Apple Lightning was better than micro USB, but surely not better than USB-C (a standard which apple itself helped promulgate). The king is dead. Long live the king.
For data transfer speeds (assuming you picked the right cable), yes. For everything else, no. IMO, Lighting is the better physical connector. The device side connector tends to be what fails with USB-C, Lighting tends to have the cable fail which is what you want in a failure. USB-C cable capability is a mess, though at least we're past USB-C cables frying devices.
As far as ubiquity is concerned, depending on location, Lighting can sometimes be easier to find than USB-C. They are least equal in the US.
micro-USB would likely not have improved much without some kind of competition. a big part of why USB-C is reversible was because Apple (and others) made reversible connectors and people showed a lot of preference for that.
USB-Cs limitations (that I am already aware of) are: that it consumes a lot of internal space on devices (which we’re feeling less and less as our phones get bigger: but our watches are relegated to wireless charging with no data pins for example), that it's not clear what cable/device can do what (something original USB tried to address with "host" and "client" connector classes) and that it handles comparatively fewer insertion/removal cycles (than lightning, at least).
Regardless: I’m not sure that I am ever happy saying something is “good enough” in perpetuity, even if I cant see all the potential shortcomings of device requirements right now.
You are absolutely right though, the switching cost is high: and monopoly makes it higher.
(FWIW I agree with the EU on this decision, I remember phones before the common charger mandate and that was a nightmare)
USB-C won't be reasonably "good enough" until all I need to reasonably use USB-C devices with USB-C computers is USB-C cables.
Suppose I have a computer with a USB-C port, and half a dozen USB-C peripherals that I want to connect at the same time.
Before USB-C it was simple when I had way more devices than ports. I'd buy an inexpensive USB hub. The hub connected to a computer's type A port using the same kind of cable that my peripherals used to connect to the computer's A port. The hub had several type A ports that could then by used for my peripherals, using that same kind of cable.
If the peripherals needed more total power than my computer's type A port could provide, I could buy an inexpensive powered hub.
Now, with USB-C, the inexpensive USB-C hubs connect to the computer with a C to C cable but usually only have one (or zero) fully functional USB-C ports for peripherals. The rest are type A ports.
To actually get a hub that adds multiple fully functional USB-C ports to a computer it seems the right now you have to buy an expensive Thunderbolt 3 or 4 hub.
The best I've seen for inexpensive USB-C port expansion is this [1] or this [2]. The first provides 4 downstream USB-C ports, but they are data only, with no power or video support. The second is the same as the first except it also provides a fifth USB-C port that appears to be a power input only you can use with a USB charger to provide power to allow the hub to power or charge your computer.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Minisopuru-Ports-USB-Hub-Chromebook/d...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Minisopuru-Ports-USB-Hub-Chromebook/d...
- Reversible: Useless gimmick that nobody asked for
- DisplayPort alt mode: Useful in theory, but no phones support it in practice
- Symmetric: Host-side USB-C never ended up being mainstream anyway (and AB ports already existed anyway)
- USB3: micro-B already had the "3.0 appendage", if anything turning it internal made it easier for manufacturers to silently revert to USB2
- Power Delivery: Qualcomm QuickCharge already existed and could have been standardized without a new connector
- DisplayPort alt mode: Every laptop uses this. It's what lets us have docks with display outputs.
- Symmetric: Every laptop has host-side USB-C.
- USB3: The micro-B "3.0 appendage" is ridiculous and huge, and no device which uses micro-B ended up supporting it in practice (except for I believe a couple Samsung phones?)
- Power delivery: Qualcomm QuickCharge is proprietary garbage. It could have been standardized yes, but is there any reason to believe Qualcomm would have wanted that?
- And it turns out it's incredibly useful to have both Power Delivery and DisplayPort and data transfer in one cable. It allows the world we currently live in where you can have one dock connected via one cable which handles video, power, USB, networking, audio, etc. (And yes, docks are generally too finicky, there's a lot to complain about in terms of implementation. But the idea is solid.)
Nearly every external portable HDD I've seen has these (and comes with a corresponding short USB 3.0 micro-B to A cable).
Apple using it as an excuse has nothing to do with it being a problem in the real world.
> it breaks way too easily and seems to take very few connection cycles before it stops making a good connection.
Never even heard of this actually happening in practice at the time. How hard were you pushing them in?!
> - Symmetric: Every laptop has host-side USB-C.
A few laptops have it. No peripherals (outside of those docks) actually use it because the hubs barely exist and very few have more than one.
> The micro-B "3.0 appendage" is ridiculous and huge
So? It's still tiny compared to the cable itself, this isn't a real problem.
> and no device which uses micro-B ended up supporting it in practice (except for I believe a couple Samsung phones?)
Those devices don't supposed 3 over USB-C either. If anything, USB 3 support in peripherals has declined the last few years.
> - Power delivery: Qualcomm QuickCharge is proprietary garbage. It could have been standardized yes, but is there any reason to believe Qualcomm would have wanted that?
QCQC over USB-C was a thing too, for a while. I guess we'll just have to wait for USB-D for fast charging!
Huh? USB-C cables already support mandatory 60 watts, optional 240 watts.
Still it doesn't prevent devices from having multiple ports. Newer tech will be picked up first by bigger devices like laptops that will be able to do USB-C and a new port at the same time. Or maybe a phone with two charging ports, the same way the ASUS ROG phone does.
Of course it should be visually different. Like cable with two contacts on each side so you would understand that this cable is not going to provide full speed, but still will work and charge.
It seems inevitable that phones and most tables will move to all wireless eventually. The only thing holding it back is faster charging. The EU standard doesn't prevent Apple from moving to a wireless charging method as I've understood. The regulation only covers the case where you have cable for charging.
So yes, since the new standard will likely be wireless, or semi-wireless (like MagSafe), Apple can probably move to it.
My pet theory for why Apple hasn't moved to USB-C already is they didn't want to send the signal that USB-C is getting long term support on phones from them. Sticking to Lightning forces makers of peripherals to use Bluetooth or WiFi if they want a solution that works for all phones and is future-proof, and I think that's exactly what Apple wants. The problem is the transition has been delayed much longer than they hoped for, since wireless charging technology hasn't developed as fast as they hoped (see the last-minute cancellation of the AirPower charging mat for a dramatic example of their miscalculation there)
In general, the USB-C receptacle seems better designed for longevity.
I swear every other comment on C vs Lightning has a completely different view on which is more robust than the previous
... which is pretty easy to achieve when trying to clean out a socket from pocket lint. It's better than micro and mini USB, yes, but a Lightning-style inversion would have been way more durable.
In any connector of this sort, there are two pieces: the plug on the cable and the receptacle on the phone. Lightning has a very visually appealing and physically durable plug, and that’s the part that you see. But this hides several aspects of the connector that make a poor functionality tradeoff.
On a USB micro B or USB-C cable, the plug is retained in the socket by little spring-loaded clips on the plug. On micro, they’re on the outside and very obvious, and they stop working well if the plug gets a bit bent. On USB-C, they’re in the concealed portion of the plug. In both cases, they are components that can wear out, and, when they do, you replace the cable and you’re in good shape. These spring-loaded clips mate with fixed notches in the receptacle, and those notches are much longer lasting.
Lightning does this the other way around. The plug has notches, and the springs are concealed in the socket. If the springs wear out, replacing the cable doesn’t help.
Similarly, the electrical contacts are springy in the socket. They are very easy to damage with careless cleaning.
Lightning has an additional defect involving arcing. If you look at a charging cable that’s been use for a while, you’ll see that one electrical pad on each side of the plug will be burnt. Presumably this is where the connection arcs every time it’s unplugged. I’m not sure how USB mitigates this, but it seems to be less of a problem. Maybe the contacts are simply thicker and more durable.
Sure, USB-C receptacles gave a tongue, and it’s a weak point, but it’s much stronger than the 10 fragile moving parts inside a lightning receptacle.
My guess is that it's probably just the good old "different length pins" trick. A quick web search shows me that the VBUS and GND pads (which carry the power) on the socket are longer, so the rest of the contacts unplug first. And unplugging the CC contact means that the pull-down resistor on it disappears, which tells the source to stop sending power to the VBUS contacts before they start to unplug.