Lightning is/was actually pretty great. Also remember that it was introduced before USB-C even existed.
I’m using my wife’s old android for YouTube. It has a microusb port and I really hate it.
Lighting was leaps better than that, but usb-c is really the king of ports at the moment.
This is the only valid opinion.
Perhaps one day we get a magnetic replacement for USB-C.
It’s the king of ports at the moment but I have concerns about the fact there’s that “prong” in the middle of the female connector. It seems like it could be something to break. I did like the fact there wasn’t anything in the middle of the lightning port, made it seem more durable to me over time (at least the port side, but that’s what you want with these things…)
Nevermind that the same connector could be USB 3.1 Gen X fuckton-gigabit, USB4, Thunderbolt 3 or 4… USB needs to learn from the WiFi groups recent rename scheme…
No hate, but I cannot fathom feeling the way you do about Micro USB and not spending $200 on some of the very solid Android phones that have come out in the 9 years since USB C has been the standard.
That was really weird, actually. Apple was frustrated that the USB consortium wasn’t making progress. So they developed Lightning. Then sent people there to help develop USB-C, when they already had a competing connector…
They should’ve been more patient, and sent people there directly, before developing a competitor, and adopted USB-C from the start.
With that move, they isolated themselves and their customers. It’s this arrogant “we’re smarter than anybody else” attitude they show sometimes, that irks a lot of people and end up being detrimental for their image. (And I say this as a long time Apple customer).
Also why is it awesome on iPad Pros since years but no good on iPhones? The marketing was always contradicting itself.
I’d wager part of it was because of the outrage when they switched from the 30 pin was significant
Connection technology was good, but materials used in cable and design of strain release was horrible. Never seen a cable disintegrate without any reason after couple of years.
It cost tens of millions of dollars to engineer a product that disintegrates on their own
Funnily enough my first ever Lightning cable that came with my iPod Touch 5G is so worn out you can see the 4 wires in it. Insulation and shield are completely gone at one end but it still works fine.
Thats how fires start.
Incidentally, I have a micro USB cable that came with my Nokia N97 (must be 2012 or something).
It’s flawless still and even after more than 10 years of service (now charging my xbox controller) it’s working fine.
I’ve tried purchasing identical “original” cables of same kind since then, but they all last a few months before getting lose our stop connecting.
I think the problem is that between lightning cables and USB-C, one is made by an asshole company who wants you to use it for your phone and literally nothing else, and one is useful for your phone and literally everything else.
Funnily enough, Apple co-developed USB, introduced it in their laptops and everyone complained.
They complained because they literally stripped away most or all the usb-a’s in that process, forcing people to have to use hubs.
Apple does this shit all the time, and people always hate it.
Because they ONLY did it to the laptops, you fuck. People complain about change just to complain it changed.
At the time it came out, definitely, considering its main competitors for a standardised connector were Mini USB and Micro USB, which were serviceable but not that great…
Could be worse though, you could’ve been stuck with “superspeed” Micro USB like some folks were, those were just plain awful to use.
pretty sure my samsung Note had that
The problem with mini and micro was that they were asymmetrical and very small, imo. at least you could tell which side the indent was on without looking with superspeed. Good luck getting it in the hole without looking, though.
You can always tell the Apple fans, can’t you? This cable was hated by everyone when it came out because it broke everyones docks.
It also wasnt much faster, in fact, I’m almost positive the first phones were throttled, not unlike the new iPhone’s with type c.
Not fair. It was a great cable. It came out when everyone else was using mini and mico usb which both sucked hard ass. They weren’t reversible, and they broke easily.
It was a good cable when it came out, but as soon as USB-C became common it was obsolete. It was limited to USB2 speeds and did not support fast charging.
Which, seeing how Apple is still hellbent on continuing to only have USB2 speeds even with USB-C, plus lockout chips, their new connector is obsolete as well.
I still don’t understand the reason for the speed limit tbh. It just makes their product look like shit.
Faster USB chipset is more expensive and potentially also physically larger with more traces on the circuit board to deal with I imagine. And faster data speeds require more attention to how the traces are routed to prevent interference. I very much doubt this is anything other than to save a relatively small amount on materials and engineering costs, on an already overpriced phone, and/or to try and “encourage” you to use iCloud by making offline sync and backup painfully slow.
USB-C is still not “common”. There are now all kinds of different cables with nothing in common except a form factor. Also, USB-C came out 2.5 years after lightning and didn’t match feature parity until the Thunderbolt spec and that was 5 years later. At that point, accessories and cables that used the Lightning port numbered in the millions, if not billions.
Also, what do you mean? The new phones support USB3…
How is USB-C not common? It’s the default for every remotely modern android phone I’ve seen, all the modern game consoles I’ve seen (eg, the Switch and PS5 controllers), and many other random electronics use it (I even had a covid tester that was plugged into USB-C). All my laptops these days use it (including two Chromebooks, a high end MacBook, and a Windows laptop) and of those, only the Windows laptop even had USB-A ports (ie, the other laptops only had USB-C).
I won’t pretend it’s perfectly ubiquitous. There’s lots of older electronics still using micro or mini USB (there’s been no reason for manufacturers to update older devices). But it’s definitely common in my book.
And technically the connector itself is way beter by clicking into place.
And they made sure no one else could develop a design with the same characteristics by patenting the fuck out of it. Thanks apple
What’s funny to me is that the solution to long term use was in their hands. They could have licensed it cheaply to other devices until it replaced the mini USB, then charged whatever they wanted for use once it was the defacto standard. Instead they clasped too tightly onto it and now it’s being forced into retirement
With how many cheap android phones have been produced, they’d be making money even if someone wasn’t buying an apple product, essentially taking a piece of the market share that wasn’t theirs.
No, if the clamp-mechanism breaks, you habe to replace the connector on the phone while with UsbC you only have to use a different cable.
I like USB type C, it’s a great connector and lightyears better than micro-b, or even micro-b 3.0 but the biggest issue I’ve come across is that it’s so easy to get dirt in the phone connector.
In fact a couple months back I had to sit there with a super thin safety pin and clean all the compacted shmutz that had gotten in my phone connector, bexause it was so bad the clamp wasn’t engaging at all, and cables were getting more and more unreliable. Once I got it cleaned every cable I’ve ever bought worked perfectly.
Ive never seen the dirt issue or the clamp mechanism breaking on a lightning connector before - neither on my parents phones, or on the spare phone we keep as one of those old backup phones if someone’s phone gets smashed or drowned. But it’s not really saying much as I never kept the backup phone for long, as I hate apple and iPhones, so it’s entirely possible that under longer term use with me specifically that it could’ve got broken or dirty due to my uniquely rough way of handling things .
my current pixel 3a has a thick protective case, which has kept it mostly undamaged over the years I’ve had it, despite many drop events. The only thing that has stopped working on it was the NFC reader, and so far I’ve managed to avoid breaking the screen. I’ll probably keep using it till it stops functioning at this rate, as options for new phones don’t really fit my needs or wants.
I am on my third usb-module on my phone. Luckily it is replaceable. I would really like the concept of sticking a . in a o (as it is with lightning) than to have an . in a O and fiddling a o between both (as in USB-C). I have never lost a cable through wear and tear so far though…
It was a piece of shit, always. Doesn’t matter if it was technically better, it was not standardized so fuck lightning cables forever. Good riddance to seriously awful bullshit rubbish
As someone who has had 2 small fires started in their cup holder with that so called “technically better” cable I will never understand how apple was ever able to market an exposed contact charging cable in the first place.
Doesn’t matter if it was technically better
Do you approach your life with such black and white emotional reactions? Fuck nuance, details, and critical evaluations, amirite? Bad guy good guy hurrdurr.
I’m not going to argue why standards are good, that’s self evident. Sorry you’re blind to this.
How’s this for nuance? Apple made billions of dollars by just choosing to be dicks. That’s the honest truth here. Simp all you want.
Yeah, I still think it’s a great mechanical interface, if not the best. Would’ve been great if rather than killing it, regulatory bodies had forced USB to adopt the lightning design for the C type.
Lightning doesn’t have near the capabilities of USB C. Lightning had its time but it’s pretty clear that USB C is superior.
Lightning doesn’t have near the capabilities of USB C. … pretty clear that USB C is superior.
Are you talking about the capabilities of the USB protocol 3.x, or the mechanical design like I was? I don’t know a single property where the mechanical design of USB is superior to Lightning, but I’m ready to be enlightened.
Wouldn’t that be a Lightning to USB C adapter? That naming doesn’t make sense.
Wait doesn’t that mean it’s a Lightning to USB C if the top is USB-C and the bottom is Lightning?
Who is this for? Looking at the Apple Store, they sell an official USB-C cable for less ($19, but you can obviously find good quality third-party cables for much less).
People who have accessories with a lightning adapter probably. Speakers, docks, etc.
Alternatively the adapter might be a cheaper option for third party cables that aren’t usb-c or usb-a on the other side of the cable.
People who have accessories with a lightning adapter probably. Speakers, docks, etc.
Are those common? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a speaker with a built-in Lightning dock.
I remember these iPod docks were very common at the time of the 30-pin connector. However by the time Lightning came around wireless audio became more commonplace with Bluetooth, AirPlay and other related technologies (CarPlay, smart speakers etc.)
People blindly jumping on the USB-C wagon are completely forgetting how much money people spend on accessories that still work perfectly fine…
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.
All cables have issues. One thing I see often only with iPhone cables are they’re always falling apart, especially the outer parts near the end.
My household all has iPhones but me. They go through at minimum 3 a year
I’m still on the same USB C cable I kept from my pixel 1, and I use it on my 7, still use the same car charging cord from 7 years ago too
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.
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.
And yet I never have USBC problems, but had multiple I phones that started failing to charge via the wired port.
C came out 4 years later. Not two. And C has tons of problems with it still.
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.
Lighting was a good cable when apple made the switch from 30 pin connector and android was still trying to figure out whether they would use microUSB, miniUSB, and whatever the sam hell is. And there was no interoperability
Once USB became the standard their was no real reason to hold onto lightning other than it being proprietary and them wanting to hand hold their users
Lol what? Android used micro USB all across the board on flagships. They then went straight to usb-c.
I had USB-3 for a bit on my my Note.
I kinda liked it since you could still use a regular micro USB cable in a pinch.
That is straight up not true. I have multiple flagship devices with mini-USB and, within those, some have mini-A while others have mini-B. Google’s own Nexus devices had mini-USB connectors.
The first “Google phone” was the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) with MiniUSB. Next was the Nexus One with MicroUSB. Everything after used MicroUSB until the Nexus 5X with USB-C.
This might be true for a very select few devices. Before usb-c I have never seen something else besides micro USB on an android device (besides the micro USB 3.0 connection, but you could put a normal micro USB cable in those)
Once USB became the standard their was no real reason to hold onto lightning other than it being proprietary and them wanting to hand hold their users
Well if the lockout chip rumors are true, they’ve basically just made Lighting 2, Electric Boogaloo that just happens to be shaped like USB-C but is incompatible with all non-Apple approved connectors.
Once USB became the standard their was no real reason to hold onto lightning other than it being proprietary and them wanting to hand hold their users
Other than the fact that they promised when they switched to lightning they wouldn’t change connectors again for a decade.
That is micro-USB 3.0 and it’s an annoying connector that now is just as obsolete as micro-USB 2.0 and for some reason, around 2014, sone smartphone manufacturers thought it was a good idea adding it on their phones. Didn’t last long and got replaced by normal micro-USB again (which is much worse than lightning imo).
It’s for devices that require more power usually, many external harddrive/ssd cases still use them.
