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Comment by tediousdemise | Hacker News Reader

It's kind of sad to me that Apple doesn't make Lightning an open standard.

In all my years, I haven't had a single Lightning connector fail on me. The solid metal where the contacts reside is just too robust to wear out or get damaged (unless you somehow step on it the right way or let it corrode).

USB-C connectors, on the other hand, seems to loosen after a rather small number mates and de-mates, leading people to use preemptive workarounds such as magnetic connectors.

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I connect disconnect the same USB-C connector minimum 8 times a day for 4 years now. I have yet to have any issue with it. USB micro B connectors that got the same treatment repeatedly failed.

The USB C jacks I have seen on PCBs so far seem all to look pretty solid to me, although I am convinced you can also get cheap ones that will just happily fail if you just tried. Getting cheap Lightning connectors will be a lot harder, for obvious reasons.

So if we do the comparison between Apple and something else, let's not fall into the old trap of comparing an 1000€ ios device to an 100€ android device and declaring android to be unusable.

> In all my years, I haven't had a single Lightning connector fail on me. The solid metal where the contacts reside is just too robust to wear out or get damaged (unless you somehow step on it the right way or let it corrode).

I'm on my second phone where the Lightning connector barely works anymore. 'Thankfully' this one support Qi so I can charge wireless, but if I want to do a wired backup or upgrade I have to jiggle the cable like mad to get any kind of connection.

YMMV.

I just had a Lighting port fail on me (partial thankfully - there's one single cable in my house that still works to charge the thing) - but it's a 2014 device, a good 7-8 years old.

I've had a Lightning port fail on my original SE last year. Replaced it with the part taken from a donor SE. That was a bit scarier job than replacing the battery, but still doable.

If you haven't, you might want to try carefully "cleaning out" the lightning port with a toothpick or other small tool. I've seen multiple iPhones collect enough lint and dust in the lightning port over the years to make the connection still work sometimes but be unreliable until you clean it out

https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-clean-iphone-chargin...

No, the tooth with the power loses its gold or silver. It’s not dirty, it’s an electrical exchange of atoms. A design problem.

Try cleaning the connector, when my lighting connectors started to fail, it was always caused by a ton of dust that I removed with a needle.

Please use something wooden or plastic. A non-metal toothpick is perfect.

I've successfully cleaned multiple USB-C ports using a toothpick.

I’ve had two iPhones serviced (replaced) due to lightning port failure. I also had few cables replaced due to them getting the surface on the contact pins literally burned by the micro-fires caused by the high-current and the fibre residue of the fabric.

So, yours is just as anecdotal as mine. Would actually have to see some numbers comparing Lightning vs USB-C failure rate (on some premium Android smartphones), which we are unlikely to.

The cables though… they used to be a joke. I’ve wrapped mine with electrical tape near ends so they last longer.

Definitely, those Apple-supplied cables suck hard. Adding little tension relief springs[0] to the ends can protect them if you don't want to buy another (or more robust) cable and create more e-waste. You can find the springs in clicky pens.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCIo8xGTUX0

The Apple supplied cables seem to be quite environmentally friendly already since they literally rot at the ends. Not only lightning but also the MagSafe ones. The Lightning connector itself mechanically is the best connector I've ever encountered, though. Pure satisfaction when plugging it in, even after 5 years or so

I think at some point they changed the material.

I had never had a single cord fray on me except every single Apple supplied white cord for years, until suddenly I no longer had that problem. Don't know what changed but glad it did

Interesting. The only lighting cable that has failed me so far is the usbC to lightning cable that came with my 13 Pro. All other cables are still in use. Including some cheap ones that get abused being jostled in my backpack.

I assume that the reason for not making Lightning an open standard is that the thing on the technical level is really tightly coupled to iOS. On electrical level it is mostly an “two-lane” HS USB. USB-Lightning cable is basically wires, but other kinds of Lightning peripherals use weird protocols that are highly XNU/Darwin/iOS specific, mostly because that was the simpler implementation (looking at how things like AirPlay/CarPlay works show that Apple does not intentionally produce proprietary interfaces, but they use open standards as long as there are open standards and just invent the simplest thing when there is no applicable standard).

In the three years my spouse has had an Apple device, I've had two first-party cables fray and wear out at the connector, the lightning port get fouled up with lint and require cleaning, and I think three third-party cables stop working at all with no obvious damage.

In the same time, I've only had two usb-c cables fail on me, both third-party.

I did have three other usb-c cables destroyed by careless children breaking the usb-a side off at the charger (all three plugged into a knee-height automotive charger in the back seat area), but that's less of a failure of the cable and more a testament to that plucky Anker auto charger that's still going fine.

I think it’s more of a quality thing. Apple makes great usb c cables as well which seem to last forever. While the cheap eBay crap wears out quickly.

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