Yes! I hope they can force apple (and others) into more interoperability and repairability (the two things apple hates the most), ruining their disgusting business model by re-enabling competition and benefitting users and environment.
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.
Possibly, but Apple’s shitty version of the cable basically made it break more on the actual cable than the connector. It seems that this may be fixed with usb c because of the thicker cable though.
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.
This is asinine. Apple has shown a strong commitment to supporting particular standards for extended periods. For example, the iPhone’s 30-pin connector was maintained for over 10 years. Similarly, the Lightning port, its successor, has also been around for about a decade. (And, it should be noticed, started being used two years BEFORE USB-C existed.) Additionally, Apple has supported the Thunderbolt standard throughout its life cycle.
Apple has always been judicious about the ports it adopts. The company is not known for having a plethora of ports catering to multiple generations of connector technologies. Instead, when Apple picks a standard, it tends to go all in. Take the case of USB-A: Apple was one of the early adopters of this technology and supported it for approximately 20 years before making the switch to USB-C. To put this in perspective, the time between the USB Mini to Micro switch and the Micro to USB-C transition was shorter than the lifespan of Apple’s 30-pin and Lightning connectors.
It’s unreasonable to assume that Apple would restrict the cables that can be used in a standard USB-C port. The USB-C standard is built on the principle of universal compatibility. Restricting this would not only break with the standard but also limit the very advantages that have made USB-C popular among consumers and manufacturers alike.
The company is not known for having a plethora of ports catering to multiple generations of connector technologies. Instead, when Apple picks a standard, it tends to go all in.```
Yet it offers USB-C for some of its products while not for others. iPad, MacBook has had USB-C for sometime now. It is not that Apple knew that it was a better option than whatever lightning was.
It’s unreasonable to assume that Apple would restrict the cables that can be used in a standard USB-C port. The USB-C standard is built on the principle of universal compatibility. Restricting this would not only break with the standard but also limit the very advantages that have made USB-C popular among consumers and manufacturers alike.
Apple only provides usb 3.1 speeds on iPhone Pro and only if you buy a new cable from Apple. The supplied cable is only USB 2.0 . We just have to wait and see if Apple does or doesn’t allow third party non Apple certified cable capable of supporting USB 3.1 to work on iPhone Pro. Whereas regular iPhone has been knee capped by keeping the same slower cable. Merely changing the connector to finally being modern.
Apple only provides usb 3.1 speeds on iPhone Pro and only if you buy a new cable from Apple.
You don’t have to keep repeating this made-up lie. While it’s true that it only comes with a USB 2.0 cable, you don’t have to buy a USB 3 cable from Apple. Any USB 3 cable will work just fine.
All the news pieces I have heard and read mentioned that you have to buy a different cable to get USB 3 speeds. None of the reviewers could test it with a non Apple certified cable as it was a launch event.
My opinion is based on the scumminess of tech companies.
If you are sure that is a lie and any USB-C cable would work please share your source. Till then I won’t trust Apple to do right by the consumers.
If the performance of a modern Mac isn’t enough for you, you’re probably installing a million background bloatware apps and run them all in the background without knowing, like a boomer.
No, I was denying the fact that “If you don’t use Apple you’re poor”.
I am paying top dollar for a laptop that has the specifications I want, an exposed PCIE port for arbitrary PCIE devices to be dropped on the bus at any given time, perfect Linux support, and every part designed to be able to upgraded and repaired at will. Yes, if I ever need to, I want to be able to have 96 GB of RAM and 6 TB of storage installed. Apple simply does not allow this. In my case, my total configuration will be 32 GB of RAM and 3 TB of storage with a 8 core / 16 threads CPU with enough onboard graphical compute units to be usable even for some graphically intensive tasks with the eGPU unplugged. Even with its most expensive option, Apple does not sell a laptop that can be specced this far. I want to be able to connect Oculink eGPUs and not be bound by Thunderbolt’s max transfer speed as well - and Apple does not offer this feature.
Apple doesn’t offer this. It would be cheaper to buy Apple in my situation, but it simply doesn’t offer the features I ask for.
Now the small challenge is: guess what laptop I have on order? ;)
You don’t actually need those specs, you just like to brag that you have this and that. Meanwhile thousands of others run circles around whatever you do on lesser machines.
The most expensive iPhone is $1600, and the Galaxy Fold 5 with the same storage option is $2160, disliking Apple has nothing to do with poverty.
Even if I were a billionaire, I wouldn’t want an iPhone. You can’t sideload apps, that’s an automatic disqualifier in my mind for a smartphone.
Edit: Also, you’ve edited your comment from “Wanna know how I know you’re poor” to “Wanna know how I know you’re cool” without indicating it, which is a dick move.
I’d hardly call F-Droid dangerous, these apps are generally safer than many apps on Google’s Play Store. Sure, if you get some apk files from some shady website for the purpose of piracy, you are likely to get malware, but stop acting like installing apps outside of the default appstore is some dangerous and irresponsible thing. Your phone is a computer that lives in your pocket, treat it like you would treat a PC and you’ll be fine.
Tbh, I sometimes don’t care and just throw them into the Workspace environment. As I am using Graphene OS, there shouldn’t be a purpose for the workspace as every app is inside a heavy sandbox on default.
Open Source apps tend to be more secure because you can see, change and audit the code.
There were too many hacking Attacks for normal apps that contain mostly adware or Malware for both brands… As many are greedy and need to have some purpose to pay 100€ for just showing up on the store.
With sideloading Open Source apps, you can enjoy a life many people call as the only free life you can have. Richard Stallman makes nearly a religion out of it with GNU.
OSS has its own attack vectors which closed doesn’t, i.e. malicious code snuck into upstream libraries and going unnoticed for weeks, or outright buying popular oss code from devs to abuse.
USB 3 is not USB-C. USB-C was a few years after lightning. At the time devices were shipping with Micro USB which was genuinely terrible. Apple could have made Lightning support USB3 speeds out of the box. But they didn’t and never really improved it. I think a few of their tablets did support USB 3 speeds, but weirdly not their phones.
Lightning existed before USB-C, and was reversible while everyone else was using Micro-B. Also, storage on the iPhone 5 was so slow that it wouldn’t make much of a difference, I doubt it would even saturate USB 2.0 bandwidth. While lightning wasn’t very forward thinking of Apple when it comes to bandwidth, keep in mind that at the time, you couldn’t even access the file system on iOS, and the files were ridiculously small compared to today.
Two years after Apple introduced the Lightning port, the USB-C spec was published, and there are some Apple engineers who contributed to the specifications of USB-C. Apple quickly adopted it for the Mac, but it was clear that they were hesitant to switch the iPhone in 2015… they could have easily done it, but chose not to.
I don’t know why they chose to keep the lightning port for so long (ego making them not want to admit that they designed a port that wasn’t very future proof?), but for the first two years, it was more convenient than the only competition at the time which was Micro-B.
I’m very well aware of that and I never meant to imply that lightning predates USB 3.0, however, the biggest complaint that people had about lightning is that it’s limited to USB 2.0 speeds. My comment was pointing out that it would have been very strange for Apple to make the lightning port USB 3.0 when the iPhone 5 had such slow storage read/write speeds, and no user accessible filesystem. Most phones at the time used Micro-B at USB 2.0 as well, and a year later, the Note 3 came out with a USB Micro-B with 3.0 speeds, but that was very rare (I’m not aware of any other phone with USB Micro-B with that wide 3.0 connector).
USB 3.0 speeds on phones only became common with the Type-C connector, not prior to it.
Nothing to do with the cable, the port on the device is a USB-C port that is limited to USB2.0 speeds. Whereas the iPhone Pro has one that can do USB3.0 speeds. This seems to have been recently verified by the tech specs on Apple website btw
As long as they don’t fuckup the charging speed, I doubt it would make a major difference. The number of people/occasions you need to use a physical cable to transfer data is much smaller now than in the past.
There isn’t necessarily a USB standard to compare with to that end, as type C supports a wide range of standards. Compared to lightning, both iPhone 14 and 15 seem to offer up to 20W charging with the wall adapter sold separately. So again, no improvement where it could most likely be provided easily (e.g. like any other phone manufacturer has), but charging rate isn’t solely determined by the port/cable in the same way as data, there’s ample room for Apple to argue that the charging is slower on the base model for some other reason related to production cost vs. Pro
Oh they will fuck it. No doubt. Especially since charging wattage is controlled by software. Dell already does this thing with their laptops as 100W charging voltage over USB C is only available through Dell chargers
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.
The amount of USB type ports I’ve seen where the ‘tongue’ has been absolutely mangled is mind boggling — an issue that Lightning completely bypassed.
For example, I’m repairing some kids PS5 and both back USB ports have had their pins twisted and the plastic snapped off. The HDMI port pins are lifting from the mainboard and the front of the unit is scratched to high hell. I see some of the worst treated tech at my job, and those plastic bits get damaged a lot. While Apple needed to move to USB-C six years ago with the iPhone X, I will respect Lightning for this one thing.
I recall the same issue on the cables for my old 30-pin connector, and Apple earbuds / in-ear headphones. Don’t think it’s related to Lightning, just Apple cables
I’m a fan of iPhones, Apple Watches, and iPads, but most of Apple’s accessories are terrible. MagSafe is fine because of how it’s used, and their wall adapters are fine. But Apple brand cables, phone cases, watch bands, etc. are all garbage. I mean, they will literally be in the garbage in under a year. Never fails.
Doesn’t matter how “environmentally friendly” a product is - if you need to replace it frequently, it’s bad for the planet and for your wallet. Just exclusively buy 3rd party cables and accessories that are cheaper and higher quality.
Little tip - it’s usually because of pocket lint. Take a small piece of plastic or a toothpick and clean it out. 9 times out of 10, that’s all you need.
Alternatively, get yourself a bulk pack of compressed air cans and solve this and many other problems in life without needing to jam shit into the port. If you use it often enough, invest in a powered air duster.
Just invest in the Data Vac or one of the millions of off brands on Amazon. Less waste that way. I use off brand more frequently but the data vac feels like it’s built to last and has more power.
Data Vac is my plan once I finish this 12-pack of cans. But at this rate, that’ll take me another 2 years. It was $26 when I bought it, but now I see they’re $45 - that’s half the cost of a Data Vac. So there’s no point in getting disposables at that price.
Oh no, I’m talking outright wrecked — you can see damaged pins upon observation.
(To be clear to the downvoters, I see this in my job where I repair consumer tech. I’ve clarified in my original post since some people seem to think I’m arguing exclusively in favour of lightning, or maybe think I’ve seen this on my own devices?)
I clean out densely compacted pocket lint frequently out of customer devices. One needle nose tweezer end for extracting the bulk, then isopropyl on a thin lint free cloth pushed in with a small piece of plastic to determine what’s left inside that isn’t easily visible. Typically makes the port look as good as new.
Ahh i wasn’t certain, I must have used the developed date instead of the release date on the wiki when I double checked. Thanks for the correction. C isn’t perfect, but it’s a pretty damn versatile panda convenient port in my experience.
The problems with type C cables have to do with overloading it to work with very high bandwidth applications like thunderbolt docks (which is mostly to do with the cable itself rather than the connector). Nobody has any issues with charging and basic data transfer on type-C (no more than any other cable).
The problems with type c cables come from the spec that allows every cable to work differently. Did you know type c cables are allowed to work in only one direction? Yeah, they can have data directionality. There are a ton of other issues but I seriously doubt anyone that is downvoting has ever soldered their own type c cable or even read the spec for them so it’s pretty clear they don’t realize all the issues.
Nah. The only thing usbc has over lightning is transfer rates and charging speed.
Transfer rates don’t matter because how often do you dump 128gb over the wire and 500Mbps isn’t good enough?
Charging speed kinda matters but not really because the charge controllers on the phones are throttling down the lightning chargers anyway.
Remember: the eu is forcing usbc, a port designed for general purpose use that has a bunch of delicate pins and a plastic tongue, to replace lightning, a much simpler port designed to go in pockets.
The phones all use heuristics to charge as slow as possible anyway in order to save the battery. A faster changing standard clearly isnt the solution.
Idk what you’re doing with your phone that 500Mbps isnt good enough. If it’s about system backups the first one takes fifteen minutes and everything afterwards is a diff.
I think 500mbps is a stretch tbh, even the spec’s 480 is still a stretch considering USB protocol overhead. If your device uses the much slower MTP then you’ve got that overhead on top of the USB protocol too.
That said, in real life this is not much more than 20MB/s. That’s more than adequate for internet, but this speed is 2005 laptop hard drive territory. Forget recording in 4k or 8k, because that footage is going to take a while to pull out - airdrop would probably be much faster than using the cable, which is embarassing IMO
Even if the lightning data transfer speed is “good enough”, you’re still paying big money for a premium device, where the manufacturer made a conscious decision to use tech from over two decades ago… when just adding two more lines to the SoC and switching the connector to something compatible is all it takes to benefit from the much greater transfer speeds now.
…actually meh I don’t really care lol, nobody is going to stop Apple from milking their customers regardless of how intuitive their software is.
Oh yeah. You’re not getting 480 out of that wire and airdrop is totally faster. 4k isn’t awful over airdrop though. Maybe I’m just glad it’s not ntsc real time capture like back in the day…
Ultimately I agree with you. It would have been good to add the other “side” to the receptacle and have plenty of lanes. You’d need some way to show that a wire is new lightning, but that’s small potatoes.
Ultimately though even with the bad speeds I think lightning is the better connector for a phone. Not many people are transferring video off their phone using a wire, most upload it directly. But everyone puts their phone in their pocket. I’ll take the connector you can easily and safely clean lint out of over the one that saves time transferring video any day.
A phone cable. Lightning is a better phone cable than usbc. I say that because it’s more durable and easier to clean. Thats way, way more important than charging or transfer speed when the port knocks around in a pocket or purse 420-7/369.
Ease of cleaning is a terrible reason to order one over the other though. Just grab a sim tool to gently scrape out fuzz, and you’re back to better charging speeds and data transfer speeds, literally the reason USB C 3.0 is superior.
When lightning came out, the other choice was MicroUSB which is an objectively bad connector that can burn in hell. I hate MicroUSB with a fiery passion. And people were really upset that Apple ditched the 30 pin connector so I cant fault them for keeping lightning so long. Either way I really don’t care because the only thing it changes for me is the cable I keep at my bedside. My data transfers are all done wirelessly. I don’t know why people think this is such a big deal, it is (mostly) just a charging port. As long as it doesn’t break if you breathe on it wrong like MicroUSB I’m happy.
I still have useless 30 pin connector accessories floating around.
I have only once encountered that problem. I don’t usually charge stuff outside home/work/car.
If I did, I’d keep my own cable because even before the advent of malicious cables people often had messed up stuff that only worked half the time.
Think “hey can I borrow that guitar cable?” “Sure!” “What the hell, this things buzzing all over the place!” “Oh, you gotta loop it around the strap peg and it doesn’t work with angled jacks.”
The idea of proprietary hardware nowadays is interesting. It used to be, especially in industrial and commercial uses, that proprietary meant you had to have something that could only be bought from one place and wasn’t publicly documented. An interface for a rohm drive for example. Those weird one-off parts and dongles were expensive and not well understood, so they definitely fit the definition and spirit of being proprietary.
It’s a little disingenuous to me to call a cable you can buy at any gas station for five bucks “proprietary”. Especially when searching “lightning pinout” gets immediate results.
Is it technically proprietary? Maybe. Is it proprietary in practice? Not in the slightest.
USB-C has higher transfer rates if the device supports USB 3 standard. Since it will have multiple serial connections as compared to a single in USB 2. Since lightning had only 4 pins it couldn’t go beyond USB 2.
Same is the matter along with USB-C PD chip. It has to support and negotiate faster charging with the charger. This can be and as far as I know Apple will be restricted to Apple certified crap.
a port designed for general purpose use that has a bunch of delicate pins and a plastic tongue, to replace lightning, a much simpler port designed to go in pockets.
This will ultimately make you unhappy.
Android phones have been using it I think for the last 8 years. We do have pockets and keep our phone without covering the port. I still have a cable bought 4 years back that still works across multiple phones.
Oh you don’t have to tell me that usb phones have been in pockets. i know.
I fix electronics and people bring in phones all the time. Even though I’m not a phone shop and don’t even have a bench set up for phones. I get way, way more usb phones in for ports than lightning ones.
Now it’s not just usbc (although nowadays it almost always is), but I keep a big ol bin of different usb ports to replace with. I have done four lightning ports in comparison.
If people are lucky they just didn’t have a small enough pin to clean out the crud from around the tongue. Some will have one of the pins on the tongue bent back and shorting something out and confusing the controller, they might be able to get by without it or it may work for a little while once it’s straightened back out but I know that one’s coming back soon. Most have damage to the tongue from cleaning too vigorously using a field expedient tool or the port component itself is ripped off the board due to how well the very strong annular connection between a usbc port and cable transfer torque.
I like usbc for a bunch of stuff, but phones ain’t it.
That’s true, but at least one a week for a few years now versus four ever? Nah. The ports too delicate for what users put it through.
Plus I get more apple stuff in general than the marketshare numbers would dictate. It gets repaired and resold longer. Massive amounts of usbc devices are throwaway and gimmies from institutions and carriers and are just disposed of when they break.
Some of that effect is the expense of apple stuff, some of it is the emotional attachment people build with a computer after they’ve used it for ten years, some of it is just plum retained value. People aren’t gonna chuck a laptop they can resell for $400 when it needs a $100 repair.
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
I do not think the charging wattage is limited in the way data transfer speeds are on the non Pro Max models. Only Pro Max is getting USB3 data speeds. Atleast I have not heard Apple gimping wired charging speeds on any of the new iPhones.
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.
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.
i am happy the standard has won but tbh, i prefer the lightning type of connector (male). if only Apple standardized this instead of USB-C which is far more fragile.
but as I am not going to buy an iphone anytime soon , this is a non-news to me. :)
Actually, I have more issues with the ports than the cable itself. that’s why I prefer type male connector like the lightning. The lightning has issue though, one of the PIN could corrode.
anyway, hope the USB type C cable is there to stay and with the new intel progress on bandwidth , it might be the case.
I used to clean at least 2-3 USB-C ports a day, 5 days a week, at my shop. I cleaned plenty of Lightning ports too, neither really is less prone than the other to dust ingress. Lightning is easier to clean though, since you don’t have to worry about accidentally snapping the center post like you do in USB-C.
No, the USB-C ports are more fragile. I owned and operated a repair shop for multiple years. USB ports, all of them except for A, are among the most fragile ports in use on electronics. Lightning ports are significantly less prone to damage. The cables snap off in the port easily, but all you need is tweezers to pull the tip out. On USB C devices the central tongue breaks off rather frequently. C is miles ahead of Micro-B though, seriously probably the worst port in use today, including proprietary ones.
Not the cable but the port. Some are stiffer (better) than others. The USB-C port of my monitor is broken/loose, same for my thinkpad t490s. But my smartphones’s USB-c port are good though, strange because they should get more mechanical stress than my monitor or thinkpad.
I preffered lightning too usb-c i have had several phones where the usb c connector failed but my iphone was the first phone in a long time that i replaced for reasons other than the charging port. I would have been very happy if lightning had become the standard.
Lmao gtfo! Lightning COULD have been a standard if Apple wasn’t so horny about stuffing their money up their walled-garden-arse. But nah you need a license to even connect to it, not to mention manufacture it. Well tough luck and good riddance to fucking Apple proprietary cables and 50.- recharging kits.
Yeah, the lightning connector is really great for being a reliable connection for a long period of time. If Apple had just made it an open standard that everyone could use, it would likely be the dominant connector today. At least, so long as some improvements could be made to data transfer and charging rates.
Yeah i agree. Not that i particularly need high transfer speed on my phone its unfortunate that they wanted too wanted too keep it proprietary. But they are what they are like most companies. Anyway i hope i have better luck with my new phone than my previous experiences with the connector.
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