Comment on iPhone 15 buyers will be reminded Lightning cables are now landfill

• stonedemoman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Apple developed lightning. It had the same transfer rate as USB 2.0 which had been out for over a decade. It wasn’t about being “stubborn”, it was about being proprietary.

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  • garretble@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    That’s a fair point. Apple has been known to do that in the past with FireWire.

    But I guess on the issue of whether or not — at the time, two years before usb-c was readily available — apple should have used usb-c or lightning (the thing they helped make), you would assume they would go with lightning over waiting until an unknown amount of time for another plug to be available.

    When I say they were stubborn to change from that, they were/are simply stubborn to change from that. I wish they would have pulled the bandaid off when they switched to usb-c on iPad.

    Though, that said, barring speed/power, I do actually think the lightning connector is a superior design. It’s simpler, and there’s nothing to break inside the port on the phone/device. I wish usb-c was physically the same or similar.

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    • stonedemoman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I still have to disagree. There was no reason for them to develop lightning in the first place. It has 0 advantages over technology already available at the time, and their adapters use the technology they’re trying to upsell anyways- USB.

      As for the last subjective part of your statement: “The Apple Community forums are full of people posting stories about their broken cables, and it appears to be one of the most common issues that Apple users are facing.”

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      • hedgehog@ttrpg.network ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Lightning cables had, and have, substantial advantages over micro-USB:

        • More durable ports
        • Reversible connector
        • More pins for data - micro USB wasn’t usable for their docks, for example
        • Fast enough charging to be able to charge the iPad - 12W at the time (and substantially more now) vs 9W at best (generally 2.5-5W) for micro-USB
        • Many existing micro USB cables are terrible, i.e., they only support charging (no data) or they only support charging at 2.5W

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    • olympicyes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      FireWire was legitimately superior at the time, particularly for video transfer.

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• CmdrShepard@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Apple helped develop USB-C too as they are members of the consortium. No (non-self-serving) reason why they couldn’t have delayed the swap an additional year or two back then.

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