Hacker News Reader

Comment by mtm7 | Hacker News Reader

It's going to be incredibly frustrating for the average person to buy an almost-$1000 device, use it until it runs out of battery, and realize that a charger is a completely separate purchase. Especially because the included cable is USB-C, so it won't work with most old power bricks.

I feel like Steve wouldn't've let this happen... the UX is just so, so bad. It feels incredibly profit-motivated.

View on HN

Are you serious? You think the average person a) doesn't know that you have to charge your phone and b) doesn't have like 50 of those stupid cubes and a bunch of cables sitting in a drawer somewhere?

Tech people's continued assumption that they're the only ones who aren't total troglodytes is ridiculous.

Most of thee existing Apple charging cubes are not USB-C. The cable included with the new phones is USB-C -> Lightning. So, the cable doesn't work with most existing chargers (unless you happen to also own an iPad Pro).

Yeah but the five other cables/chargers in their drawer do work.

Then why include the cable? Save a few more whales and leave it out as well.

If I were king... the phone would be sold “bare”, but for $30 less. If somebody needs a charger or cable, they can use that $30 to buy one. Instead, Apple remove the charger, includes a cable not compatible with most iPhone owner’s existing chargers, increased the price $30, and tell me it’s to save the planet? GTFO.

(Really, I’m not nearly as annoyed as I probably sound, I just hate the inconsistency)

This is true and super annoying that they're doing it this way. However, it's not just iPad Pros that have compatible chargers. Anyone with a MacBook from the last several years (four?) can charge either via the computer or the wall plug (if they want to charge faster). Some people also have inductive chargers that they use, though this is probably a minority.

I won't be getting one of these phones, and I think the VZW/AT&T giveaway is garbage. But I don't mind not having another power brick for my next phone. I already have plenty of lightning cables sitting around and ways to plug them in.

The phone will still charge perfectly well with any lightning cable.

Right. I have a pile of existing charges and cables, no problem.

The new free included cable will let me charge my new phone* from my MacBook, something I currently cannot do!

* I don't actually plan to buy a new phone, but hypothetically.

Just based on MacBook vs. iPhone sales numbers, Apple sells 40 iPhones for every laptop. Most iPhone owners don't have an Apple laptop.

Numbers from 2018: 217M iPhones, 5M laptops:

https://www.statista.com/topics/847/apple/

Most people hold onto their laptops for longer than they go between phone upgrades. And many (most? all?) laptop manufactures have USB-C ports on their devices these days, all of which can be used to charge your phone.

I'm saying that they're expecting their phone to come with a charger.

Actually I’m annoyed now when a device comes with a charger. To the point where I say out loud, to myself, “oh for fu...”.

Nobody needs any more chargers, and if you do, they’re a fiver. It’s a preposterous waste that needs to stop.

(Totally separate from the issue of whether Apple is making money on this, which they undoubtedly are.)

The main thing that seems a bit odd to me is that they're including a cable but not the charger. Now, to be sure, there's an argument that they're providing something that goes between a proprietary connector and an industry-standard one (that Apple will increasingly use over time). But that industry-standard is still relatively new and therefore it's the "wrong" cable for a lot of people.

I agree it's a little strange, but the included cable is also the one most people won't have, and the forward-looking option. I would guess the vast majority of iPhone users have many USB A -> lightning cables, but few or no USB C -> lightning. The new cable fills a gap, in other words.

There's also the whole issue of universality of USB-C chargers and the like. Do you ship a big 100W charger with an iPhone? This issue has existed previously with USB but it seems trickier at the moment. Maybe better to punt from the perspective of Apple. And at least "we're providing a charging cable from an increasingly common standard plug."

(And yeah, if I bought this phone, I'd have a couple USB-C chargers but no cable though would probably use USB-A/wireless charging anyway.)

I don't think the USB-C charger thing is a big issue, Apple already has several different sizes of USB-C charger. I have an iPad pro, 13" MBP and work-issued 15" MBP, and all have different sized USB C chargers. You can charge them with any of the above, but the smaller chargers can't keep up with the more demanding devices. This was already the case with the iPad vs iPhone charger, and the older magsafe chargers as well that came in different sizes.

Cables wear out. Chargers not so much.

On the other hand, each of the phones I and the people around me have have different standard for fast charging. So even if I wanted to share the charger with someone or use one that I current own, I'd be losing on that benefit

The average person who buys a $1,000 phone in 2020 and has no USB charger at home or charging brick from a previous iPhone or laptop or computer or anything to plug in the cable. Sure.

There's probably someone like that, and they can buy a charging brick. The rest of us can do without the 300,000 tons[1] of e-waste per year these amount to.

[1] https://goodelectronics.org/iphone-charger/

Or they just use the USB2 cable from their previous iPhone.

Phones do not ship charged, and I’m sure that the need for a charger will be prominently advertised both online and in store.

What kind of magical creature grabs the phone from the package, charges it, repackages it and puts it in the shelf for me to buy?

I've bought exactly 0 phones with 0% battery EVER, and I got my first phone in -97.

Interesting, my experience has been different, though I haven’t actually checked this in several years (I just always charge electronics first).

It seems like electronics used to ship uncharged because partially charging NiCad batteries harms them, and shipping fully charged batteries is dangerous. Nowadays, Lithium batteries are typically charged at 30% capacity before shipping. Lithium batteries were sometimes sent uncharged for some period of time in between.

Source: https://mobileaccessories.ventev.com/learn/do-i-need-to-char...

I’ve never had an iPhone shipped uncharged.

It's not bad that it's profit-motivated, it's bad because it is short-sighted, greedy and consumer-hostile.

This is the type of thing that is done because (many) someone's bonus is tied to some profit margin kpi, and they figured out the cheapest, most direct way to do it, customer be damned.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com