of it; it's jack of all trades, master of none.
No, it is absolutely not. The lightning physical port is noticeably superior for many.
> Find me a connector that does everything USB-C can do. High speeds. High power charging. Alt modes. Mobile friendly size.
That is not a function of the connector, that is a function of USB 3.0 (or 4.0) and USB-PD. The connector is a USB Type-C connector, which is a related but wholly independent standard. You are mistaking the USB protocol and USB power delivery standards for the design of one particular connector which supports those standards.
Even if USB2.0 was the highest supported standard on the USB-C, it is on par with lightning at least.
> This [USB-C] is unquestionably the best physical port.
It is not.
USB 3.0 is unquestionably better than the USB 2.0 supported by Lightning devices, and you’ll get no argument from me there. But that is completely independent of the design of the physical port.
This has happened with my cheap iPhone cables and the OEM ones that come with it. If you want to blame the cheap cables, then fine, but no cheap cables have ruined my USB-C devices.
It is easy to clean with a tweezer though. Having a single cable for everything it still the best. Apple has some blame, as they played a big role in the USB-C standard. Also, they could have made lightning an open standard. But now even my electric toothbrush charges with USB-C.
They are actively involved. That's how Thunderbolt 3 and 4 exist and use USB-C connectors
The only reason lightning connectors don't break as often is because cable relief falls apart before it.
I can imagine just removing the connectors entirely, for Qi charging, and thereby reducing one port and its consequences on RF noise -> RF desensifying for cellular.
In a perfect fantasy world, it would have been open sourced so others companies could use it, and been upgraded to higher speeds too.
The EU has made it clear that if the manufacturers get together and come up with a replacement, technically superior standard, then it will be permitted. However, there isn't one on the horizon anytime soon because USB-C doesn't really have any weaknesses requiring a new connector right now.
> The Lightning connector was superior in many ways. I have no idea why everyone is celebrating this downgrade.
Faster speeds, but primarily consistency with other devices. I can certify that when you travel with a MacBook, Nintendo Switch, iPad, Portable Soundbar, Battery Pack, and they all use USB-C... the iPhone that uses Lightning gets pretty annoying very quickly.
To be honest, part of me wondered if Apple could have gotten away (even though it would have caused shock) with 2 connectors on the iPhone. Lightning on the bottom where it had always been, USB-C on the left side with the volume switches and SIM card tray, just for the EU market. Would've been compliant but the EU would've been furious.
You can see how that is next to impossible, though. You need to test in millions of phones over several years to verify that something is good. Which means it has to get into production. But that isn't allowed. A Catch-22 situation.
If there's some other connector that looks compelling for charging and data, phone makers can get together and adopt it, too. We don't need phone-specific experience or to have done an A/B test with tons of statistical power.
USB-C ain't perfect. But it's pretty tough to beat. There's also room for incremental improvements in reliability and functionality within the standard, too.
At some point, just living with something as the standard is the way to go-- rather than hoping something new will be worth forklifting all the infrastructure and/or splitting the market.
Always thought they should have done a small spring loaded door that the connector pushes out of the way when inserted.
USB-C has even smaller space to stick something in to clean out lint since the pins are in the middle, also looks more delicate so would be worried to do that anyway, and a cover door looks out of the question too due to the pins in middle board.
In any connector of this sort, there are two pieces: the plug on the cable and the receptacle on the phone. Lightning has a very visually appealing and physically durable plug, and that’s the part that you see. But this hides several aspects of the connector that make a poor functionality tradeoff.
On a USB micro B or USB-C cable, the plug is retained in the socket by little spring-loaded clips on the plug. On micro, they’re on the outside and very obvious, and they stop working well if the plug gets a bit bent. On USB-C, they’re in the concealed portion of the plug. In both cases, they are components that can wear out, and, when they do, you replace the cable and you’re in good shape. These spring-loaded clips mate with fixed notches in the receptacle, and those notches are much longer lasting.
Lightning does this the other way around. The plug has notches, and the springs are concealed in the socket. If the springs wear out, replacing the cable doesn’t help.
Similarly, the electrical contacts are springy in the socket. They are very easy to damage with careless cleaning, and they have a tendency to accumulate lint, so they are likely to need cleaning.
Lightning has an additional defect involving arcing. If you look at a charging cable that’s been use for a while, you’ll see that one electrical pad on each side of the plug will be burnt. Presumably this is where the connection arcs every time it’s unplugged. I’m not sure how USB mitigates this, but it seems to be less of a problem. Maybe the contacts are simply thicker and more durable.
Sure, USB-C receptacles have a thin tongue, and it’s a weak point, but it’s much stronger than the 10 fragile moving parts inside a lightning receptacle.
I'm currently unsure which to believe, but I also kind of don't care anymore. There was never a future where Lightning was opened to the rest of the industry, and Apple never bumped it beyond USB 2.0 speeds, so I'm ready to just get on with it.
Except that Apple doesn't appear to be ready to make anymore iPhone Minis, so I'll be stuck with lighting for the next five years… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The conspiracy theories never made sense.
The iPad Pro has used M series SOCs with an integrated USB controller for years now.
M series being much larger and more power hungry would also have the same issues in a phone, hence the two different series, so my point still stands.
What are you talking about? Proprietary connectors I can think of…
- A bunch of ridiculous digital video ports, necessary because the whole industry couldn't agree on how to move on from VGA.
- The "dock connector" — literally nothing else in the industry, even after its introduction, could meet all the needs of that thing, up until…
- Lightning. USB-C was still years away, and the attempts at small USB were a garbage fire.
If anything, the fact that Android adds a soft-lock to the DisplayPort output on their USB-C port should be under scrutiny. There is absolutely no reason this should be blocked on flagship models like the Google Pixel, in fact brands like Samsung enable it on their phones (DEX). All iPhone 15 models support 4K60 from their USB-C port.
Do you mean just the iPhone 15 Pro models? I understood the base models are USB2 and wouldn't have the bandwidth for 4K60, right?
https://www.apple.com/iphone-15/specs/
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/google-engineer-find...