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Comment by drcode | Hacker News Reader

I'm not an expert on creating reliable electronics, but the new iOS connector is just a "tongue", whereas this new type-c connector is a "hole" that accepts a "tongue", and the plug the type-c connector fits in is a "tongue" that accepts a "hole" that contains a "tongue" (sorry for the simplistic terminology)

Surely, this is going lead to a whole new generation of loose, flaky cable connections, just as with the previous USB connectors (and unlike the new iOS connectors, which never seem to lead to loose connections)

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The Lightning connector design exposes all the pins to the hazards of the world (the most dangerous being ESD, pin shorting being another). In order to make the industrial design work electrically, Apple had to put a tiny chip inside each lightning connector. This chip also handles switching around which side of the connector is active.

As you can imagine, embedding a chip inside a connector is pretty expensive. The USB-IF doesn't actually make hardware. They create standards that other companies can use to make hardware. It would be crazy for them to spec something out that requires the kind of NRE that Apple must have paid to produce their connector.

The USB-IF gets around the ugly pin shorting and ESD problems by simply adopting the same connector design that every other connector uses. They hide the pins behind a shroud so that fingers and other objects can't reach in to short anything out or cause ESD events.

That must be why I have three lightning cables which I use daily, and about 80 USB cables (one with each new device!) which sit in a pile collecting dust and tangling up the cat. Seriously, do we really need the price of usb cables tending asymptotically to zero? "Three cables should be enough for anybody."

Tell that to someone who buys a printer.

> This chip also handles switching around which side of the connector is active.

I don't think it does actually, think that's handled mostly by the device - the data pins just connect straight through to both sides of the connector.

Not really, it's a little more complicated as Chipworks described:

http://www.chipworks.com/en/technical-competitive-analysis/r...

That chip could just as well sit in the device at the other end of the cable. I bet USB cables have one, too. It is not as if USB connectors are immune to accidental shorting (rain, cables that get crushed)

Also, embedding a chip in a connector expensive? I have no idea what the chips Apple puts in cost, but cost depends on the chip and the number of cables you order.

FYI: The correct terminology for "tongue" would be male and "hole" is female.

I'm not sure this is what parent^ is referring to. The "male" USB is box-shaped, and the "female" USB has the interior protrusion (with the pins on it) and then the larger slot. The apple lightning cable is just a tab that goes in a hole.

Similar to a barrel power connector versus a headphone plug.

Yea but the male usb still goes inside the female. It's really crude but the designations are supposed to mirror human reproductive organs, male goes inside of female.

Anecdotally, the Lightning cable seems to be a bit flaky itself, getting 1.5 stars from 1646 reviews on Apple's store: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD818ZM/A/lightning-to-usb...

Hopefully Type C will be better than Micro-B and Lightning. Also, Type C can deliver 100W of power, which I'm not sure Lightning could do...

The only people who ever review items like cables are ones who ran into failures, so that’s a very skewed sampling.

Online product reviews have self-selection bias, yes, but it is not true that cables are reviewed only or even mostly by people who were not satisfied. For example, on Amazon we can see a 4.5 star mini USB cable with 679 reviews [1]. Similarly, Monoprice has a 5 star USB extension cable with 160 reviews.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-USB-Male-Mini-Cable/dp/B0...

[2] http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=103&cp_id=10303&cs_id=...

And the Apple Lightning cable has four stars with nearly 4k reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Lightning-to-USB-Cable/dp/B0097B...

Either there's a big difference in quality between the cables Apple sells on Amazon vs the Apple Store, or there's something else going on.

No, the negative reviews on Lightning cables mostly have to do with people complaining they have to buy new cables.

With the lightning cable the problem is with the reinforcement between the connector and the cable. And it's a problem Apple has had with pretty much every cable they've ever made.

The actual connector itself is pretty damn good.

When your cat chews up the cable, of course you're going to leave a bad review. Get it together Apple!

The soft-touch plastic used on Lightning cables has the amazing property that stress failures look just like the cable was chewed on. Not even joking. It basically disintegrates and falls apart.

Doesn't seem so.

Looking at the pictures, the design seems to consist of a receptable which looks like a Lightning connector with a piece of shielding around it, and a plug which looks like a Lightning receptable. If anything, it's mechanically close to Lightning than to the current USB connector, so there's no reason to assume that it will have bad connection.

As someone who's suffering from connectivity issues on a Lightning device, I have to disagree with your assessment of the iOS ecosystem right now.

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