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Comment by frankfrankfrank | Hacker News Reader

It never crossed your mind that there may be a reason that Apple does not want to use the USB-C standard for all its disadvantages over the lightning connector that they have now had for 11 years. Apple has had two types of plugs over 20 years now. Can you say that about Nokia? Samsung? Etc?

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> It never crossed your mind that there may be a reason that Apple does not want to use the USB-C standard

The reason is extremely obvious: cementing user lock-in to the Apple ecosystem.

Lightning is smaller than USB-C. That alone makes it more desirable for space-obsessed Apple. I think it is more robust and easier to clean too.

And lightning is usb2.0 and what it can do to be backwards compatible and offer 240w or more for charging and gigabits of data transfer like latest usb-c is unknown. But what we do know? Usb c is superior and it has been for years and Apple didn't switch to it on phones to sell users proprietary accestories that connect only by that port

The thinnest smartphone ever sold was the Vivo X5 Max, which was 4.75 mm thick, and it still managed to squeeze a headphone jack into it, despite Apple's feeble protests that such things are impossible. USB-C (2.5 mm) is significantly thinner than a standard headphone jack (3.5 mm). Between the screen, the circuit board, the battery, and the back cover (including the camera lenses), you're never, ever going to see a smartphone so thin that it couldn't fit a 2.5 mm port. This is a non-excuse.

You mean the great connector that is so bandwidth-deprived (and doesn't support alt-modes) that Apple has to send lower-than 1080p video with bad artifacting down the cable?

https://panic.com/blog/the-lightning-digital-av-adapter-surp...

Why would I care?

USB-C is perfectly good for the moment in time we live in.

Imagine if goddamn power plugs in your wall were starting to be different because some company thinks a different format is better.

Or if they started to pull some "you can only charge your car with this very specific type of connector, but not others" and cars are much more impacted and sensitive by arguments like yours.

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