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Comment by stetrain | Hacker News Reader

"decided to not pass that savings onto the customer"

Do you have access to the BOM? Sure it was likely a cost-savings measure, but it may have been to combat rising prices elsewhere. It's a two-sided equation and we can't see the whole thing.

If Apple did want to be environmentally friendly though I would think offering a reasonably priced multi-device (4-ports?) charger would be more effective than just selling a single-device charger separately.

One charger for many devices for many years is a better story than "It's the same charger, just purchased separately now."

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If they wanted to be enviroment they would have switched to USB-C.

I'm personally happy about the lack of charger, all my Apple ones go into a drawer never to be seen again.

To be fair I've maintained for a while now that the reason Apple uses lightning on the phones is because it's quite frankly much more durable than USB-C.

Lightning ports are not more durable than USB-C. They are extremely prone to the device-side conductor corroding. USB mini made the mistake of making the device side contain a friction wear item, but USB micro fixed that but had other endurance issues due to its flimsiness. USB C doesn’t suffer from any of those drawbacks.

Everyone I know that got a USB-C phone eventually complained about loose cables. I have been using the same 6 year old lighting cable without issue.

On it’s own that doesn’t mean much, but plenty of people dislike USB-C from personal experience.

They tend to get dust packed into them that you can fix with a pin.

Good to know, but that would still be a major design issue.

Thinking about it, the best common data connector for interment use might be those credit card chip readers. They can handle more connections in a week than you need to recharge your phone in years. Sure they eventually ware out, but that’s in a business setting.

Every USB-C device I’ve ever owned—including my MacBook Pro—has suffered from cables failing to “click” into place and being held in noticeably more loosely than when they were brad new. This has happened from within a few weeks to a few months. And it’s not the simply the cables wearing out: new cables with old devices produces the same behavior. And when I remove my USB-C YubiKey, the port it uses produces the satisfying click (the port is effectively brand new, since the device is never removed in general use).

Every single Lightning device I’ve owned still connects as if brand new. The only people I ever seem to hear criticize Lightning are people who don’t even own Apple devices.

In my opinion, the form factor of USB-C was a massive mistake (even before considering the nightmare of competing cable incompatibilities) and they should have gone with the form factor of Lightning.

I've had lots of trouble with lightning, mostly stemming from the power pin on cables corroding, which then causes arcing in any new device you use it in causing the problem to propagate

I've had my iPhone 11 Pro Max inside a Apple smart charging case since day 1, and for the past few months, the connection is really flakey, either one of the plugs is going bad. And its never left the case, the port looks very clean (no dust)

That's a really interesting counter-anecdote. Now that I think about it, my girlfriend has also had two Lightning cables die due to arcing (discovered black markings on the copper contacts) although I'm not sure it if it propagated the way you were saying.

> The only people I ever seem to hear criticize Lightning are people who don’t even own Apple devices.

I've been exclusively iPhone since the 4S and its gorgeous retina display lured me away from my beloved Curve 8900. I am still not as proficient a typist nor as productive a person on the go as I was with my BlackBerry back in 2009.

(I did however ditch my rMBP years ago but I don't see how that could factor into a discussion about Lightning ports.)

USB-C cables are less durable than lightning cables. But the ports are more durable than lightning ports.

I'd say that's a good compromise given the relative costs of a phone vs a cable.

That said, my Nokia 6.1 had the USB-C port fail in just a couple of years. Apple's design for the USB-C ports on their laptops looks extra nice and durable though. They are machined out of the aluminium of the case itself.

My partner's 12" MacBook has a (single) USB-C port, which has become increasingly loose over time. To the point where she has to listen for the distinctive sound it makes when charging when she plugs it in, and wiggle the connector until it connects properly.

So despite the apparent solidity of the machined shell, something in the system wears over time.

I'm not trying to suggest that this is the answer/reason for your particular anecdote but it could have nothing to do with USB-C itself and simply be unnecessary physical wear put on by the user. I think you can find anecdotes in either direction for this particular case.

IMO, all connectors have issues, some more, some less.

USB-A has proven remarkably good, despite the "insert 3-times" problem, and it's now fairly large size.

Lightning is ok -- I have found that cables lose their "snap in" ness after a while, the arcing limits the connector lifetime, and I've snapped the tongue off a few (cheap) cables.

USB-B Micro has been pretty good for me, despite the "insert 5 times" problem.

USB-C has advantages of "insert-once", and smaller size, but (in my one-off anecdata) can have issues with losing its snug-ness over time. I thought it was notable, since it was with a MacBook -- so not something badly engineered, or cheap, or whatever.

I guess my view is that it's not a panacea, and arguably, on a par with things it's replacing.

Check the port for dust.

I doubt that USB-C would be more environmentally friendly. I am fairly sure that the vast majority of people buying new Apple phones today are people that currently have Apple phones. Lots of Apple's customer base have been iPhone loyalists for longer than USB-C has been commonplace.

But USB-C is used for literally every other new device and even other Apple devices such as their laptops and ipad pros.

It's the defacto standard for charging any kind of electronic device.

Which doesn’t in any way shape or form negate the simple reality that there is currently an ecosystem of perfectly functioning Lightning accessories that will all need to be junked when Apple transitions the iPhone to USB-C.

Anyone who use smartphone accessories may need to buy USB-C cables except a few Lightning models. Proprietary connector is bad for environment.

I am in the camp that they should just hand them out to anyone who has purchased a new phone. They cannot cost that much and this way new customers are not out an additional cost.

This is easily accomplished at the store and a good retailer could run with the idea to differentiate themselves for a low cost

This is one of the few criticisms I can get behind. I think Apple could deflect a lot of criticism here for a comparatively small amount of money by simply offering a standalone brick as a free accessory to anyone purchasing a new phone.

But wouldn't everyone just take one then? And wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of minimizing the e-waste?

If it's a separate box that then the buyer has the option to say "no".

Why would everyone just take one when they have perfectly functioning charging cradles, docks, clocks, and travel accessories?

I have a 5-port charger on my desk which charges all my devices and organises them neatly. When we go travelling we have a USB charging bar which plugs into mains and provides half a dozen 2.4A USB ports. We don't need vendor-provided chargers.

I expect a vast majority of the market is in a similar position.

The only people who would take the free accessory are those that need one, or have a compulsion to acquire free stuff because it's free.

You'd probably want to charge something like $5 for it still. The power of free vs not free can be surprising.

That too, I was thinking of simply not mentioning it and handing one over if people ask.

Studies show that people will almost always take something offered free with a purchase, even if they don't need it. While I do think there's probably a middle ground here, people do have the option to say "no" - they just don't buy it. I think the motivation behind that is both a financial one (Apple makes money on the bricks) but also a psychological one (people won't pay money for something they don't actually need, thereby reducing e-waste).

This is a great idea - or a tick box on the online form.

They did, the cable which comes with the new phones is USB-C on the charge end.

Forcing an ecosystem of about a billion devices to throw away all their cables and accessories isn't environmentally responsible, however you want to spin it.

A billion now, ten billion in a few years.

It is responsible, and the sooner the better.

How is that environmentally friendly, though? Switching to USB-C now turns all the existing Lightning accessories into more e-waste and all the existing Lightning cables into e-waste. Given that wired charging will likely go away in a few years, it doesn't really make sense to change everything to USB-C now just to make it go away altogether in either an environmental sense or a business sense.

In a few years, billions more lightening devices will be sold to people that are also buying usb-c devices.

Stop the waste now.

They pulled it from all their other iPhones and kept the price the same. I think it's pretty clear it's profit for Apple.

Fair point. They do have a significantly upgraded radio, however. I don't remember what happened to pricing when they went from 2G to 3G or 3G to 4G/LTE, but I would not have been surprised if pricing had gone up with the 5G upgrade (in a normal economy).

That said, the AT&T/Verizon giveaway/deception is absolute garbage.

Motorola literally sells an Android phone for £200 with 5G. I just don't buy it.

The question is: what price does Motorola sell their non-5G phones for? I assume they're cheaper.

Question is, does Motorolas offering support the mmWave frequency band? I know that the Motorola Edge+ does support those bands, however it had an introductory price of 999$ so not exactly a bargain.

The iPhone 12 (and Mini) also both have OLED displays rather than the iPhone 11's LCD, so it's at least plausible that there's a bit of increased BOM there as well?

> That said, the AT&T/Verizon giveaway/deception is absolute garbage.

Absolutely. :)

I don't have a problem with them increasing price. We don't know the cost of the changes in this version and even more so users are not entitled that Apple keep the same profit margin even if the cost is the same.

The deception though is claiming that new new phone has all these new goodies with the same price. This is effectively all these new goodies with $50 increase in price ($30 career, $20 charger).

I believe the only one that stayed the same price was the SE, the XR and 11 both dropped by $100 (but that's a normal yearly move from Apple).

But yeah, definitely boosting margins on the older phones.

It's not the same price because it's not the same device.

Did Apple increase or decrease their profit per iPhone on this round? Y'know, I have no idea. I do know that trying to come to a conclusion about it on the basis of not including a charger and headphones is impossible.

> all their other iPhones

Take a look at iPhone SE's price before and after October 13th.

I wasn't aware of that, but I don't think the exception of their cheapest phone is particularly interesting or relevant.

The others dropped $100 as they usually do after an event–except they usually don't lose accessories as well.

>but it may have been to combat rising prices elsewhere.

1. Qualcomm Modem is at least $8 more expensive than Intel according to last court filling. And generally inline with industry expectation of its BOM Cost. Those numbers were for 4G Modem. And I would expect 5G Modem to be even more expensive.

2. mmWave isn't Free. I am very surprised Apple put mmWave inside iPhone 12 as well.

The problem with Multi Port Charger is that it is very Un-Apple. What happens when you charge a MacBook and iPad Pro at the same time? You now either expect customers to add up their Wattage to see if your chargers fits or design a multiple port charger to include this scenario, and if you include Apple's normal accessories margin that Charger is going to be insanely expensive.

So it is better to leave it to third party to do it. Apple will just recommend you to use their own charger.

>Do you have access to the BOM? Sure it was likely a cost-savings measure, but it may have been to combat rising prices elsewhere. It's a two-sided equation and we can't see the whole thing.

Unless the cost of a powerbrick went up by $50-60, there are savings that Apple is not passing onto the consumer.

So you're saying the cost of the iPhone 11 and 12 is the same? Also, why does it matter? These devices were never sold anywhere near their real cost and people still bought them, and still will.

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