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Comment by samatman | Hacker News Reader

I'm indifferent.

On the one hand, yeah, USB-C works great, and everything else I own takes it. On the other hand, Lightning also works great, USB-C isn't an improvement on the merits, and iPhone users have a bunch of accessories for it. Like in my car, I have a 12v charger with one USB-A port and a built-in Lightning cable, and I'd have to either junk it or just ignore the built in cable if they went USB-C.

I'm pretty sure the writing is on the wall with MagSafe: Apple intends to ditch the port entirely. That makes me nervous, frankly, and there are people out there who use an SD card reader who would be furious.

But I think that future is more likely than one in which Apple ditches the Lightning port for USB-C. We'll see.

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My concern with them removing the port is what what would happen to everyone whose car's entertainment unit supports CarPlay but not wireless CarPlay?

I guess they either buy a new car or they buy a dongle they plug into their car as a wireless bridge (same as every change Apple makes ;P).

I’ve always seen it as a usb cable that you can swap out with any other usb cable.

Time to buy a new car ;)

It’s not like Apple’s software works forever in all cars. I have a 2013 BMW that doesn’t play nicely with my iPhone and I’m on iOS 10 still. It played nicely on previous versions but has gotten worse and worse as time has gone on.

Bradlys, Do you use a phone that cannot go higher than iOS10, or have you ingeniously managed to not update for all this time?

You must use iTunes to back up, via cable, right?

I had another phone that broke. So I went back to my iPhone 5S that still had iOS 10. I didn't want to update because I figured it would make the experience worse.

To be honest, I don't know if my significant other's phone (iPhone 11 Pro) can even connect to my car anymore through the cable. (Bluetooth being the only other option - which has significantly worse audio quality and issues like static or something of the sort)

Thanks!

Upgrading OS is the main source of frustration and time wasted in my pro-audio world. So I salute you - iOS10 survivor!

Note - listening to audio in cars, it's a compromise. It's never ideal, so I wouldn't sweat the quality - but you're right to question the reliability.

Use the good old, eco-friendly, headphone jack!

(All consumer wireless is ONLY instigated by Apple because it is cheaper for Apple, but consequently a poorer, less eco, experience for the world)

You get a little adapter like the ones they have for audio jacks. You can super glue it onto your existing cable if you have some sort of philosophical bias against dongles/adapters.

Does anyone other than BMW have wireless CarPlay?

I have an aftermarket Pioneer head unit with wireless CarPlay

I think new Fords do. We’re right at the tipping point.

You use the last phone that does have a port for a 2-3 years (get its battery replaced so it lasts longer), and eventually you get a new head unit that does support Wireless CarPlay.

I should have to replace the head unit in my car because Apple wanted to change the port on the phone?

I’d rather they stick with lightning.

If you don't have carplay, a new head unit is well worth the upgrade.

If you do, but want to switch to wireless carplay, there are adapters: https://cplay2air.com/products/cplaystreamer-wireless-adapte...

That said, I think Apple will offer both lightning and portless iPhones during the transition. They might make the "mini" phones be portless for example.

Maybe Apple or someone could release a wireless data adapter or dongle for wired CarPlay in the future to overcome this problem.

USB-C depending on implementation has enormously greater throughput (USB 3.1 gen 2 is 10Gbps) than lightning (480Mbps/60MBps). This might not be relevant for your needs, but increasingly Apple are marketing the iPhone as a 'pro' device, specifically for media creation. And it is finding a home in videography and event photography and streaming for example (I work in this area). Given this, the speed available through wifi and lightning are both enormous constraints on the usefulness of the phone professionally. So this is actually a really big issue for a segment of apples audience - perhaps a small segment, but specifically the segment whose imprimatur continues to lend apple devices their desirability.

The lightning port does support USB 3 speeds, the old iPad Pro (pre-USB C) models supported USB 3 over the lightning connector and Apple even released some adapters that took advantage of the speed: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MK0W2AM/A/lightning-to-us...

But for some reason Apple has never brought this support to the iPhone's lightning port.

Maybe their flash storage is too slow so people would notice? Right now it takes hours to back your phone.

Apple's flash storage is actually extremely fast. I could only find benchmarks of the iPhone 6s (a 5 year old phone!) but even back then it clocked 400 MB/s read speeds

The Controller, both in power consumption and size requires for those USB 3 Speed never quite fit into iPhone requirement. ( You can check out the size of USB 3 Speed lightning controller on that iPad, if my memory serves me correct it was 4x the size of similar controller for iPhone ) In 2020 this may no longer be the case, but then there is the BOM cost issue. Why pay more for this feature when you can do it wirelessly? WiFi 6, and in the future 802.11ay using mmWave provide 1Gbps to 10Gbps real world wireless transfer speed.

Lightning also doesn't support native video output, everything is crushed down into a h264 stream that's decoded by the HDMI dongle. The USB-C iPads can do native 4K output.

The most generous outcome I can see is Apple ditching ports on the iPhone and Mini, and moving the Pros to USB-C.

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