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Comment by strictnein | Hacker News Reader

If Apple actually cared about the environment they would make a charging cable that wasn't so flimsy and would completely ditch Lightning so people could use more devices with the same cable. But both of those options would cut down on their profits, so instead we get this pseudo-environmentalism that could very well increase the overall environmental impact of these devices.

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Would ditching lightning really make finding a compatible cable easier. Which alternate cable should they have used? Mini-USB, Micro-USB A, Micro-USB B, USB Mini-b 4pin, USB Mini-b 5pin, UsB 3.0 Micro-B, Micro-USB AB, goodness knows what else.

Lightning was a revelation. Rotationally symmetrical, fast, auto-negotiating, compact. It set the benchmark for what a mobile charging cable should be like.

Oookay. Nevermind that all modern phones use usb-c, I guess?

And Apple may well move to USB-C, in fact they already are for some devices at the pro end.

As for 'standard' and easy availability, I'm pretty sure Lightning cables are more ubiquitous, and probably cheaper than USB-C still. There's certainly no shortage of them, I've got about half a dozen chargers and cables in the house right now. Nobody is pushing for Apple to adopt USB-C for my convenience, that's for sure.

I’m going to go ahead and say it. Usb-c is a disaster. The promise of a cable that is universal ended up being a cable that looks the same as every other but u have no idea if it’s the right cable. Maybe in the next 10 years it will be fixed but from my POV this has not been a success or the panacea it was made out to be. You can actually brick stuff using the wrong usb-c cable and you will have no clue until it’s too late.

Apple definitely doesn’t have a monopoly then.

Of course it would. Any phone shop would have both kinds but lots of places only sell USB. USB C should be a required standard.

For how long? How would you manage improvements?

Apple makes less than one half of one percent of their revenue from the entire MFi program, which includes all proprietary port licensing and cables - basically the entire lightning port ecosystem, including cables made by third parties. To them it's a trivial amount of money. Apple isn't concerned with making revenue from cables, this is a false meme that needs to die.

https://sneak.berlin/20190330/apple-is-not-trying-to-screw-y...

Apple's TTM revenue was $274B. So that's over $1B a year? I wouldn't throw away that kind of cash. Yes it's small as a percentage but it's still a very large number.

They are moving towards wireless charging which will solve that issue.

Wireless loses 1/3 of the energy. It requires 47% more energy, and even more when misaligned. https://debugger.medium.com/wireless-charging-is-a-disaster-...

The last time I had a wireless chargeable phone, the charger would get uncomfortably hot, which I assume degrades the battery as well.

I understand wireless charging for my toothbrush (charging port = less waterproof), but it's such a "solution searching for a problem" for phones. Plugging in a cable just isn't that hard.

I have an Anker wireless charging station, have not experienced any excessive heat. I have it on my desk so that I continuously charge my phone during the day, but am still able to pick it up all the time.

It’s pretty nice but I agree it’s a gimmick, not a necessary problem to solve.

> I understand wireless charging for my toothbrush (charging port = less waterproof), but it’s such a “solution searching for a problem” for phones.

The one awesome use case for phones is where the phone itself is a wireless charger, so you can do phone-to-phone charging when someone has a well charged phone and someone else has one about to die, without additional gear.

Isn't the volume of the wireless charger bigger than the wired one? It may solve the cable issue, but not the environment one.

Most devices charge with USB-B, not wirelessly. If they wanted to skip to USB-C, sure, that's fine. Including wireless would have been a good idea five years ago, when it started becoming popular. It's still popular today, but it's way too slow for modern phone battery capacities.

>Most devices charge with USB-B

Do you mean USB- A?

No. A is the host port. B is the side that connects to the device, with micro-B being the most common.

>micro-B being the most common.

I guess that is me sticking to Apple for long. I thought most Android devices has been on USB-C for 5 years?

It really depends on the price level of the phone. Non-flagship phones, like the Moto G9 and the Samsung A11, use micro-B and were released in 2019. USB-C is common in the $500+ market.

I guess, micro USB.

Apple's one does 15W which is plenty.

At 15W, that would mean charging your phone would take over two hours. That's way behind their competition, and twice the time of even their anemic 20W wall charger.

Even my friend's entry level $150 Xiaomi Note 7 comes with a 17W charger and supports up to 27W chargers.

Higher wattage degrades battery life, should only be used when needed.

Not a concern. His phone battery is cheap and easily replaceable.

He's been using it for a year and a half and battery is still fine. A bit over full day per charge according to him.

>make a charging cable that wasn't so flimsy

Agree, they looked at braided cable [1] which I hate as it is a dust magnet. And not doing something properly like Anker [2] which is a cable that refuse to break. ( As most cable should be )

>completely ditch Lightning so people could use more devices with the same cable

That I disagree, there are billions of lightning cable out there. Ditching them for USB-C doesn't fix anything.

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/07/23/leaker-shares-images-br...

[2] https://www.anker.com/products/variant/powerline-ii-3ft-ligh...

This doesn't add up. In a world with Lightning for iphones and USB C for everything else there's a smaller chance of having the correct cable than in a world with USB C for iphones and everything else. Enforce a standard and the problem goes away.

Just yesterday I had to connect my phone to a friend's USB connector in his car but couldn't because the only cable available were the freak that is one standard in one end and another in the other (IE. a standard iPhone cable with USB -> lightning).

Everyone in the iPhone ecosystem already has lightning cable. That is 1 billion iPhone user with at least one lightning cable if not more.

By enforcing a USB-C standard, you are throwing away one billion lightning cable. And as shown in your example, he has one. It works for him, it just happens not to work for non-Apple users. Which isn't a problem for Apple users. What is there to be gain for the current one billion iPhone user, 200M iPad user which are still on lightning ? I have room full of lightning cables and devices that use it, but zero USB-C devices.

Arguably switching to Wireless ( MagSafe ) made sense from a UX perspective. Although I question whether we can resolve the fundamental physics issues which is efficiency and heat.

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