Hacker News Reader

Comment by walterbell | Hacker News Reader

From https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/apple-usb-c-european-com...

> The European Commissioner for Competition ... is considering clamping down on tech companies who have made “unsatisfactory progress” towards common charging standards ... Apple is now the biggest player to have not adopted the USB Type-C standard for its flagship phones ... This is no idle threat ... the European Commission were recently behind the record €4.3 billion fine levied on Google

https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/circuitbreaker/2018/9/...

> Apple’s upcoming iPad Pro rumored to switch from Lightning to USB-C ... Ming-Chi Kuo says that the next high-end version of the tablet will switch over to USB Type-C

View on HN

The EU mandating which connector the actual phone has is a huge overreach. All Lightning-supported devices can be plugged into USB ports appropriately.

This all started because of the incredible amount of e-waste because every brand used their own standard. Things didn't seem much better when USB started becoming standard on the other end of the cable for data and charging. Apple's original compromise was to offer lightning to micro-usb adapters[1].

[1] https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD820AM/A/lightning-to-mi...

I feel like micro USB may have actually made it worse because the connector has small springs which bend and fatigue very easily.

The advantage of micro USB over mini is that the cheap cable's connector will wear out instead of the port on the expensive device.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_%28Physical%29

> The Micro connector is also designed to reduce the mechanical wear on the device; instead the easier-to-replace cable is designed to bear the mechanical wear of connection and disconnection.

I never had a micro port go bad on a phone. The c port on my Galaxy S8 has broken twice already.

Do you mean USB-C, which is what people are now using? Micro USB is the much older, non-reversible tech.

In either case it's wrong - the newer standards are rated for more abuse than the older ones.

I would posit that Android devices are actually worse historically than Apple ones. Many of them will not properly charge unless you either connect them to a charger manufactured by the device manufacturer, or to a PC/Mac (where they likely won't draw anything more than 500mA).

I've had far more luck using Apple devices with non-Apple chargers, than the other way around.

I've used _lots_ of different Android devices since I purchased the original Android G1 device in 2009 and I never had a problem with chargers (although I don't use the original chargers most of the time).

Probably a significant portion of that is the MFI program, which does quality control of third-party accessories.

In that case, future Apple USB-C chargers may become a good solution for charging Android devices.

Oh don't worry, Apple will now only produce lightning chargers and deliver phones with USB-C to lightning for charging.

Not necessarily, considering Apple's market dominance. A good majority of accessory makers usually weigh either developing for USB or Apple's proprietary connectors (40 pin and Lightning). If Lighting were to become legacy because of this move, it would mean more competition between accessory manufacturers. And more competition means more innovation.

Apple most definitely has no dominance for its smartphones anywhere. Even in US where it's larger than anywhere else, Apple's market share is much less than 50%.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com