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Comment by curiouser2 | Hacker News Reader

It's likely solve the gap of "I can't use my phone while it's wirelessly charging". With the magsafe thing you can just clunk the charger to the back of your phone and keep using it. While battery life is still crap on these (side note - I didn't hear a single thing in the presentation about battery life... yikes) people are going to be charging their phones while they use them.

I hate to be a pessimist but with them not including a charger or headphones, they're slowly moving toward no data port whatsoever

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I guess my confusion is basically that: if I want to use my phone while it charges, I just plug it in with a lightning cable. I don’t need it to “wirelessly” charge if I’m having to connect something to the device anyway. It seems to be a weird 3rd option for charging.

They’re definitely getting rid of the port, maybe next year.

Two advantages: (1) the Lightning port can wear out if used often, but the magnets won't; (2) you can attach and remove the phone from a magnetic charger with one hand and without looking / in the dark.

>the Lightning port can wear out if used often

Wait what? I hope you're just saying it can get scratched or warped with rough/improper use.

I have not had an iphone come in with a worn lighting port. 10/10 times it has been extremely packed pocket lint preventing the cable from seating correctly.

I've had that problem, but I've also had the cable clips in the sides of the socket lose some of their grip over time. They're spring steel, but even spring steel is still somewhat subject to plastic deformation with enough cycles.

It's never gotten bad enough to be a problem with mine, but I'm still happier to be using magnetic charging cables most of the time. That's primarily for the convenience of it, which is significant, but I don't mind that they also preserve the connector.

(They're especially convenient in the car. I have an SE, but even with a phone that supported inductive charging, I suspect I'd stick with the magnetic-mount-and-cable arrangement - it's exactly as convenient as inductive charging, with no risk of compromise on the strength of the mount in order to get one with half a transformer in it.)

The lightning port can essentially loosen over time, meaning the “snap” of the cable grips less and the plug can become susceptible to falling out. This has happened to me, even as someone who takes good care of his phone.

Have you tried canned air to clear debris?

A wooden toothpick is perfect for cleaning lightning ports.

I would not recommend canned air as it would drive lint further into the phone.

Even on very old very carelessly used phones I have not seen this. Every single time the lightning cable does not snap into place, it's some packed lint that is the problem. It can be removed with some care and it works fine after that.

Any moving part will wear out eventually.

Everything under, around, inside and outside the sun will wear out eventually.

The lightning port is not even close to being one of the parts that will wear out first.

If the wireless charging mechanism is solid state, it’s immune from mechanical wear.

Mechanical wear matters for example if you have a Roku, and the buttons in the remote control physically wear out. You can just instead use your phone app to control it over WiFi, and the WiFi antenna will “never” wear out because it’s solid state. Source: I have an old Roku

Solid state devices can still fail from mechanical stress. Heat cycling and strong magnetic fields could be a problem for wireless charging even if they don’t need to be. The core issue is generally trying to use the cheapest solution, not just mechanical stress.

Ethernet connectors are probably the best example of this, for servers that might be moved every few years their cheap and maintain a solid connection. It’s really desktops and especially laptops where they become such a major issue.

I’m struggling to understand your point. Phones are closer to laptops in that in typical use a wired power connection is frequently plugged and unplugged, so mechanical wear is an important consideration. Why are you bringing up Ethernet on servers in this context, when as you say the pattern of use is utterly different?

I know almost nothing about wireless charging. But have fair experience with working with WiFi devices. In my lifetime, I have observed 0 cases of failure on the WiFi client mechanism, and exactly 1 case of a WiFi router failing due to hardware. Meanwhile, power plugs are the most common part I have experienced wearing out on consumer electronics. Have you experienced lots of failures of solid state electronics due to eg. hear cycling and magnetic fields?

My point was you need to design stuff for the use case and a healthy margin. Incandescent lightbulbs are perhaps the poster child for solid state devices which with a limited lifespan. You can design lightbulbs for a 100 year lifespan at the cost of efficiency and bulb brightness. Even then an incandescent bulbs lifespan is dramatically shorter if your power cycling it every 2 minutes. But eventually stuff like electromigration for example will be an issue for solid state devices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration

When designing wireless charging the same efficiency vs lifespan tradeoffs exist. Sure, they might be fine, but don’t expect them to last 20 years or anything. Further, the mats are significantly more expensive than a cable.

PS: Connector specifications are generally a dumpster fire because nobody wants to be forced to build expensive cables. And even if the spec says X, if Y is cheaper and still mostly works then you can bet people will do Y. Failure tends take a while at which point people buy a new cable vs returning the old one etc.

Thanks! Your answer reinforces my personal preference for wires to supply power :)

It's a good rule of thumb, but that doesn't check out in practice.

The wireless charging mechanism, while solid state, generates a lot of heat, which has the potential to degrade the battery especially in certain climates.

I think the sun will outlive the lightning port. Unless the sun explodes, in which case technically it would have ended prior to its contents hitting Earth and destroying the lightning port.

I didn't suggest that, I just said that everything wears out.

On my last phone, it's precisely the part that wore out first. A local guy replaced it for about $50 and I got another year of life out of the phone before I dropped it and broke the screen. (Note, this was an iPhone 6 that I replaced about a year ago)

Sure, and for some people the part that wears out first is the third SoC capacitor.

In agreggate though, the lightning port isn't the first thing that will break, and if it breaks you can use wireless charging. Whereas if you only use wireless charging there is less redundancy and the part that actually wears out the fastest, the battery, will degrade faster due to the heat.

Moisture can cause permanent damage when charging. (Corrosion.)

I can’t agree. My iPhone 6 is about six years old, and the port still works like new.

Counterpoint - I have an iPhone 6 that has exactly this problem. The cable doesn't get seated properly, so occasionally it stops charging or disconnects when attached to a computer.

Try cleaning the pocket lint out of it. Major quality of life improvement for me.

Another +1 for lint. Use a wooden toothpick and be gentle

This. I’ve just solved exactly those problems by cleaning out the hole.

I upgraded from 6S to 2nd gen SE because of intermittent charging of 6S. Over time, port became loose, cable didn’t fit and come out easily.

(3) Lightning cables corrode quickly in the salty sea air.

Good inductive charging is an advantage here.

I assume the non-swappable battery will give out long before the lightning port wears out.

Well I live in taiwan, so it’s easy to find someone to swap out the battery.

I might upgrade to a 12. It’s a nice number; 6,12.... 18?

> you can attach and remove the phone from a magnetic charger with one hand and without looking / in the dark.

You can't do that with the cable?

Plugging also charges faster than inductive charging, so when you 'need' to charge your phone you should prefer plugging direct.

The primary use case is watching a movie or listening to music with headphones. Can’t charge and listen without an extra dongle. Apples solution is BT headphone they sell but it’s a bad pattern.

Fair enough, but I bit the bullet on AirPods Pro earlier this year and have been really impressed.

I've used Apple phones for the last ~10 years but I have held back on AirPods as I've read a few reports from people whos AirPods have lasted ~18 months before the (non-replaceable, because Apple) battery begins to heavily degrade.

non-replaceable, because Apple

Non-replaceable by you because the AirPods are so small.

But they can be replaced by Apple for $49. Or $0 if they're still covered under AppleCare.

I agree it is a bad pattern. Remove features from a device to force you to buy an alternative accessory. Nowhere else would anybody accept this - eg. a car that came without a steering wheel so you had to buy one.

Next they'll take the screen from the phone and force you to buy an accessory screen!

a car that came without a steering wheel so you had to buy one.

When I bought a new Ford pick-up truck in the 90's, it didn't come with a rear bumper. That was an add-on. I presume because different people will want different rear bumpers (regular, towing, something else).

When I lived in the desert, I regularly saw brand pick-up trucks without tailgates, or with various specialty ones, so I assume those are also optional.

Thanks! Very informative!

What was it like living in the desert? Where abouts was it in the world? Sounds an interesting life.

Consider that iPad has replaced lightning with usb-c and that having ports takes up a lot of space... I think they are just planning to phase out lightning and go port-less on the iPhone.

How the hell will car play work without a port?

My current car does Carplay wirelessly. You connect via WiFi.

Bluetooth? Heck, even without car play it works fairly well.

Wireless CarPlay already exists

Sure, it has existed for several years. But I’ve yet to drive a single car that supports it. By my understanding only super expensive high-end luxury cars support it, and even then it’s hit and miss. I’ve never seen it with my own eyes.

Almost all BMWs from the past few years have it. We have a 2017 X5 and wireless CarPlay works very well and is very convenient.

An X5 is a pretty high-end luxury car.

An X1 like mine isn’t, and it has wireless CarPlay too

My hybrid Mini Countryman supports it and it works very well.

https://www.cars.com/articles/wireless-apple-carplay-and-and... lists 2019 model cars with Wireless CarPlay. I've driven one and tried out the wireless CarPlay, and it works more or less like the wired version (no lag, as smooth as wired CarPlay AFAICT). The only major inconvenience is probably that, if you have a passenger and they want to use their phone for music, you will need to pair their phone to the car instead of just finding the wire and plugging in. Takes about 30 seconds to a minute to go through all the setup. While the cars listed are not cheap by any means, there are a few moderately optioned minivans around the same cost of some of the less expensive cars from BMW (base cost around $38K USD).

Honda is also rumored to be adding wireless support ( https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/10/10/wireless-carplay-... ) for their 2021 Accord model so seems the feature is become available on more affordable cars too.

Beware of BMW pulling unethical crap on its customers by attempting to extract an annual fee for CarPlay: https://www.carscoops.com/2019/08/this-is-why-bmw-charges-80...

They even tried to blame Apple for this, only to have their lie publicly called out by Apple. This created such outrage that the decision had to be reversed, but for me that's enough - they showed their true colors and are very likely to come up with further crap in the future.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20995630/bmw-apple-carpla...

Oh I just noticed it was discussed here on HN too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16195529

I agree that it was ridiculous and to be on guard for these shenanigans. 100%.

Today though, BMW is not charging a “subscription” fee and much more importantly, all of their iDrive data is provided for free with free software updates. And yes, competitive pressure probably forced them to, but it is much better than just 5 or 6 years ago where you were charged for yearly map updates by buying a DVD. They are also the first car manufacturer to support the CarKey feature so they have changed (for now anyways).

The upper trim levels of the ‘21 Honda Accord have it.

Aw man, my 2019 doesn’t. I rarely need to charge in the car, and it’d be so nice to use CarPlay without having to buckle my phone in

I get Facebook ads for a third-party wireless CarPlay dongle that plugs into a car that has wired CarPlay support.

Apple could make a first-party one.

There are dongles available - no, really.

I would presume that they may have some sort of data transfer baked into the puck that will work at USB speeds for CarPlay?

Site claims about the same with small pro losing an estimated hour and mini having 5 hours or so less.

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