What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C on their phones?
I can think of 3 reasons:
1. A lightning port is slightly smaller than USB-c, so it enable Apple to keep their phone slimmer than the competition in theory.
2. Apple loves to be in control of everything. With lightning, they could make a switch to a "lightning 2.O" cable / port whenever they so pleased. With USB-C they would be restricted by the USB-IF.
3. They can sell more cable and licensing fees this way. With USB-C, everyone will be able to buy a better and cheaper cable than the Apple ones, and Apple won't receive even a cent from them.
So I suggest
4. They think lightning may become a real standard, everyone will adopt it, with licensing fees.
Reason 1 I can kind of understand (if valid).
I personally really wish for a flag ship phone like the Galaxy S21 Ultra that doesn't have such a huge camera array.
Only non-minor damage I’ve suffered is I broke the volume down button (the spring behind it, really) on my Xs Max. Minor scratches I don’t care about. I’m pretty amazed at how durable the phones actually are and, if I break one now, it’s probably an $85 screen and an hour of my time or worst case a $400-600 replacement phone.
Yeah I'd much prefer a phone that's what, 1mm thicker? Maybe 2 at a push
Apple will still find a way to do what they want, especially given they play a non-trivial role in the USB-IF and provided significant resources towards developing USB-C in the first place.
I would like USB-C on my iPhone, but I think the biggest reason why Apple hasn't done it is just because of momentum, and that it _is_ a switch from the current situation.
In theory sure but in practice there are thinner Android phones with USB-C connectors than any iPhone. Basically these days the thickness is purely about how good camera you want and how much battery. The usb/lightning plug is not really an issue.
For the record the thinnest iPhone is iPhone 5 at 7.6 mm and thinnest Android is Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite at 6.8mm
Also from a purely user experience point of view making the phones thinner then they mostly are now does not add anything instead just makes the experience worse as the phone will feel worse when hold (if the other dimensions and weight stay the same)
This always struck me as a solution looking for a problem. Are modern phones really that chunky that we have to sacrifice functionality to shave a few fractions of a mm?
That shouldn't be at all tiring unless you are holding them for literal hours nonstop, or unless you're a small child - and in both scenarios it's good to be encouraged to put the phone down after a while.
The argument that its a physically smaller port feels like an "Apple circa-2016" argument, not an "Apple circa-2021" argument. They just made the iPhone 13 0.25mm thicker to fit a bigger battery (among other things); I think they've moved past the "thinner at any cost" argument (though I do believe that was an argument for lightning at one time).
"Control" is a tenuous given they've thrown USBC/Thunderbolt on everything except the iPhone. They already have a massive voice inside the USB-IF; switching the iPhone to USBC would only increase their strength among the USB community. And sure, they'd still have to be standards compliant, but I really don't think "lightning 2.0" is ever coming, period. I think they have the hard metrics to prove that 0.1% of iPhone users ever use that port for anything except charging.
And selling more cables is also tenuous. They'll sell USB-C cables anyway; I just paid them $30 or whatever for one for my laptop charger, because the two offbrand ones Best Buy sold me couldn't carry 85 watts.
The best argument I've ever heard for lightning is actually: Physically, its a MUCH sturdier connector. Just look at the inside of a USBC female port, versus lightning. There's just less stuff; USBC has a big tooth that sticks out, whereas lightning is just contacts along the outside. Lightning connectors, and cables, are much simpler, and thus less likely to experience damage over time.
So, yeah; I think they want to skip USBC and go right to Qi, basically seal up the entire outside of the phone. And I can't say I disagree; my iPhone only ever charges over Qi. But, maybe its worthwhile to just make them keep USBC around, if for no other reason than e-waste.
You also don't need a 30$ cable for 90W, any cable that is rated for 5 amps will do the job.
I think this was a typo and you meant to say “cable connector (plug), not device connector (socket)”.
It’s a good design and specifically designed to avoid a USB mini A design botch in which the device side would wear out before the cable side did.
FWIW Apple is a USB member and participated in the USB-C design, including learning from lightning (which was comtemporaneously secretly under way). This is like Intel and IEEE-754
The lightning cable is not required for the MFi program, you can certify lots of things for MFi. Not sure why they couldn't expand the program to USB-C cables. They might do it already, honestly.
>https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/80.22
>(f) Every retailer and wholesale purchaser-consumer shall equip all gasoline pumps from which gasoline is dispensed into motor vehicles with a nozzle spout that meets all the following specifications:
>(1) The outside diameter of the terminal end shall not be greater than 0.840 inches (2.134 centimeters).
>(2) The terminal end shall have a straight section of at least 2.5 inches (6.34 centimeters).
>(3) The retaining spring shall terminate at least 3.0 inches (7.6 centimeters) from the terminal end.
If these regulations weren't present, Ford could have it's own gas stations and gasoline that were incompatible with GM's and so on.
To me, this smells like internal turf protection or politics.
That's because of EU regulation. All the big manufacturers had their own connector before that, micro-USB started to look like a common connector among the low end manufacturers.
This is the next step for that regulation and has been in the cards for some time.
I am interested in that (because the "secret history" of many market driven change often ends up being a regulator in one influential area made a good decision - the usual example being California and car pollution standards)
Edit: just to say I am not commenting either way on the EU here, or on regulators in general. I am just interested if there was a clear point in USB standards process that EU intervention made a difference.
If so it would be useful to know their track record in this when judging this situation.
Before the charger regulations the biggest world wide impact of EU regulations was RoHS. That’s when the EU really started to come into its own as a global player. Did you realize all those old cables you still have lying around have lead in them to make them flexible?
Worse yet, "before micro-USB", chargers universally had a captive cable. Situation that GP describes - same charger, 3 cables - is already an improvement on that.
>That's because of EU regulation.
Patently untrue: the Micro USB has won over proprietary connectors before the EU regulation, thanks to being cheaper than ever-changing charging & data cables that used to be the norm. That in turn was possible through large volume, and also through well designed standard; it was the third iteration of the plug - after original full sized A/B, and after the somewhat underwhelming Mini USB.
In particular the Micro USB was specced for quite good reliability - including 10,000 plug-unplug cycles, which is quite high for consumer grade hardware, and that was made possible thanks to the sheer experience amassed over years by the USB consortium. Not by regulator's fiat.
That currently USB-C is ruling the market is again thanks to USB consortium's active push, together with large volume of all sorts of devices using it.
Personally I like my lighting cables and I do hope there'll be a grandfather clause but Apples behaviour(logical for them) has put us in an uncomfortable seat tbh.
This isn't the first time the EU mentioned those plans, the current situation is basically the phone manufacturers regulating themselves to avoid an explicit regulation by the EU.
> it's Apple and their cable.
Of course there is always that one greedy asshole ruining it for everyone else.
> What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C on their phones?
They probably considered Lightning to be superior but couldn't make it the industry standard without loosing their ability to charge absurd amounts of licensing fees for it.
I don't think it's this. Lightning was superior to micro-USB, but it's certainly not superior to USB-C.
I think the problem is that everyone remembers the transition from the 30 pin dock connector to Lightning. Apple has a huge reputation for just changing their cables all the time.
This is largely unwarranted. For the portable devices they had 30-pin for ~10 years, then lightning for ~10 years, and it looks like it's on its way out soon. I think 10 years is a fairly reasonable time to keep ecosystems the same. People don't have 10 year old cables and chargers around.
This reputation is pervasive though. I think they're holding off until they can drop the cable entirely in 1-2 years.
Yes they do, why wouldn't they? I have mini/micro USB chargers and cables that are older, same for USB A/B cables, same for network cables.
Only cables that get tossed are Apple lightning cables because they are crap quality and fray within 2-3 years, and other non-standard crap (pre-2010 proprietary phone/camera chargers like 30-pin and the like)
Just looking in my cable drawer I have USB types A, B, mini-A, mini-B, micro-A, micro-B, and C. I also have lightening and apple dock from the original iPhone. I have some weird Chinese cable that looks like USB micro-A and micro-B but doesn't fit either. There are a few barrel connectors from my old Nokia phones. A couple of my wife's old Samsung phone cables. This is just from the stuff I've owned.
And the idea of a common, readily available for most people, port is exactly what this legislation is about. It should apply to charging cables for phones too.
Apple's timing with the lighting port wasn't great, with it arriving just before USB-C, and I imagine they're very reluctant to change the port on their phones because people already have lightning cables everywhere.
Personally I would love to see USB-C on my iPhone, but I look at my parents, and having the port change for them would be a pain in the arse. All their cables are lightning cables, they don't have any USB-C devices, and ofcourse, all of their cables are the ones that came in the box. I suspect a significant portion of Apple's customers fall into that category.
What is the efficiency of wireless charging?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging
Of course problems like heating up the battery and the huge amount of power needed if everyone does it remain.
But thats not point here. Everyone is talking about the climate change and then we want to charge millions or billions of phones with ~50% extra power?
Good idea!
Symbols can hold power though.
14.26 Wh * 900000000 * 365 (days) = 4684 GWh/yr
46% = 2154 GWh/yr wasted energy
That's about the total energy output of Madagascar with a population of 27 million people.
There's a lot of reasons why the above numbers are wrong but I just wanted to highlight that at current efficiency, there would be a lot of wasted energy. :)
I would be more concerned about charging speed and heating.
Inefficiency implies heating :)
And wow, do I love charging my phone using my laptops USB-C charger.. it's just so fast!
I don't really see the appeal of wireless charging. Faster direct charging would be a bigger win, IMO.
For example, Samsung S21 uses a 4000mAh battery. iPhone 12 Pro uses a 2700mAh battery.
At 75% efficiency, it's effectively like charging a 3600mAh battery.
Both likely get a full charge every day. So, even with less efficient charging, you come out ahead vs. a Samsung device.
That's also assuming efficiency of the actual charging bricks is similar. Apple tends to be known for high quality and efficient charger bricks, so it wouldn't surprise me if that has an impact.
I know a few folks that moved to exclusively wireless charging because they broke the USB port on their phones over the years.
But it will give them some years.
If Apple, for example placed both a USB-C and lightning port on future phones, but the charge speed of the USB was crippled, I’d argue that they wouldn’t be compliant with the EU regulation.
Existing customers, yes. Apple are probably trying to grow their market share though, which means they also need to consider those people who have usb cables too.
But it is Apple, who knows what they are going to do to avoid regulation.
That doesn’t sound right either.
Should a government be able to dictate the feature set of a class of devices?
Which is even more of a waste given the inefficiency of wireless charging and the kWh cost of electricity in an ICE.
Apple was on the USB-design committee (and lightning experience informed the design) and knew all the timing. The standard wasn’t even finalized for quite some time after Apple started shipping lightning.
Lightning has now been around longer than the 30-pin connector, I really don’t understand Apple’s reluctance. I go of my way to by Type C devices for simplicity’s sake, though still have to travel with micro-A, Type C, lightning, and a special watch charger, grr. At least I have only one type of power brick.
The male lightning connector is a single flat piece; the female connector is a hole with the contacts on the top + bottom of the port.
Compare to USB-C, which has an exposed "tab" in the middle of the female connector, and the male connector has a matching "hole" in the middle.
This makes USB-C more vulnerable to e.g. dust collecting, and damage of the exposed tab. Unlike lightning, which can collect dust in the female port, but it's easily cleaned out using a paperclip or SIM card removal tool.
In general it's easy to see also that the lightning connector itself is far more exposed to the environment than any of the USB connectors which are largely enclosed.
“Billions” sounds like a HN bubble statement.
I don't own a single lightning device, but everything (minus older devices) has usb-c. Even rechargeable battery inside a flashlight.
One of the big reasons for me getting the OP2 was the port and I'm still using it (with LineageOS). I'm sure I would have upgraded long ago if it didn't have a USB-C port as that's what I've standardised on for all my portable electronics.
Majority of electronic devices are older than usb-c standard, even the electric screwdriver I bought two months ago was micro-usb, as is the shaver I used this morning. At work about half the low power devices are PoE or Micro-USB.
Aside from a few laptops USB-C is still rare.
https://epsnews.com/2017/12/28/usb-type-c-adoption-keeps-gro...
Looks like phones alone account for ~3B in a single year, so no, it's not just laptops. Even if you exclude those, the "consumer electronics" segment looks like it'll go over 1B/year pretty soon. Get out of your bubble.
https://www.marketresearchblog.org/2021/09/22/usb-type-c-mar...
That seems to show that the US is a plurality, but not a majority, of USB-C shipments.
>What's Apple reasoning for not abandoning Lightning for USB-C on their phones?
I would think that "what connector is better" definitely plays an important part in Apple's reasoning.
A trouble with lightning is the dust etc. gets stuck in the phone socket - I've had to replace two at like £50 a go. Getting a new cable is often easier.
Which means that the part which wears over time (the springs) is on the port instead of the cable.
On USB-C, the springs are all in the cable; the port is a single flat piece (the tab in the middle) surrounded by a metallic shield.
Additionally, Lightning plug connectors have a higher tendency to corrode. This is, I believe because the exposed mating surface on the plug end easily gathers debris (in particular e.g. oils and grease), and that can cause poor contact which can result in oxidation due to heating and electrolytic effects. USB-C does not have this problem, as none of the mating surfaces are exposed to being touched. The debris that tends to collect inside USB-C ports is usually solid fluff, not liquids.
And Lightning is just a terrible standard anyway. iPhones to this day use compressed video over USB2 for their "HDMI" output dongles (which actually have an Ax class CPU in them just to decode the video) because Apple were too short-sighted in their design to allow for enough expandability to support uncompressed digital video properly.
Furthermore, usb-c is younger than lightning. And lightning was arguably superior to previous usbs (more durable).
So while unification sounds nice, net gain would be actually close to nothing, it would be a change for the sake of change, and would probably annoy as much people as it would please.
I'm sure that's the same argument every phone manufacture made before the EU legislated it and Apple found their loophole.
An adapter to fit on the end of the lightening could alleviate that problem until people have switched.
go look for phone charger waste and why it is important to stop having 4685486468478 different type of chargers, people are very selfish in this thread
Bottom line? My prediction is next year's iPhone is going to have USB-C.
The people also talk about huge profits apple is making on charging cables, which just doesn't make sense if you take even a cursory glance at the price of lightning cables on Amazon. I saw numerous multi packs of cables selling for ~$2.25 for a 6ft+ cables. Apple has already signaled the direction they are going with charging standards, and it's USB-C. They are just waiting for the supported lifetime of the lightning cable to be over.
There are currently more than 1 Billion active iPhone worldwide, even at one lightning cable per iPhone that equates to 1 billion lightning cable in use. And you have iPad and other accessories. I would not be surprise if there are more than 2 Billion Lightning cable currently in use.
Seems wasteful to abandon 2 billion cables? Although I suppose Apple could stop shipping cables as well. And only include a Lightning to USB-C adopter.
Not to mention lightning is a better design and higher quality cable than USB-C. Apple could mandate MFi for iPhone USB-C charging as well, but that sort of defeat the purpose of USB-C?
Or even better if EU could mandate USB-C quality and standards. Say not to crappy USB-C cables. Which would be even better than forcing USB-C on devices.
I don't know about other technical aspects but I really like the fact that Lightning male is just a solid block. It's definitely more durable than type-C
The original iPod (remember those?) 30-pint connector was around for eleven years, 2003-2014:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dock_connector#Mobile_devices
Lightning has been around for "only" nine as of 2021, having ben released in 2012:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_(connector)
An article from 2012:
> As for Lightning's expected lifespan, the format is estimated to be in use for the next five to ten years, almost identical to the now-defunct 30-pin standard.
* https://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/21/analyst_lightning...
Yes, it's nice that we finally have a supposedly universal plug, but we only recently got here. It may be that they simply don't think it's worth it yet to 'force' people to switch infrastructure yet. That the USB-C ecosystem is universal enough (though I'm sure them switching would push it forward).
https://mg.lol/blog/badusb-cables/
But perhaps that is the intention: the government can just switch out your USB charger and then has access to everything that isn't covered by Apple cloud yet.
The benefits don't outweigh the inconveniences of switching. There's a mature ecosystem around Lightning for third party accessories. And at 50% market share, their cables are pretty ubiquitous. [0]
And they added Lightning charging to other products they ship (Apple Pencil, Mouse, Keyboard, Remote...).
Right now, I don't think USB-C, especially with the smart cables that might or might not support every features, is an improvement over Lightning.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held...
This is a little unfair, when Apple has been more consistent in keeping the same ports and cables, and moved to generic USB-chargers long before it was standard for anyone else?
USB-C wasn't even finalised until 2014; I can't remember how common USB-C was on phones before that, but Apple was using lightning for _years_ before that.
What's the e-Waste consequence of changing and forcing everyone to buy new chargers, adapters, cables when they next buy a new device? Suddenly all the cables and chargers you've been using for ten years are useless.
Everyone else was using micro USB for years before usb-C. So for years, every phone cable except Apple could also be used to charge your headphones, Kindle, Tablet, etc. It isn’t just phones we are talking about. When pretty much all devices are on one standard, and Apple refuses, that is where the e waste comes from. All my micro usb cables are still useful for random older products around the house. All my USB C cables are useful for random newer products around the house. My lightning cable is useful for exactly one item around my house ever at any given time. I have zero other uses for it. People don’t need to go out and buy new chargers and cables because they already have them for their other devices. That’s the whole point of interoperability.
There were multiple other connectors in use (the 4 most common were Mini-USB A, Mini-USB B, Micro-USB A and Micro-USB B but that's not exclusive) — I still have a few of them because that “every phone cable” nirvana was never true at any point prior to USB-C. microUSB's fragility also meant that most people ended up buying many cheap replacement cables so from an e-waste perspective I'd be hesitant to say that was an advantage over the lifetime of the device.
microUSB also had many limitations — not just the inconvenience of being handed and easily broken in normal usage but also core features like not being able to supply enough power: many non-Apple tablets used proprietary cables because otherwise it would have taken hours longer to charge.
USB C came out years after Apple shipped Lightning and unsurprisingly is a lot more competitive — it's not like the industry didn't learn from the problems with earlier USB standards and I think that it makes sense for Apple to switch now.
Actually stumbled on this right now and if I ever need another one, will give this a go.
https://www.amazon.com/ASICEN-Retractable-Lightning-Charging...
Submarine patents and the like can't appear on products you invented for yourself. Admittedly kinda far fetched in the case of USB-C. Then again look at historical madness like USB to RS232 adapter knock off chips and drivers written to brick knock off hardware.
Nobody wants the wild west experience of USB-C where nothing is reliable or trustworthy. The user experience is just likely to be better with lightning.
I mean, we use hundreds of different protocols over-the-air, so why can't we do the same with cables?
The only problem I see with this is that fiber optic cables are physically less robust (you can't bend them as much).
Pretty much, if you bend it too much, your connection will slow down temporarily till you straighten it again. That seems like a fine tradeoff.
Industrial fiber systems usually used fixed speed, so too much bending leads to a total failure of the connection - hence the strict bend limits on fibers.
The sockets would need some work for decent power transfer - it needs to do at least the 150 watts that USB-C can do, and preferably 150 kwatts for charging a car.
For 150 watts while maintaining backwards compatibility, all that's needed is larger contact area (curved spring clips) to support 3 amps and the use of 48 volts after negotiation.
For 150 kilowatts we'd be talking some cutting edge stuff, but not beyond the realms of possibility. Specifically, you'd probably need to use voltages up to 20,000 volts, 10 amps, which is going to mean you need to have mating and sealing rubber isolators on both plug and socket at least 3mm thick between poles. At these voltages, you cannot have air between the pins, so it must be a hermetic seal. You'd also need to measure leakage current and keep the cable capacitance low enough that when someone cuts through the cable with scissors the voltage can be dropped in microseconds to prevent zapping them.
But the business person tells me that even if I could do it and make it safe enough to use, there is zero chance any big company would license the tech.
You can also put whatever voltage that can be physically handled over the power pins after negotiating with the other side. USB-PD is the common standard but it can be extended.
Remember the outrage among "normal" users when the Dock Connector was replaced by Lightning? Everyone was upset they'd have to buy new cables - even though Lightning was vastly superior. Now, there's hardy a difference in the form factor. And make no mistake - normal people don't have USB-C chargers and cables lying around.
Profit.
What was the reason for abandoning FireWire?
People having a lot of legacy MFi stuff. Car docks and stereo systems in particular are expensive to replace.
The iPhone at this point is just a phone. I suspect most people own them because their good tools for everyday life. Based on an observation of my parents, their friends, and parents of my partner, I would say that most of them don't give a rat-arse about the port on the bottom. They just want the phone to work with the cables they already have. For many of these people an iPhone and iPad Air will be the only computers they own.
I appreciate that my point is a little undermined by the new iPad Air, but I suspect that iPhone will go to wireless only charging, something the iPad can't do, and Apple don't want to go through two transitions in less than 5 years.
Apple now ship more lightning cable in a single year than all the 30 Pin exist in the ecosystem combined. The scale is just different.
Now days of course, they’re all moving to wireless charging anyway.
It's the $25 lightning cable, which is literally engineered to break.
But I will say this - the lightening connector is a lot more reliable than my usb-c connector. It fits better. It falls out less. And it breaks less often - it’s not as bad as the old usb connector but it’s not as good as lightening.
This is a bad decision, because:
1. The European Commission doesn't have the time or resources to make consistently good decisions about phone design. It is a minor miracle that Apple managed to gather enough talented people together in one spot to give us the iPhone. The EU can't replicate that level of ability (observe the quite remarkable failure of EU phone manufacturers).
2. If (when, really) technology improves, progress will be slowed.
3. Heaven help us if we need a bureaucratic response to protect indifferent customers from nonuniform chargers. There are actual problems in the world they could be focusing on.