Lmao, how is Lightning better than a USB-C? They’re both practically the same thing, even in durability. Apple might’ve made Lightning first, yes, but then USB-C came out like 2 years later.
Be real here: Apple only stuck with Lightning because it’s stupid easy money for them. Cables are hella cheap to make, and if you make them in-house, you basically spend like $2 at most to manufacture 1 cable. Lightning has the upside of both that and forcing people into the Apple ecosystem because their old phone cables can charge the new phones.
Th4tGuyII@kbin.social 10 months ago
Do you really think that?
Back when that would've been a good argument... but why then when USB-C did become a thing, and became robust and well-supported enough that even Apple used it on every other device they sold, didn't they adopt it onto the IPhone despite lightning being an inferior standard in basically every way?
Why did they literally have to be forced by the EU to adopt the very standard they helped to create, a standard that was de-facto almost everywhere else?
Because they wanted that sweet, sweet proprietary monopoly. Plain and simple, the rest is just excuses.
kirklennon@kbin.social 10 months ago
What's the advantage of using USB-C? Because it's a standard, right? A standard means wide support and it works with what you already have. Except Apple had effectively already established that with Lightning. It was in hundreds of millions of devices before USB-C became mainstream. Sure USB-C was nominally standard, but Lightning maintained the advantages for Apple's customers as a de facto standard. The switch to USB-C meant buying new cables, while Lightning meant using the cables you already had.
Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Which is literally exactly what Apple did when they moved from the older connector to lightning in the first place lol.
Th4tGuyII@kbin.social 10 months ago
Other than support for superior data transfer speeds, energy carrying ability, and durability? Yeah, it would be that it is an almost universal standard outside of the Iphone.
For well-established standards this is correct, but every standard has to start out somewhere, and you'll find once upon a time lightning was faced this exact same argument.
A defacto standard for more or less only Iphones, as Apple switched almost all of their other products to use USB-C once it reached mass adoption.
You'll find that being locked into Apple's proprietary charging standard maintained a much larger advantage for Apple than it did their customers in allowing Apple to demand royalties/licensing fees from any 3rd parties that wanted to make charging accessories.
You could make this argument against the adoption of any new standard, again baring in mind that once upon a time lightning stood was the new standard that faced this exact criticism.
Also, had Apple just allowed other manufacturers to make use of lightning as a standard, you wouldn't even need to worry about this right now - thus this is a rod for Apple's own back, which they won't mind since they already got off with the money.
kirklennon@kbin.social 10 months ago
I specifically said the physical design of Lightning is superior
The iPhone and all of Apple's accessories (such as AirPods) used Lightning up until a couple of months ago. The keyboards and mice still use Lightning. A connector used on well over a billion devices has all of the practical advantages for consumers of being a standard even if it's nominally proprietary.
Yes, which is why companies should always be reluctant to change unless the new option is significantly better. Lightning was way better than anything else available and was worth the inconvenience of the change. The benefits were real and obvious to all users. The transition to USB-C is ... less compelling for users.