Comment on Apple forced to ditch iPhone lightning charger
bob_wiley@lemmy.world 1 year agoAs far as I know the fastest charging over lightning even now is 20 Watts which is far too slow for a laptop with a large battery. I suspect that they couldn’t use lightning on the macbooks for that reason.
If their intention was to limit waste then they wouldn’t have continued to produce lightning accessories if the plan was to transition in just a few years
Laptops were never charged with lightning and it makes zero sense that they ever would. It was never necessary and they received a LOT of hate over using USB-C on the laptops because they were extremely early to the party. The exact same hate was heaped on them when they implemented USB before everyone else.
You apparently don’t remember (or care) about how they faced a lot of backlash when they moved from the 30-pin to Lightning on iPhone. They promised accessory manufacturers that they wouldn’t change the iPhone port again for at least 10 years, and we are right at that mark. Other products have been transitioning to USB-C in a somewhat logical order. All of the products that charge with lightning now are iPhone accessories and there is little reason to have different charge ports on products that are meant to be used together.
The only argument that isn’t just pure ignorance seems to boil down to “Apple evil”
They have a magsafe port and come with a MagSafe cable (which is USB -> MagSafe) but they charge just fine with usb-c. I can’t remember when I last used my MagSafe cable (I think it’s in a box somewhere) because it normally charges while docked and it makes more sense to carry an USB cable on the go.
The person said they were forced by necessity to move the MacBooks to USB-C in 2015 and brought up Lightning as the reason. That’s not even remotely accurate. I don’t see how anything is relevant after that. USB-C as the only ports on laptops was never a necessity, it was a choice they made, which they have since rolled back, further showing it wasn’t a necessity. Having the option to also use USB-C to charge doesn’t mean anything. And as I recall, USB-C is slightly underpowered for charging the high end laptops, so if they were working hard on USB-C, there would be some battery train to cover the gap. Not exactly a selling point for a power delivery system.
Rootiest@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I think it’s interesting that you see this as USB-C’s fault.
If Apple had stuck to a standard connector they would have been on usb-c in a year or two anyway and none of that e-waste would exist.
Or if they went back on their word and switched to usb-c from lightning after a couple years, there would also be way less Lightning e-waste. What do you think happens to all those Lightning accessories when someone switches from iPhone to a different device?
Apple’s proprietary Lightning connector is responsible for the e-waste, not USB-C or regulators.
These regulations will stop companies like Apple making proprietary connectors purely for profit that generate all the e-waste in the first place.
bob_wiley@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Rootiest@lemm.ee 1 year ago
USB-C was finalized 2 years later so the decade of Lighting e-waste is still on Apple for holding out as long as they did.
Maybe instead of designing a whole new Lightning connector they should have been pioneers and been one of the first to make a USB-C phone.
bob_wiley@lemmy.world 1 year ago
dpkonofa@lemmy.world 1 year ago
No it wasn’t. The very first version of USB-C was standardized 2 years later. It didn’t get to feature parity with lightning until Thunderbolt support was added at the 5 year mark.
Elektrotechnik@feddit.de 1 year ago
“Hence the removal of the headphone jack.”
What does that have to do with USB vs Lightning? Besides, Lightning to Headphone Jack adapters as well as lightning airpods use a DAC inside the cable.
Boy, some of you are really drinking the Apple koolaid.
Petter1@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Lol, a cable is barely e waste. The power Adapter is where the e waste is, and those usb A blocks can easily still be used, even if you only have usb-C cables lying around. For very little money, you can buy an Adapter from usb-A to C and you can still use them. I don’t get the eWaste argument on copper cables…