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Comment by zevon | Hacker News Reader

That's not crazy at all. If you look at a male lightning connector, you can see detents at the sides that snap into a (spring-loaded) retaining mechanism on the female side. USB-C doesn't have anything like that which results in less tactile satisfaction.

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USB-C uses an identical spring mechanism, actually, except the cord is the female side, and the port is male.

I don’t think this is correct? GP is talking about the indentations on the side of the male lightning connector, which get gripped from the side by the device. I don’t think the center tab on USB-C has those same features, nor do the cables have the grippy things.

I’d welcome correction. Certainly if those features are there they don’t feel the same. Lightning has a very satisfying snick.

If you look closely, you can see the springy retention clips in the plug. Below is a Stack Overflow answer with more details, it includes a link to the USB-C spec where you can also see the corresponding notches in the male part of the receptacle.

https://superuser.com/questions/1577898/how-does-the-retaini...

Also, some good USB-C cables have a very similar click to Lightning, including Apple's own USB-C cables. Lightning and USB-C are essentially the same design, except USB-C adds an automotive-style shroud around the male side.

Interesting. I stand corrected and thanks for the links! Seems I didn't look hard enough at my USB-C cables. Now I'm curious - like the person I responded to, I always felt that Lightning is more tactile and more consistent than USB-C (including Apple's own USB-C cables) and I wonder why that is. Maybe the Lightning spring is beefier or something?

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