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Comment by thadk | Hacker News Reader

A friend got a new high end 2019 Samsung phone. The week it came, we were at the beach. I offered my USB battery. They used a USB-C to USB-C charge cable to connect it. They passed the phone-and-battery to me and I grabbed it by the cable , as I would with a lightning cable.

The USB-C detached from the phone and the phone fell 3.5 feet onto the rocky sand. It immediately broke the rear glass.

After that experience, I'm still skeptical if the friction available in the USB-C socket is up to the task of day-to-day phone use (vs lightning). Among other challenges, Apple must have been struggling with this all along.

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As someone who hasn't owned a mobile apple device since 2012 or so (my ipod touch still had the old wide port that predates thunderbolt), my expectation of friction for a cable is essentially just that it requires more force to remove than you would normally exert by moving the phone itself.

This sounds snarky but I'm genuinely interested in the different perspective - is it a normal thing to hang your iphone off the cable to move it around?

Thank you for recognizing the perspective: holy downvotes! Anyway, the lightning cable design did/does allow it so people probably are used to doing it somewhat e.g. in bed. It was the one upside of lightning IMO.

Don't get me wrong: I do welcome USB-C but I hope Apple warns people or begins to make the rear glass out of the stronger material of the front glass if they haven't already.

If we're going to base the reliability of a connector by a single example my 6 year old phone still holds cables as snuggly as day one. I can grab it from the cable and it doesn't fall. Maybe if I try to treat it like a whip it will but that's outside a reasonable use case. The cable is not 6 years old mind you, close to 3. But the connector aside from pulling gunk out with a needle a few times works perfectly.

Just don't grab things by the cable?

in this case yes; however.... usb-c connections become unreliable over time. cables need jiggling and such. the protocol might be better, but the physical connector sucks. not as bad as d-sub connectors, but bad.

In the last couple of years I've had a Pixel 2, Pixel 3a and Pixel 6, all of them had/have issues with the USB-C port. Plus the general issues around what cables can do what. Basically these days unless it's a Google charger and a Google cable I have zero confidence that I'm able to do whatever I want to do. It's a real bummer.

I get the feeling that half the problem is just shitty ebay cables. I have been plugging and unplugging apple usb-c cables in to my macbook and ipad for years now with absolutely zero issues. Still has a sharp and solid snap when it locks in to place. But I've absolutely experienced loose and flaky USB-C cables before.

That's probably part of the issue too. I did have to replace the USB port on my Pixel 3a though and even in my Pixel 6 sometimes I have to rotate the plug for it to work. I know that doesn't make any sense but it's what I have to do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have had experience where the cables/connectors are just a hair bigger than spec to provide a better connection to the shield, and they cause the receptacles to wear and become loose over time. Then you use an in spec cable and it's loose.

Though it might depend somewhat on manufacturing tolerance, I suspect that USB C is designed a bit like MagSafe to prevent cord-tripping accidents. I've walked through my USB C charge cable for my (Apple) laptop several times, and thankfully each time the cable disconnected without sending my laptop crashing to the floor. Yet for the most part the connection has been solid and hasn't unplugged on its own. The exception is if dirt/lint/etc. gets into the socket and the plug doesn't go all the way in, but that has also happened with lightning.

Although I do think that MagSafe offers better cord-trip protection, USB C wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be.

MagSafe also has a weird issue that magnetic or metallic dust/grit can get stuck in the socket! You can usually clean it out though.

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