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Comment by Philipp__ | Hacker News Reader

This! Thing is that situation with ports and adapters has never been worse, but Apple came there, wanted to be first again that will pull the plug on old technology and embrace the new one! But their execution was a miss. But anyway, my predictions are that from 2017. every Apple machine, wether it's computer or iPhone or iPad, will go down the USB-C route. Most probably next iPhone would use USB-C. And I just hope 2016. will be the year that was bad, and won't happen again. Since some Apple's small decisions were completely off, and we as costumers (or fans), are not used to it.

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> Apple came there, wanted to be first again

Interesting point. Got me thinking about how the iPod was not the first MP3 player, and how the iPhone was not the first smartphone. I believe the philosophy was "don't be the first; be the first to get it right."

It's a little disappointing that they haven't been so magical lately.

It is, but you know, magic couldn't last forever, and we all knew it, since Jobds left us. It was just the matter of year. But I believe that these new MBP will be amazing and beautiful machines in next iteration. Some bad decision and bad timing led to disappointments but as long as they learn something from it, it's all good.

Apple has never gone with an open standard when a proprietary closed standard would do.

More likely than using any sort of standard port would be Apple inventing yet another new proprietary port.

Apple has never gone with an open standard when a proprietary closed standard would do.

False. USB 1.

Yup. Or...y'know...FireWire. Also known as IEEE 1394.

I remember overhearing a Best Buy employee describe the FireWire port on the back of an iMac as a Sony proprietary camera connector. Not sure why I didn't correct him.

Apple rarely goes proprietary with their ports. The original 30-pin iPod port. Lightning. ADB in the mists of time.

All of which were I believe better than what was available.

MagSafe 1 and 2.

They are better, but we also have a situation where the only port on an Apple device is proprietary with the latest iPhone.

Lightning was better-ish, but we also knew USB-C was on the horizon. I don't think that one is defensible.

If my memory serves, lightning was introduced in late 2012 with the iPhone 5. I'm not sure we can really say that lightning was "on the horizon" that long ago. I would say lightning was "on the horizon" in late 2014, when in early 2015 we saw USB-C come to notable devices such as the Chromebook Pixel and 12" MacBook.

USB-C was on the horizon, but it was still years away when Lightning came out. I really think that Lightning forced the USB-IF's hand a bit and made sure that USB-C was a reality. Without a working example of how a reversible connection worked in the field, the USB-IF might still be waiting to push out USB-C.

Judging from the fact that people on this page are complaining about USB-C cables/adapters not working, and the non-compliant USB-C cable fiasco (e.g. OnePlus), I'd say it isn't that clear. For better or worse, you know exactly what you'll be getting with Lightning. The Lightning connectors are also mechanically very robust.

Of course, the one huge flaw is that now their phones and laptops use different connectors.

Lightning came out in September 2012 [1]. USB-C was ratified in August 2014 [2].

If we put the iPhone 6S model aside (because the -S models generally do not adopt a significant change in features), the only model released since USB-C is the iPhone 7.

Given the short lifecycle of phones, adopting lightning rather than postponing until USB-C has given several generations of phones with a superior connection.

Should the iPhone 7 have adopted USB-C instead of lightning? Perhaps, but USB-C support isn't exactly widespread (and it might in fact be Apple which ends up pushing USB-C support to the point of widespread adoption).

Is the lightning connection superior to USB-C?

Well, it's size is smaller: 6.7mm x 1.5mm (vs 8.4mm x 2.6mm for USB-C); a 42% reduction in height, and a 20% reduction in width.

For devices like mobile phones, I can see how the size of connector can be more important than bandwidth or compatibility. I'd like lightning to be a standard, but it's definitely an improvement over micro-USB, and in terms of size, it's better than USB-C.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_(connector)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Type-C

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