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Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

I take very good care of my things. The plug on my phone should not require daily maintenance though. I have had cell phones since the late 90s and USB-C is the only plug that has given me trouble.

USB-C over a pretty short period collects lint. It gets compressed into the connector little by little every time you seat the cable and eventually your cable won't seat anymore. You then find a very solid plug in the bottom of the port that no amount of brushing will get it out.

You basically have to use a very fine needle to scrape the bottom.

I am guessing you have never had a USB-C phone before.

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I've had a USB-C phone for 7 years. I did indeed have to use a needle to remove the lint that built up one time. One time in seven years. I enjoyed it. It was so satisfying and it's a shame I've never needed to do it again.

It's really not a big deal. It's just a needle. An incredibly common tool found in most households.

The advantages easily outweigh this one small downside.

The main advantage is ubiquity. You can thank Apple for Lightning not having that. They could have made USB-C redundant, but of course that just isn't the Apple way.

What kind of linty clothes are you guys wearing? I have had usb-c phones for what seems like forever now.. Never had any issues or had to clean it even once.

Jeans. I think the reason I don't have to do it much any more is I work from home now so don't have my phone in my pocket almost every day.

For PCs, laptops, tablets, e-readers etc I can't see this ever being a problem. It's not just phones, remember.

I was wondering the same thing. This is the first time I'm hearing of lint-inside-port situation. Was I living under a rock?!

This has never been a problem for me for both USB-C or lightning ports. But apparently — judging by comments here — this is a common complaint.

About the ports themselves I don't care either way. I have no strong opinions about USB-C or lightning.

You and I have been living under a lint-free rock, apparently.

had to do this with my iphone a few years ago. used a plastic toothpick (rather than metal, of course) to extract the lint.

what you describe happened to the lightning port.

Me too… but have you used a usb-c phone?

I can only tell you my personal experience, but I can say with total confidence that the usb-c slot is significantly more irritating.

The lightning slot is physically almost exactly the same size, but the usb-c one has a huge damn tab in the middle that makes cleaning the slot out a) more of a pain in the ass, b) harder to see what you’re doing, and c) requires a physically smaller tool to do it.

/shrug

Yes, lightning isn’t magically immune to lint.

…but usb-c is harder clean, and seems more prone to collecting lint in my experience.

> The plug on my phone should not require daily maintenance though.

That's an absurd exaggeration.

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