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Comment by cainxinth | Hacker News Reader

I was disappointed the article didn’t include details about the physical connector. Lighting’s performance specs might be outdated, but I’ve always liked it’s physical interface. It’s rugged, reliable, simple, and pops in with satisfying but subtle tactile feedback.

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>> It’s rugged, reliable

In my experience it works well for 2-3 years then wears out and charging becomes very difficult after that. The connector also breaks easily as it is essentially a totally exposed fragment of a circuit board.

The design was light years ahead of everything else for a long time but these days, everything should be USB-C.

I’ve never found Lightning connectors to fail, but the cable to connector junction does seem to wear out after a few years, especially on Apple cables with that terrible vinyl-like stress relief material.

But USB-C is pretty young. It remains to be seen if cables and connectors are really durable forever.

I am still suspicious of the complexity of the nested male/female design with the inner male blade being part of the device and hard/impossible to fix if broken. . . but have not seen any problems on my increasing number of USB-C devices yet.

I've broken one USB-C port since 2017, and it was in a power bank. The arcing was brief, and the smoke release moderate. Once I teased the remaining wire fragments inside the socket apart, I filled the socket with hot glue, and continue to use the power bank today.

I've broken all USB-C I've had except the last one (and except another one that I lost) which I now have to use to charge everything :|

Charging issues after a couple of years are usually due to lint accumulation in the phone opening. A little careful time with a toothpick will usually get it sorted.

It isn't just that. It physically wears out as well.

One pin on the cable (male part) becomes oxidized (black) after time. One can rub the black stuff away using a regular rubber and it usually works again.

I've used contact cleaner and toothpicks to solve this problem before. It only works so many times, eventually it's just totally shot. I've never had a cable fray but I've had 3 or 4 lightning connectors become useless.

My first gen iPad Pro and iPhone 6s Plus say otherwise.

I didn't find lightning to fail so much as have the female end fill up with lint. Go digging with a wooden toothpick, pull out some bellybutton lint and it worked good as new.

I've always had more issues with USB-C connector than lightning, it's very sensitive and lint/dust gets both ends of it. Absolutely hate latching mechanism of usb-c.

I agree. I still use the iPhone dock that supports the whole weight of the phone with the lightning port. I've had no issues.

It was totally designed to enable a minimalist Apple retail store aesthetic. I'm convinced that's the only reason for the design. Totally unnecessary design constraint, but very cool...talk about a company with a holistic view of their products, thinking about how details of the design will aid retail display.

I'm still looking forward to a USB-C iPhone, if Apple doesn't go portless (fingers crossed on that).

The male part of the connector isn't the issue. It's the spring inside the device that keeps it plugged in (obviously doesn't matter with the dock because gravity does that) that wears down.

Agree, I do enjoy the feeling of plugging in a Lightning cable more than a USB C cable, but the spring-loaded mechanism wears over time and eventually there’s no snap at all.

From my experience, when there is no more snap it tends to be an accumulation of dust and grime in the port preventing the cable from fully seating. I usually clear it out carefully with a sim card ejection tool.

I use a sharpened wooden toothpick to prevent any possibility of shorting the pins

Look closely at a lightning cable. The edge is metal. When you plug in a lightning cable, you briefly short every single pin together. There's probably a greater risk of bending a pin inside the port than there is shorting pins out.

Yes, it’s a similar design to RJ45, where angled pins are lifted by the leading edge of the connector. Lightning doesn’t have the grooves to guide pins, but the tight tolerance and setback of pins means you really can’t land a pin on the wrong connector, let along short across them.

Probably a good precaution to take - but I've always recklessly used a paperclip. Been doing it since the first Lightning connector devices came out and have never had any negative effects from doing so. Seems pretty robust.

I've had good luck with poster-tack goo... just have to make sure not to leave any behind.

Yup, have done this many times; my phone is definitely due for it.

Lightning is capable of doing USB 3 speeds. The first gen iPad Pro had lightning ports and had usb 3 speeds.

Right. And likewise I doubt the USB-C iPhone is going to have USB 3 capability - given that Apple's had the opportunity to put USB 3 in those phones for a while now. For whatever reason it's not a cost they feel like paying, even on the Pro phones that shoot in ProRes and presumably could benefit from quick offload.

I agree. We already see that in the latest low end iPad that has USB C. But only transfers data at USB 2 speeds.

Maybe the Pro models will have the full USB C capabilities - video over USB C and full USB 3 speeds like the iPad Pro.

Rightly or wrongly, Apple is driving to pure wireless and portless devices.

Best hope for USB-3 will be an updated MagSafe connector on a portless phone, using 60ghz networking from phone to MagSafe and usb-C from MagSafe out.

Are they? The only device that is pure wireless is the Watch.

The AirPods Pro2 would have been the perfect opportunity to go wireless. It already works with both standard Qi chargers and the non standard Watch charger

I'm sure they are.

It reduces the attack surface (you can't break into the phone by plugging something into it)... which also means that jailbreaking will be a bit more difficult.

It also completely removes them from the debates and regulation of connectors. Lightening? micro usb? usb-c? All of that goes away.

By removing cords and cables it also removes the "my device doesn't work because I was using a flaky 3rd party cable" ongoing support questions.

Why would you think that the EU can't regulate whatever wireless standards Apple chooses to use in the future as they are doing with current wireless technology?

Mostly because because Apple is already able to be charged with the major technology (it's not something they're going off and doing on their own). The Qi wireless charging standard is one that a lot of phones and accessories are using ( https://makezens.com/phones-with-wireless-charging-technolog... )

> The MagSafe Duo Charger conveniently charges your compatible iPhone, Apple Watch, Wireless Charging Case for AirPods, and other Qi-certified devices. Just place your devices on the charger and a steady, efficient charge begins on contact. The charger folds together neatly so you can easily take it with you wherever you go.

They'd need to move the entirety of the wireless power transfer devices and accessories to some other standard.

It sounds to me like you described a situation where the regulations are working as intended.

In the scenario you describe, the EU wants Apple to remove a nonstandard lightning connector and replace it with a standard one for increased interoperability and decreased e-waste.

It looks like what you describe is exactly what happened, which is exactly what the EU wanted.

Don't put it past them to mandate that all phones must have a physical port, and that it must be compliant with a blessed EU standard.

You say this like it's a bad thing.

Why do you think it's a bad thing?

Do you think governments mandating that analog telephones used RJ-11 and twisted pair to be bad?

What about mandates on electrical receptical standards?

Did it require a special lightning cable (with more data pins) to use those speeds? If it was the standard cable, it's perplexing why Apple hasn't used that in every "Pro" iPhone/iPad.

So it’s more complicated than I thought.

When the iPad Pro was a host - ie you connect a usb 3 storage device to it via the camera connection kit - basically a lightning to USB adapter, you could get USB3 speeds.

But if you tried to connect it to your computer, it would be USB 2.

> But if you tried to connect it to your computer, it would be USB 2.

And I believe this is because all Lightning to USB cables (be it USB-A or USB-C) only support USB 2.0.

The Camera Connection Kit supports/supported USB 3.0.

Via a weird hack where they used the pins on both sides of the port simultaneously. I imagine they had some issues with it since, as a feature, it didn't last too long.

Reliable? I find these cables broken over, and over. Many last only 2 months or so.

At the samy time, my USB-C cables just work.

You must switch devices every year or two... Every old iPhone or iPad I've seen, it eventually wears out and becomes loose.

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