Good riddance. Apple created so much e-waste by refusing to play ball with USB-IF despite starting to use usb-c 8 years ago. Praise to the EU for forcing their hands.
If they really wanted to they could have always waited for USB-C to mature to jump straight from the iPod connector straight to USB-C. Or they could have made Lightning an open standard. They did neither.
Lightning connector was introduced in 2012. Probably sat in the lab being developed for a year or two before publicly announced. It made it easy for someone to plug in no matter which way the cable was seated. It also provided phones, iPads, and iPods quicker speeds.
Lightning was a better, smaller, simpler and reversible electrical connector, but for almost all devices that ever used it (the very first iPad Pro is the exception), it unfortunately offered no improvement in USB transfer rates over 30-pin.
Pour one out though. It’s still a fine connector. 11-12 years-ish ain’t too bad, shame that Apple never prioritize data transfer rates though and to be honest, still don’t seem to care that much judging by the base models.
And, perhaps a contrary opinion, but the I still think lightning is easier to insert than usb-C. The curved edges and smaller size mean you can begin inserting it at an odd angle and finish the insertion easily. Whereas you need to insert usb-C nearly straight on for it to get in.
Also because the lightning cable's male end is solid, there's no way for dust to collect in there, unlike USB-C where dust can collect inside both the cable end and the peripheral end.
Though overall I would trade that for 1 fewer cable/port that I need to manage in my life.
You raise all good points, the sturdiness of lighting is understated by the industry, and this audience is perhaps not familiar enough to have that impression.
As testament to the durability, the lightning connector was sufficiently durable that Apple would display the iPhone on a spike with nothing more than the lightning connector at the very tip to hold up the phone, constantly being handled and replaced by curious store visitors - this approach was also mirrored in the lightning dock design, where the phone was held in place (at an angle no less) with no other secondary support, only the singular lightning connector holding up the phone with such robustness that one could interact with the phone without concern.
Lightning is and remains to be incredibly durable and sturdy, far exceeding the spec of the type-C connection standard. For a phone or accessories it's a much more pragmatic connector, and a pity to see it go.
USB-C because is not engineered for this level of abuse. From a fatigue perspective USB-C is absolutely a step backwards, tongued designs are weaker, there is no getting around that. I will be interested to see how apple show USB-C iPhones in store, if they keep the lightning-plinth or utilise a design with a back support to limit the wear on the plinth's connector.
-- From this point is a commentary on the politics that helped influence this change, feel free to skip it. tl,dr: The laws surrounding USB-C are short-sighted, focused on the wrong aspects of computing waste, and create a future problem. --
The dogmatic persistence in unifying the world on the cable of the day is short sighted and disappointing politicking to me. Type-C will be superseded, but getting the critical mass to transition to a new standard will be muted because manufacturers can't legally move major products to it. Legislators have created a problem for the not-too-distant future, there will be temporary harmony on type-C, and then invariably we will have country-to-country inconsistencies in legislation as newer, better, connectors emerge.
It's clear to me that regulation is focusing on the wrong aspects of phone design. Instead of mandating for year on year support, long term security software updates, clean manufacturing standards, appropriate materials & labour sourcing, plus a minimum performance benchmark to prevent cheap junk phones entering the market (and thus fast-tracked to landfill) we have the introduction of laws asking what cable an Apple user pulls out of their satchel when wireless charging isn't available. The idea seems to be that now a person would have one cable instead of two(?)
Here's a common example: When I signed up for my internet package, it included a free tablet computer - there was no way to opt out of receiving it, it came pre-installed with software that had known security vulnerabilities, it used microUSB, and its performance was too poor to hold any modern function. Even the person I gave it to had let me know that it was put into electronics recycling after less than a year. This product's manufacture, materials, and shipping created significantly more waste than any amount of lightning cables that a person could feasibly use in an entire lifetime.
It's utter insanity that legislators haven't attempted to address the real sources of environmental damage, human rights abuses, and the very real security issue that these junk devices present. Fixation on the connector has been nothing more than political hand waving. I'm not against type-C, I prefer it, but it's clear to me that people who think this is a real issue are blindsighted.
Ah yes, sturdiness is another magical quality of lightning that is under-appreciated. I've never had a lightning cable end break, or a lightning port wear out, the device is long obsoleted by that point.
Another problem I had with USB-C, is that just because it fits physically, doesn't actually mean it will work since what's inside the cable can be dramatically different. In my personal life:
- the Nintendo Switch uses a proprietary USB-C interface for the power brick, they somehow feed ethernet internet through it
- thunderbolt docks need thunderbolt USB-C cables. And there's thunderbolt 2,3,4.
- my magsafe phone charger uses a USB-C end, but needs to be plugged into a special power brick to get full power
This is actually... somewhat worse because now I have multiple USB-C cables that all have a different purpose that I can't tell apart from a glance (because the connectors are all the same!)
This isn't spoken about so much, but you raise a long-standing complaint about the C type connector. Not all cables allow all functions, some devices require higher bandwidth, some require more power. Typical examples are displays, storage and external hardware such as GPUs.
Apple do label their type-C cables with the logo of the standard it supports, but for most consumers they're not going to be immediately familiar with this approach, especially as lightning just works for anything that it can be plugged into.
This is a bit of a dated article, but the points it makes still largely stand - people are going to run into some of these problems and not understand why they're happening. Imagine a scenario where you can plug a vacuum into a power socket, only to discover that it doesn't work - your first assumption will be that the vacuum is broken, and not an obscure standards mismatch.
> I will be interested to see how apple show USB-C iPhones in store, if they keep the lightning-plinth or utilise a design with a back support to limit the wear on the plinth's connector.
I imagine they will use MagSafe mounts and anti-theft tethers, which they've been rolling out over the last few years.
"Apple’s connector supported USB 3.0 host, but the only accessory that fully supported this feature was the camera adapter that includes a USB-A port. Most Lightning cables to this day support only USB 2.0, with a maximum data transfer speed of 60MBps."
I seem to recall when lightning was announced, someone (probably Steve) said it was faster than the 30 pin. Then again Steve was known to blow smoke of products (remember, FaceTime was open source according to Steve when announced).
Lightning supports two data lanes, so it's theoretically capable of USB 3 speeds.
However, that would have required active/negotiating Lightning-to-USB-3 cables or adapters, since USB 3 requires three lanes, i.e. one more (two for SuperSpeed connections, and one for legacy USB 2.0 high speed connections), and the adapter/cable would have to figure out which one the connected host wants to speak and wire accordingly.
At least one iPad does support USB 3 speeds over Lightning, but only in the other direction, i.e. when acting as an USB host using the "Lightning to USB camera adapter", which was really a generic USB host adapter and supported many more types of devices like audio interfaces, hard drives etc. – I suspect that adapter must be doing just that.
> Apple created so much e-waste by refusing to play ball with USB-IF despite starting to use usb-c 8 years ago
How much e-waste was actually created?
All my several Lightning cables from various Apple device purchases are sitting in my excess cable pile [1], along with a bazillion USB cables from all my non-Apple device purchases, because usually the only times I need a new cable when I get a new device is when every prior device I've purchased that uses the same cable is still in use.
If my Apple devices had used USB I'd still have the same number of cables in my excess cable pile.
From an e-waste perspective what we need to do is stop including cables with everything.
[1] My phone gets charged wirelessly. My iPad does get charged by cable, but I use an Anker 3-in-1 cable that has a USB micro-B end with a couple captive adaptors for USB C and Lightning. I use another of the Anker cables for charging my wireless mouse and keyboard.
In a hypothetical world where Apple started using USB-C with say, the iPhone 6 or 6s, we would have gotten to the point consumers had a surplus of cables much sooner. I have no doubt this would have encouraged a few more Android OEMs to stop shipping cables, in addition to the ones that already don't ship one like FairPhone. It's a pretty significant savings between lower BOM, being able to ship the phones in smaller boxes, and simplifying logistics.
Having more of one cable type reduces the need for people to buy replacements for damaged cables because there are more spares available. A significant amount of consumers have only 1 usb-c or lightning cable lying around.
Cables also aren't the only issue, various accessories are designed to be lightning compatible like AV adapters.
The e-waste between all these factors is significant just because over a billion smartphones are shipped yearly. Even a little unnecessary waste adds up quick at that scale. Which justifies the course of action the EU took.
USB-C did not even exist when the iPhone 6 came out in 2014. It was unveiled but not finalized until 2016, and Apple themselves were at the forefront of its adoption. You're saying steam trains in the 1800s would have produced less global warming if they had used diesel. When the gas engine did not yet exist. Apple probably chose to stick to Lighting specifically because they did not want to switch their connector so quickly.
USB-C was finalised in Aug 2014. Apple had USB-C on their 12" MacBook in March 2015, which landed between the release of the iPhone 6 and 6s.
Thinking about it the logistics don't work out for the iPhone 6 launch when I look more carefully. It would have been possible for Apple to ship usb-c with the 6s if they really wanted to get it done.
I'm not sure why you're being such a stickler. I did say "6 or 6s". You also made an even larger chronological error than the one I made in the process of correcting me, so you ought to emphasise with my carelessness. After all - if I'm supposed to be akin to somebody who believes diesel locomotives could have stopped climate change in the 19th century, what does that say about yourself?
I'm not them, but from observing the discourse it's clear they have a better grasp of past events and are being far more reasonable.
For example, perhaps they are mindful that:
1. At the iPhone 6 stage EU legislation was asking phone makers to use MicroUSB standard, not the type C connector.
2. Apple had only recently changed to the lightning connector, switching again so quickly to new, unproven, connector is not smart. Especially one that at the time didn't have much hardware support, didn't support all of the modes needed by Lightning and wasn't being requested by regulatory bodies.
3. The EU's USB Type C mandate isn't even active until late 2024 and only applies to newly released devices. i.e. Both the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 could have come with lightning.
4. Apple phone's are designed far longer than a year in advance. Apple have stated numerously that their product development is a many years long process and that they're actively planning multiple products for years in advance. This is also necessary aspect of developing products for mass production.
The product path and decisions suggested to implement the type C connector in an iPhone 6 is naive, largely ignorant to product development and based on present-day attitudes to USB Type C.
I'm confused about the USB-IF remark considering Apple is a member of USB-IF. Didn't they promise they wouldn't change connectors again for at least a decade? They basically would have alienated and annoyed a large portion of their customer base if they made Lightning and switched to USB-C under 5 years after pushing lightning.
Aren't we all going to start throwing away perfectly good lightning cables now?
It's switching connectors that's wasteful, and the EU thing is causing more switching sooner.
A better idea would have been to require Apple and others to switch to the standard connector the next time they change the connector for a product line, without a specific timeline.
Oh well. It may not be good for the planet, but at least we get to dunk on Apple!
Apple’s decision to switch to USB-C now might have to do with the EU mandated deadline to switch to USB-C.
If the EU had not set a deadline, then Apple might have waited longer. The longer between switches, the less overall switching in a given period of time, and therefore a reduced rate of switching-generated ewaste.
I guess this stuff is a little too complex for the average voter to follow and the EU politicians saw an opportunity for an easy win, never mind the extra ewaste generated.
I imagine this was forced by the EU's decision, but didn't Apple commit in 2012 to sticking with Lightning for something like ten years after people complained about them switching connectors frequently?
That reputation for switching connectors frequently always felt unearned. The 30-pin and Lightning connectors were each used for a solid decade, which is longer than the time between USB Mini and Micro, or Micro and C. The 30-pin kinda sucked, but so did USB-Mini, and Lightning came out before USB-C.
My criticisms of Apple are vast, but their proprietary connectors never made the list.
It was unearned, but the 30-pin's ecosystem of accessories was so huge it was a pain in the ass to switch away from it, even tough it also was very long in the tooth by then.
It's a lot less of an issue now a lot of stuff is wireless (even against one's desire), and USB-C's been there for a decade and has had time for accessories to surface with Android being mostly on there, even if the PC side remains mostly dreary.
Plus since Apple has been slowly switching ipads over for a few years now I'd assume even in their galaxy there's a bunch of type C accessories available.
In that sense Apple was a victim of their own success. The iPod (and maybe early iPhones had the 30-pin, I can’t remember) we’re so successful half of the hotels in America outfitted themselves with alarm clocks with the same connectors. 3rd party accessories for it became sort of ubiquitous, but it’s s big wild to think the alternative (should Apple have listened to the complains) would be to just… never improve their connectors? You really can’t please some folks, any change breaks someone’s mojo.
Yes, yes they did. They promised the lightning connector would be used for 10 years and they fulfilled that promise. Meanwhile, people have been making fun of/complaining about Apple using USB C for the rest of their product line for two to three years now and how hard that's been to work with the iPhone.
> didn't Apple commit in 2012 to sticking with Lightning for something like ten years after people complained about them switching connectors frequently?
I think it was less "switching connectors frequently" and more having to replace an entire ecosystem of devices, there were a ton of accessories with hardwired 30-pins which people had to throw out in the switch to lightning.
But yes, they did basically promise they would stick to it for a decade.
> after people complained about them switching connectors frequently
If they complained about that, they're wrong. Lightning was their first switch in connector after the original 30-pin, and this is their second switch ever. But I'm sure we can strap in for a year or 2 of people complaining about how "Apple always changes the connector" even though it's been twice in a couple decades (30-pin started with the iPod)
It's also worth noting that when USB-C was finalized, Apple had only made the switch to Lightning a couple years prior. People were already upset over that switch because all of their cables and accessories were suddenly incompatible (this was at a time when people used their port for a lot more). I think if Apple immediately changed out their port for USB-C in 2015 like a lot of Android manufacturers did, they would have gotten a LOT of flak.
While I'm sure they certainly enjoyed the selfish benefits of Lightning until now, there's something to be said that it's a pro-consumer move to let people continue to use their cables and accessories for a decade before making the jump. Even after doing this now, I'm already preparing to hear people complain about how this move is a money grab.
I remember the days when every single device had a different cable to connect/power (looking at you sony laptops and cameras). Apple has always been one of the better companies for limited unneeded changes.
Maybe I missed something, but I don't think Apple discussed speed, charging, USB-PD/PPS/etc support in regards to USB-C as a connector and an ecosystem.
The discussion on iphone moving to USB-C is far from over.
The new processor featured in the Pro models adds support for USB 3.0 transfer speeds. Apple started doing a thing last year where the non-Pro phones get last year's processor, and only the new Pros get the new one. So it's likely next year the entire lineup will get the faster transfer speeds.
Just to update a day later, I hadn't processed during the presentation that the new processor is named A17 "Pro," not "Bionic."
So my theory now is next year the non-Pro iPhone 16's will have an A17 Bionic that doesn't have the faster transfer speeds. It seems like Apple considers the fast transfer speeds a purely Pro feature, pretty much exclusively for ProRaw photos and ProRes videos. For all other use cases, I think they'd rather incentivize people to use AirDrop and iCloud for moving files around.
10Gbps is perfectly reasonable given the devices cap out at 1tb. If people can tolerate iPhones taking hours to charge, I doubt they're going to mind the minutes a wired data transfer takes.
480Mbps is so bad you're better off using Wifi in every situation I can think of.
I don’t know. Europe still seems to be living the USB-A life. Only the 2023 Volvo I rented had USB-C in it. Planes, trains, hotel rooms, coffee shops across Germany, France and Belgiums where I travelled were all using the old connector. What good is having a universal cable if I have to carry a dongle to use it ?
As usual, Europe regulates the industries that non-European countries dominate. We see this with social media as well. They could have easily had a similar directive for cars, that they should have a USB-C port unless they don't support wired charging of phones at all.
First phone I got with a USB-C connector it was still quite new, and my heart sank when I realised all my existing micro-USB leads wouldn't work. Another damn charging cable. Then I went to plug it in and wondered which way up it went, then I realised... it didn't matter. A manly tear of joy welled in my eye.
In my opinion it is extremely unfortunate that they are making this change. We have so many Lightning cables and they all work perfectly fine.
Transfer speeds are because of the iPhone hardware itself, not because of Lightning. The early iPad Pros had high transfer speeds. And case in point the new non-pro iPhone 15 still has slow transfer speed over USB-C.
They should've seriously waited a bit longer. This is annoying. Lightning is a better connector design, easier to use, smaller form factor, generally thinner cables, and "just works". USB-C on the other hand is "just because it fits, doesn't mean it works".
My usb C to hdmi Apple adapter has had a much higher number of ease of use issues with TVs during presentations compared to my older iPad’s HDMI to lightning.
(One I diagnosed and sent to Apple Engineers involved cables above a certain length failing to transmit to the TV with usbC but not with lightning).
I hope these are growing pains and not a step back.
With Airpods being essentially an industry onto itself, this seems very unlikely.
I used to care about the headphone jack but wireless earbuds have become so good and so convenient that it seems a bit anachronistic now. I have a UBC-C to headphone adapter for emergencies and it's permanently affixed to my wired headphones but I can't remember the last time I used it.
Yeah I'm not really a fan of wireless headphones, personally. I'd just like to use my DT 770s to listen to music on my phone without having to bring an extra adapter with me everywhere, and while being able to charge the phone at the same time if necessary.
Not to sound like a paid Apple marketer, but I think there's a distinction between wireless headphones and using AirPods with an iPhone. It's not like it's a herculean effort to use wireless headphones with a standard bluetooth connection, but it's enough of an awkward series of moves that I never enjoyed it. But I have to give Apple credit that AirPods (with an iPhone) just work way more seamlessly, to the point where the idea of quickly tossing them in and out of my ears isn't an annoyance. If I'm playing a video game and I want to listen to a podcast, I pop one into my ear, press play on my phone and I'm listening. When I'm done I simply put it in the case and it disconnects and is charging. I have a pair of Sony XM3's but as soon as I got the AirPods I basically never touched them again.
Using AirPods with an iPhone really is great. The annoying thing is my Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones connect to a Google pixel very similarly to how AirPods connect to an iPhone. I wish that pairing process were more open on iPhone because it really does improve the Bluetooth experience, which is otherwise dreadful compared to the simplicity of a headphone jack. It would have been nice to see Apple add that feature and the headphone jack back with this update. They’ve captured the wireless market. Now give us a standard connector again.
I assume a version exists for USB-C but my Lightning to 3.5mm headset adapter also includes a Lightning charger port so I can charge my phone at the same time.
I still use my wired Bose earphones in a plane (and presumably I'll get a USB-C adapter for them to replace my Lightning one whenever I get around to upgrading my phone) but really Airpods are fine for most everything else.
- dedicated “home” button instead of the fancy “swipe up” - because of how frequently my toddler accidentally swipes up when playing her games. Or how often I enter the “expose” mode when trying to drag something like an email near the bottom of the screen.
- power button located on top, rather than on the side where i typically hold my phone because of how many times I accidentally lock the screen that stops the video i was listening to when trying to grab my phone, or accidentally take a screenshot of the lock screen when trying to insert the phone into the cradle in my car.
- the small size of the original iphone which was tiny rather than the modern versions that keep getting larger.
- and yes, I miss the damn stereo connector which allowed me to charge the phone while playing audio without dealing with bluetooth.
I wish they released “iphone classic” the size of the original iphone with modern insides and hardware buttons in places where they used to be.
It’s truly a shame the iPhone SE wasn’t updated to add USB C. A modern iPhone that fits one-handed use and has a home button, headphone jack, and USB C would be perfect.
The problem is that floppy disks were replaced with another medium that did the same thing but better. You might think the same thing happened with the headphone jack, but my phone has a headphone jack and handles wireless audio just fine. We didn't gain wireless, we just lost wired.
Floppies to CDs is more like a comparison of 3.5mm and 6.3mm, because they both do the same thing but with different form factors and different advantages. Wireless audio performs the same base task as wired but it doesn't do the same thing.
Knew it wouldn't happen but was hoping for the same thing. I really like the iOS software, but I have no plans to buy a phone without USB-C and a headphone jack. Close but no cigar
It's not ideal, but the USB-C-to-3.5mm adapters work well enough. They do break, so buy a handful. I'd prefer the jack, but I can (and do) live with this.
Yup, they work. It really just seems like quite an unnecessary frustration to have to bring one everywhere, and to not be able to charge my phone while listening to music
I saw the introduction of MagSafe as being a quality of life thing for headphone users that use lighting-to-3.5 or usb-to-3.5 adapters, since it allows for charging and headphone usage simultaneously. Just keep the adapter plugged into your headphones.
I don't really see the sense in them adding back the headphone port given the form factor and the viable alternatives.
I would wager that in the current age of iCloud backups, easily 95% of users have never used the cable to transfer data on/off their phone. I don't think I've use the cable for data transfer in maybe ten years?
That's assuming you pay a not insignificant sum to have more than a paltry 5GB of iCloud space. To me it's pretty ridiculous that the iPhone can't match features that android phones have had for a decade.
As always, implementing features is a matter of priorities. If the overwhelming majority of users aren't using cables to transfer data, spending resources on improving data transfer rates isn't a great way to allocate engineering effort.
Meanwhile, flagship Android phones can't match the CPU and GPU speeds nor the battery life of even years-old iPhones. I'd wager that's a much, much more important feature for most users.
> That's assuming you pay a not insignificant sum to have more than a paltry 5GB of iCloud space.
I'm pretty sure they didn't mean the 50GB tier. That amount is also basically useless. The 200GB tier might work, and that's an extra hundred bucks over the life of a phone. If you want to backup a phone and offload a reasonable chunk of photos, you're at the $10 tier and that's a lot of money over multiple years of ownership.
The entirety of my iCloud backups and Photos storage is about 175GB, and I have photos going back to 2008. I think 200GB is probably fine for way more people than you realize.
Many people, but that's still an extra hundred dollars per phone if you keep it for three years. And it would only take another 1-2 photos per day to push you into the $360 per phone tier.
Thankfully those are all things you leave on your desk. I have a lightning cable always plugged into my MacBook Pro for charging my keyboard and mouse, but I don't even bother with it for my phone since it's pretty slow charging from a Mac's port compared to the 67W charger that came with the laptop.
Many languages refer to items as gendered, so instead of "it" it would be "him" or "her". This is a pretty common thing to hear in English when in those regions. The post is likely referring to the lightning port (from the post title).
So long and sooner into the landfill for a thermal camera, higher end environmental noise monitoring microphone, decent wrap around game controller pad, etc, and repurchasing all of the above. This must be some of that "reducing ewaste" and "saving us money" thing I've heard so much about on HN. Yay.
Edit: as I replied below, some accessories are form fitting, so no, can't use an adapter. Gamepad example I have (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FFPKRYW/). And even for those that can work with an adapter, for anything but cables the result is longer/flimsier/more awkward/another point of failure, and what are adapters if not more ewaste? And is everyone supposed to by adapters for even lightning cables? I'm fairly certain lightning cables are all going to get tossed too, or at least a very high percentage as people switch. I'm resigned to it and I can afford it, just feels like this time was itself a waste and not based on data and carefully thought through tradeoffs but populism.
Huh, I was going to respond to someone else but the post was deleted. So upvoting you, and here is what I wrote out when it was only a single reply:
----
A lot of accessories, docks etc are form fitting for good reason, and in that case no there will be no adapters, there just physically is no room. For anything handheld adapters tend to be more awkward and crappier if they work at all for anything that isn't a cable, hard to avoid in a that kind of space constrained scenario. For accessories like the mic yes an adapter likely could work, though it'll still be an extra half inch or whatever more fragile stuff stuck on the end. An irritation and extra expense for no value but not the end of it.
The conversation around it has been pretty annoying and self righteous though by promoters, even as it also felt like fait accompli as regulators started forcing it. Lots of braying about "ewaste" without any sort of analysis of what percentage of the waste stream that is (looks pretty minuscule) or the ROI on sweeping away all the enormous existing capital investment the public has made. I could even accept some sort of "yes this will mean more junk and cost in the near term but it'll pay off in 20 years". But for some reason all the conversations I've seen have brushed it aside with "uh adapters" or "well I only use cables myself".
Anyway, just consider my post a grumpy resigned last bit of pushback. I still don't really feel like government forcing Lightning -> USB-C was really worth it, if we were forcing a change I'd have preferred it at least going to something really thought through, ground shifting, and future proof forever like an optical hybrid. I think (I sure hope!) USB-C isn't "the end of history" in terms of peripheral connectors. But it's also all water under the dam at this point, and younger me may have been less grumpy, not like I haven't seen lots and lots (and lots)^n of connectors come and go over the decades already.
I pretty much agree with all that. I'm not doing high-fives about the shift to USB-C because as a long-time Apple phone (and other Apple products) customer I'm perfectly happy with the existing Lightning ports. But the shift is also sort of inevitable European regulators or not and everyone knew it was coming. And Apple have never been ones to maintain legacy interfaces even in devices less space constrained than a phone. (e.g. would it have killed them to maintain a USB-A port in a MacBook Pro?) But here we are.
Those are very fair points. (Also acknowledging the sister comment that the particular adapters in my link are charge-only and wouldn't be helpful for your situation). What I find annoying is that lighting cables are rent-seeking proprietary Apple tech, and not even universally used in their own product. Apple already on their own makes people have to re-buy peripherals when they change standards, so it's not like they have a high ground.
And since you bring it up, I do actually hope that the USB-C form factor connector winds up being a permanent connector. Consider: AC mains power connector form factors, while they vary from country to country, are basically "finished" and don't have to keep getting revised every half decade. USB-C has proven to be tremendously scalable and imo is good enough that it could well be the final form for its use case for the foreseeable future.
Thanks for the reply. A few thoughts/niggles, though again this is not a huge deal, more of a "pour one out" moment.
>What I find annoying is that lighting cables are rent-seeking proprietary Apple tech
I don't think this is a fair description frankly. Lightning was developed years before USB-C, which itself was heavily influenced by Apple, and the USB situation before that sucked. They themselves came up with something useful, better than what came before or the other options at the time. Sure, ideally they would have standardized it voluntarily and made it open for all, but by the same token why couldn't the rest of the industry be bothered to do a decent non-directional plug connector years before hand instead of monstrosities like the USB-3 Micro Type B? I think using "rent seeking" to mean "anything proprietary anyone develops and sells" starts feeling a little too expansive?
>and not even universally used in their own product
It's been universally used across what it was developed for though, the handheld devices. And in terms of raw performance capability and flexibility it's obviously much, much worse than Thunderbolt/USB-C which came later. I don't see why things would be better if it was on Macs?
>Apple already on their own makes people have to re-buy peripherals when they change standards, so it's not like they have a high ground.
Lightning has been around though 11 years, and the 30-pin connector 9 years before that. And would likely have been around years more without this. I don't think you can reasonably say they haven't had pretty decent runs when it comes to handheld/ultra portable devices? Apple has definitely been far, far faster moving when it comes to Macs for better and for worse. But again, I think that's not an apples-to-apples comparison, because computers almost always are connecting to things via cables not anything form fitting, they have plenty of space to work with. Which in turn means adapters really can be an acceptable (if suboptimal and disliked) solution.
Reasonable minds can differ of course!
>I do actually hope that the USB-C form factor connector winds up being a permanent connector.
I really, really don't. It stinks so much having to use copper vs fiber.
>USB-C has proven to be tremendously scalable
I can use the same OS2 I got a decade ago for a 10gbps to run 200 Gbps now. Same cable. For a few bucks per meter. And can do it over anywhere from 1 meter to kilometers.
Much better designs are possible then USB-C, and stuff could use it.
> So long and sooner into the landfill for a thermal camera, higher end environmental noise monitoring microphone, decent wrap around game controller pad, etc, and repurchasing all of the above. This must be some of that "reducing ewaste" and "saving us money" thing I've heard so much about on HN. Yay.
These peripherals had lightning ports in them? You can't use a USB-C - Lightning cable and continue using them??
While a small percentage of people will have things that can't be used, my IR camera also connects directly to the phone bottom and you specify what port you want when you buy it as it is flush with the phone. For most people however I doubt it will be an issue.
Or don't throw away your iPhone with lightning!
I'm sure the iPhone SE and 14 are still for sell for a couple of years. So unless you want a brand new iPhone every year, then your argument is nill.
<snark>
People complain for 11 years that they used lightning, now of course, we can complain that Apple has created a bunch of e-waste. Wins for everyone who loves to complain!
</snark>
This is the reason Apple waited 11 years - to reduce the impact.
Plus, there will be adapters.
Every year they waited is another year for more lightning peripherals to get bought and become future e-waste. They should have done this far sooner, the moment it became "inevitable" (ie. when they started moving all their other devices to it.)
I doubt it was to "reduce the impact" so much as it was to push off as long as possible making a shift that inevitably is more of a con than a pro to people considering upgrading their phones.
I think it's more that Apple had the money to ignore the EU regulators for 11 years, rather than wanting to reduce the environmental impact of their chargers.
They were pissed that the EU doesn't bend to the will of corporations like the US does, so they dragged their feet for over a decade.
There was a certain irony that they spent so much time talking about their environmental progress (the video with Mother Nature was riduculous, IMO), and then slid in the USB-C bit without mentioning the environmental impact of ditching the lightning connector.
I'm sure the environmental impact of ditching lightning is mixed. On the plus side, long term, having everyone on the same connector is good in lots of ways. In the short term, it's disruptive. It also makes it easier to switch between platforms or live in a multi-platform household; this is good for people, and might be good for Apple or might not.
There's a reason Apple waited 10 years to change on iPhones, even though they switched to USB-C on other products.
They could have potentially had both ports, but nobody seems to want to put two ports on phones, and Apple is not one to put an old and new thing together.
USB-C should have been the paddle style lightning connector. I am not saying that Apple should have used USB-C, I am saying that the physical connector for USB-C should have been the paddle style of lightning.
If they really wanted to they could have always waited for USB-C to mature to jump straight from the iPod connector straight to USB-C. Or they could have made Lightning an open standard. They did neither.