[rsync]

"I would be willing to bet that within a decade you HAPPILY buy a phone without a headphone jack, whether that be an Android or iPhone. They're not going backwards because they think they're right, not because they think they're wrong but don't want to admit it."

I believe that the iphone is by far the best executed mobile phone platform and the best hardware - and has been from day one.

However, I have never purchased or used an iphone because of my stubborn indignation over the lack of plain old USB for charging.

Contrary to all expectation and experience, everyone in the world got together on one little thing - establishing the global standard for USB charging - and the world was actually a very slightly better place. And apple shat all over that, and continues to do so, in order to make (on average) an extra $10 for every iphone sold.

So fuck that and fuck their iphone.

[stouset]

You had me up until the "$10 for every phone sold" bit. Do you seriously believe Apple is happy to willingly sabotage sales of their tens-of-billions cash cow to make a few tens of millions on accessories?

They stuck with 30-pin because it was something their customer base had already bought into, and they didn't want to force a change. They went with Lightning because, let's be honest, micro-USB is shit — every micro-USB device I've owned has had the connector fail within two years. Lightning can handle 12W of power, micro-USB 9W. Lightning is reversible. Lightning has no moving parts on the connector, prone to breaking (or worse) grabbing onto your $700 device with a death grip and bring nigh-unremovable.

It would be great if they switched now to USB-C. They're clearly in the works on that, but didn't want to make a connector change on their phones after only two revs.

[ricksplat]

In my recollection a micro-USB has never failed. If it has failed it wasn't an issue because I've a heap of them lying around and could just grab another one.

I have had a number of lightning connectors fail on me. They're designed to fail. Pressure-held copper edge-connectors for devices went out with the Commodore 64's user port.

The fact that it is reversible is convenient but hardly worthy of consideration as a feature alongside "ubiquity" "cost" and "durability".

The old iPhone connector had it's limitations but it was established and really quite solid in my experience. Micro USB perhaps has limited features technically, and is ugly, but I don't believe the advantages that Apple presents for lightning outweigh the drawbacks.

As an interface it has a couple of niche use-cases that it fulfils but it is a step backwards in terms of connector design and in fact has a "worse" connector than the two other interfaces it purports to improve upon.

Props to Apple for padding out their profit margin and all that but they can absolutely go and shite if they think I'm going to swallow their "better connector" bullshit.

And they expect me to use it instead of a headphones jack now as well!

[JohnTHaller]

Quick Charge 2.0 via microUSB can throw a lot more power down the wire and charges nice and quickly. Plus that same wire can plug into a USB port on anything and charge.

I'm always surprised by folks talking about failing microUSB ports. The microUSB port on my old G2 (HTC Desire Z) still works fine as does the miniUSB port on my G1 (HTC Dream).

[stouset]

> I'm always surprised by folks talking about failing microUSB ports. The microUSB port on my old G2 (HTC Desire Z) still works fine as does the miniUSB port on my G1 (HTC Dream).

I'm always surprised by folks talking about their non-failing micro-USB ports, as if that somehow discounts other people's devices that have failed.

[JohnTHaller]

I don't doubt that some fail. But so many who have had them fail make it seem like the ports are absurdly fragile and fail for everyone all the time.

[dpark]

I don't understand the obsession with USB charging. This makes no sense at all to me. How would my life be materially better if my phone charged over USB? My last phone charged over USB and I can't say it felt better.

At this point, you might be tempted to claim that I would be able to use the same cables as other devices. To this, I'll point to the ongoing switch to USB-C and note that's you're buying new cables anyway.

Micro USB was a shitty plug. USB-C is better, but you can actually thank Apple for that, because it's a reaction to the Lightning plug.

[ng12]

Come visit my company gym, we have 20+ perfectly good treadmills that all have outdated iPhone chargers. The best part about micro USB was that it was absolutely ubiquitous. If my phone was dying at a friend's place or at my neighborhood coffee shop chances are I could charge my phone.

My least favorite thing about my 5x is that it's USB-C. I regret upgrading before USB-C became more commonplace.

[dpark]

I don't know how this is an issue for Apple. If those treadmills were micro USB, they'd be trending rapidly toward obsolescence anyway.

I'll note that almost everyone who complains about lightning seems to not be an Apple user. Apple users seem fine with the horror of not sharing cables with Android devices. Apple users are also pretty happy that random hotels and whatnot have docks for their phones.

[ng12]

> I don't know how this is an issue for Apple

Oh, it's absolutely not. Apple makes a killing selling adapters. It's the users who get screwed.

[stouset]

Apple makes hundreds of billions from iPhone sales. They make probably tens of millions from cables.

Suggesting they'd knowingly sabotage #1 for #2 is absurd.

[ng12]

They're making a bet that the sales lost from customers who are willing to switch to Android is less than the profit made from proprietary hardware, and they're probably right.

[dpark]

I don't know. I bought a lightning cable for my office a week ago for maybe $6. A quick search on Amazon shows an equivalent USB-C cable is actually more if I want to buy from a company with a name I recognize.

[ng12]

What are you talking about? Direct from Apple it's $20, on Amazon both will run you $5-$10. But that's not the point anyways -- I'm still using a micro-usb cable that I bought before Lightning was even released. I've had to spend $0 on proprietary nonsense.

Also, another point: I have a medical device and a Kindle which both charge via micro-USB, meaning I only had to bring one charger when I traveled. Huge benefit.

[FireBeyond]

"If those treadmills were micro USB, they'd be trending rapidly toward obsolescence anyway."

Where "trending towards obsolescence" means "has realistically at least three years of non-negligible use for Micro USB", versus "was replaced by its manufacturer just over four years ago" (September 2012).

I'm yet to see gym equipment (a niche example) with Lightning, it's only 30 pin connectors.

[stouset]

Oh, FFS. 30-pin was around for what, 15-odd years? You're blaming them for literally nothing more than "the plug changing" because it just happened to be within the past few years.

If they'd gone with micro-USB, you would have the exact same complaint two or three years from now. That micro-USB devices still have 2 or 3 more years left of ubiquity is just a function of this exact moment in time, and you could have said that three years ago for 30-pin too.

[SysArchitect]

30 pin was introduced in 2003, it was finally replaced with Lightning in 2014 and thereby deprecated from use.

That's a 11 year run.

I bet those treadmills are not even that old yet.

[treehau5]

Exactly. Could you imagine buying a home if the electrical outlet wasn't standardized? (In the US). Just ask the rest of the world how frustrating it is when every country has their own plug.

[thomasfoster96]

Homes tend to have a longer lifespan than phones.

[treehau5]

True, but the people living in them don't. People in the US move, and they move a lot.

Please use the downvote button for comments that are not relevant to the discussion, not as the "I disagree" button. We aren't reddit. My point is factual, 26 million Americans move every year. The challenges and hassels would be comparable if we had different plugs for all our appliances and electronics are analogous to the problems we have with different standards for charging ports on our cell phones, just a larger scale.

[dpark]

That's not relevant to the negative impact of custom electrical outlets. New residents don't alleviate the hassle of, say, ungrounded plugs.

[7952]

The best approach is to just have USB sockets and let the user supply the cable.

[ryanhuff]

I don't care about USB charging. What I do care about is not having to carry an awful dongle to listen to music. Been there, done that. And, I care about not having to charge my headphones before I listen to music. People might say I should just leave the dongle on my headphones. I lived through that already with an Android phone years ago, and it sucked.

[dpark]

That's a perfectly valid criticism. I think ditching the headphone jack, while having little effect on me personally, isn't a great move. At the same time, Apple has a long history of ditching compatibility early (floppy drive, cd drive, vga, etc) and with generally good effect long term, so I'm not sure that they actually made the wrong decision here.

[nocman]

Except that (as I recall) the floppy drive was completely obsolete when they did that, so almost no one cared. And the CD drive was not very painful either. The story is completely different for the headphone jack. It is not in the least obsolete, and it being missing is a huge pain for a lot of people.

It was a completely bonehead move on Apple's part IMHO. I know they had their reasons for doing it, but I still think it was a big mistake.

[wcummings]

My blackberry has micro AND mini usb. I live like a king. A king who doesn't carry a charger but whose phone is kept charged.

[fenomas]

> never purchased or used an iphone because of my stubborn indignation over the lack of plain old USB for charging.

I reached that conclusion over the "can't install apps without the manufacturer's permission" thing. I've always been surprised more developers didn't feel the same way.

[NickPollard]

For what it's worth this was (and is) my red line that prevents me from ever buying an iPhone. That's one person who agrees with you at least!

[lostlogin]

It's a technical crowd here - you can install apps without using the App Store and it's not particularly difficult either.

[khedoros1]

Well, I can (or I could on a personal one, as opposed to the work-supplied one I carry). I like being able to install software from outside of an app store without modifying my firmware, worrying about updating my device, losing my warranty, opening up large security holes, etc.

Reaching outside of the walled garden isn't hard, but there are more things to consider compared to installing an apk on Android.

[fenomas]

It's an ideological complaint, not a technical one.

Not being able to install apps is a nuisance; not being able to distribute apps for others to install is a deal-breaker, but the main thing is that I'm afraid of our world becoming a place where walled gardens are the typical model for consumer electronics.

[snowwrestler]

Meanwhile, everyone is complaining that Apple just released a laptop that standardizes on USB for all IO and charging.

[theptip]

That's because magsafe is magical, and they removed all the other ports. I have heard nobody complain about the charging situation on macbooks; GP's point is specifically about cell phones.

[Osmium]

> That's because magsafe is magical, and they removed all the other ports.

In fairness, there are two huge new benefits to their new approach:

* You can charge on either the left or the right side. This reduces cable strain.

* If the cable breaks, you can swap it for another (cheap) USB-C cable, without having to buy another power brick.

There's an argument against Magsafe too: laptops are lighter now, so the magnets would have to be weaker to still work reliably, and thus also have more accidental disconnections (this is irritating). I'm not completely sold on this argument, but you can buy third-party USB-C Magsafe-like adaptors if it's really important to you.

For me, who's had several frayed chargers over the years due to cable strain, I really like their new approach.

(Note: there's a legitimate argument against Apple here too... I've heard that the reason Magsafe chargers are so susceptible to fraying is because they don't use PVC, and instead use a more 'environmentally-friendly' plastic, which is much weaker. They could still use more substantial strain relief regardless, but I'd guess they have aesthetic arguments against that, which is a silly reason for something so important. I'm not sure how much truth there is to this however.)

[grzm]

"There's an argument against Magsafe too: laptops are lighter now, so the magnets would have to be weaker to still work reliably, and thus also have more accidental disconnections (this is irritating). I'm not completely sold on this argument, but you can buy third-party USB-C Magsafe-like adaptors if it's really important to you."

Yeah, that is a pretty weak argument :) The MagSafe works not by working (directly) against the strength of the magnet, but by the lever action of the connector eccentrically against the body. You can try this yourself by trying to pull the MagSafe away straight on compared to at a slight angle. Also, existing MagSafe is used with MBA, which are lighter than the new MBP. If that were really a problem, we'd already be seeing it.

I do hope that there are good third-party MagSafe replacements out there. The reviews of the Griffin BreakSafe are mixed. https://www.amazon.com/Griffin-BreakSafe-Breakaway-Chromeboo...

Or maybe Apple will come out with one in the future. I would love to know more about how Apple arrived at the decision to not provide some sort of MagSafe equivalent feature.

[stouset]

Also regarding Magsafe, I'm trying to remember the last time I kicked a cable that would have otherwise sent my laptop flying and… I can't.

I think the difference now is that laptop batteries last a hell of a lot longer than they used to. So many people have a fixed charging location (e.g., a desk) and spend a lot less time in some place with a cable precariously stretched across the room to reach a couch or w/e.

Just a personal theory, maybe not true for others.

[grzm]

"Also regarding Magsafe, I'm trying to remember the last time I kicked a cable that would have otherwise sent my laptop flying and… I can't."

I can't either. A this point it's more the convenience of being able to pick up and go without needing to unplug the machine, and one I'll miss when I eventually get a new machine. That said, it's human nature not to remember things that don't happen.

[YuriNiyazov]

No kids or pets, clearly.

[stouset]

I don't, but even then you would need to: have kids/pets and work the majority of the day around them while not at a fixed desk. If you work from a fixed desk, the cable is much more likely to be in a location where it won't be pulled. If you charge all day, and only use it intermittently from a sofa, you don't need the cable.

That's a market that exists, sure. Is it a big market? I doubt it.

[snowwrestler]

Apple's theory on removing MagSafe is that their laptops now provide enough working time, and charge fast enough, that it is rare that people will need to work while plugged in. This is clearly influenced by their experience with iPhone and iPad. It's also why they felt fine with silly-looking charge orientations for their mouse and pencil.

Is it wrong? We'll see. I think a lot of people work with their laptops plugged in as a matter of habit rather than necessity. That doesn't make it wrong, though.

[stouset]

People haven't complained about it because they grade Apple on a curve.

Apple doesn't use a shitty micro-USB plug? End of the world. Laptop manufacturers use a cornucopia of power plugs that change basically all the time? Crickets.

[Mithaldu]

Nobody's complaining about that, but about the removal of all other options.

And well, many many other problems with that new thing that are entirely unrelated to USB.

[natermer]

Good to know they are following Chromebook's lead.

[wvenable]

The lightening connector is so much better than micro-USB that it's really hard to fault them for that. But I imagine even the iPhone will go USB-C in the next iteration.

[dpark]

I can't imagine that happening. They'd piss off all the customers that bought lightning accessories, lose control over the connector, and get what in return?

[massysett]

Apple's long history of port and drive removal demonstrates that pissing off customers is not a prime concern. Lost licensing revenue might bother them though.

[dpark]

They seem happy to do this if they think there is value. I'm not sure what the value of USB-C is on the iPhone. The negatives are pretty obvious. The positive mostly seems to be that they can share cables with Android phones, which I cannot imagine is something execs at Apple care about.

Someone else raised an interesting point about docks. The lightning connection is designed to be strong enough to support a phone in a doc. I'm pretty sure this is not a design consideration for USB-C given how no one seems to care about Android docks.

[chimeracoder]

> I'm not sure what the value of USB-C is on the iPhone.

Ridiculously fast charging, plus the ability to use the same charger for both your laptop and your phone.

Being able to consolidate all the chargers I own is an unbelievably exciting promise. That's only an option for me because I use an Android phone.

[dpark]

> Ridiculously fast charging

How much faster are we talking? I haven't seen any numbers with this claim, nor any justification. There are fast charging systems on the market already with Micro-USB. Qualcomm says their quick-charge solution (used in the new Pixel phones) works with A, Micro, C and others.

https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon/quick-charge/fa...

> plus the ability to use the same charger for both your laptop and your phone.

I'm not sure that's really all that compelling. It's nice, but I don't think it's nearly as nice as, say, my dock working.

[eridius]

I don't understand this argument. If I'm using my laptop charger, my phone can't use it at the same time. And if I'm not using my laptop charger, it's probably stowed in my bag, and it's a lot simpler to pull out my phone's charger than it is to pull out my laptop charger. So I'm having trouble imagining a scenario where I'd actually ever plug my phone into my laptop charger.

[wvenable]

You can hold your phone upside down connected to the lightning connector -- it's really quite impressive. USB connectors are much more fiddly.

The advantage of USB-C isn't so much in physical connection but the actual capabilities of the interface. Lightning isn't very powerful by comparison.

[dpark]

Holding your phone upside down isn't an interesting test. That's just the holding power of the plug. More interesting and relevant is whether you can hold the phone at an angle, which is what a dock does. This puts a lot of stress on both the connector and the phone's jack. I would expect Micro-USB to fall apart from this abuse. I'd don't know about USB-C but don't have high hopes.

[pritambaral]

> it's really quite impressive.

It is? I've been charging my Moto G for a few months like that.

[Klathmon]

Not only that but the fact that people are buying lightning headphones for the current gen.

They are in a shitty place right now. They can't go USB-c without pissing off a good amount of their customers, but they can stick with lightening forever either (it's already starting to show its age WRT transfer speeds and other abilities)

[SysArchitect]

They could upgrade lightning to support USB-3... Lightning doesn't specify the USB protocol.

[wvenable]

I assume that's why they haven't already switched but they just releases Macbooks with nothing but USB-C connectors so I imagine the debate must be on internally at Apple.

[BrandonY]

Compatibility with their new MacBook Pros, which have four USB C adapters and nothing else.

[stouset]

For basically forever, we've had USB devices with two separate types of prong on each end. How is USB-C to Lightning any different?

[dpark]

I think most of the arguments here are from some hypothetical future where every device on the planet has standardized on USB-C except the iPhone.

[Gerardo1]

I disagree, because it doesn't work on anything other than Apple products. I would much rather have micro-USB (or any other widely-adopted standard).

[sliverstorm]

I suspect a lot of people have come to take USB for granted, forgetting about the mess it resolved. (Or, they weren't around at the time)

[nickthemagicman]

THIS SO MUCH!! YOURE NOT ALONE!!!

Additionally, Why do I HAVE to use Itunes to sync the phone? I just want to grab a photo off of it.. where's my USB mode?

[ebrewste]

This doesn't change your overall argument, but Image Capture on the Mac will let you get your pictures without Photos or Itunes. I'm DONE with Photos and had to figure this out. It's not a great app, but it is simple.

[toomuchtodo]

What made you be done with Photos? Just curious before I move 100GBs of Flickr photos into it.

[nickthemagicman]

Yeah but PDFs? Text files? Software? Entire Movies? MP3 Albums?

It's all just data in USB mode!

[astrange]

iPhones speak PTP (the USB camera protocol) as long as the screen is unlocked. You can use any photo app you want.

[myfinalaccount]

If you just want a few photos, it's much much easier to Airdrop them, or email them, or add them to dropbox, or message them. There's no need to plug in for that.

[khedoros1]

Assuming you've got an internet connection available for both of your devices, sure. As an example: I've got a work-supplied iPhone that I use for photos of office activities, sometimes. All the file-sharing sites are blocked on the work network, and I don't have a Mac to deal use an Apple-specific transfer protocol with.

Thankfully, the comment you replied to is moot as well. I plug my phone into my machine, unlock the screen, and pull pictures off it all the time.

Still, when putting music on it, I'm left wishing that I had the option to use something like gtkpod, like I used to use with my iPod, back in the day.

[camillomiller]

Well, how can you "believe that the iphone is by far the best executed mobile phone platform and the best hardware", and subsequently declare that you hate them for not using a subpar standard when compared to their flawlessly engineered proprietary one?

[michaelt]

When it comes to what side of the road we drive on, one side might be marginally better than the other - but the major benefits come from everyone agreeing to use the same side, regardless of what side that is.

[hollander]

Easy, for him the iphone connector is a showstopper - no matter how good the rest of the platform actually is.

[zeven7]

What makes Apple's better? Genuine question; I haven't looked into this at all.

[FussyZeus]

Reversibility is the clearest benefit to the end user. Also it's a much more durable connector than most, the cable end is just a flat piece of metal as opposed to having pins and whatnot.

[derefr]

Re: durability, one thing most people don't think about is that modern Lightning docks are effectively just Lightning connectors: https://9to5mac.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/apple-lightning-...

The stress of holding up the entire mass of the connected device (that can be as large as an iPad Pro!) is on the connector; and the stress of being held up by that connector is on the tiny part of the device that grips it. That'd be impossible with a USB connector (even USB-C), on both sides.

[FussyZeus]

I was surprised the Macbook didn't have any Lightning ports to be honest. I figured they would use that for direct device connection.

As it stands if you have a brand new Macbook Pro and iPhone 7 you can't connect the two without an adapter, which is just stupid.

[derefr]

Apple's logic: the Lightning jack only appears on accessories; while the USB-C jack only appears on "computers." There's no Lightning-to-Lightning cable, because it makes no sense to connect one "accessory" to another. All "accessories" come with a Lightning cable, which is USB on the host end for now (because most people don't have computers with USB-C yet!) but will likely be USB-C on the host end in the future (and then you'll need to buy a reverse adapter—female USB-C to male USB—to connect it to old devices. Those will probably be common enough across brands once the USB-C-only accessory market picks up.)

All that being said, it'a interesting to use this logic to deduce what Apple does or doesn't consider an "accessory." The iPhone, iPad, iPod? Accessories. The Apple TV? Computer! The port to plug it into a computer—for XCode provisioning et al—is USB-C! To connect to it right now, you need either a MacBook with its charger cable; or the new MBP, plus an extra C:C cable; or a USB-A male:male cable (rare!) plus Apple's "MacBook USB" (female-USB:male-USB-C) adapter. A male-A:male-C adapter would be great, but nobody has yet made one. The market is very nascent.)

[4ad]

> if you have a brand new Macbook Pro and iPhone 7 you can't connect the two without an adapter

Without a cable, not without an adapter. Very big difference. I can use the same cable to charge my phone from my MacBook's power supply and from the MacBook itself. When I travel, I only take one power supply and two cables. Even if the iPhone and the MacBook used the same connector, I'd still take two cables so I could simultaneously charge them both, so I don't have to carry any extra hardware.

Yes, it would be nice if they could use the same cable, but at least I don't have to take any extra cable or dongle for charging my iPhone (I still need dongles for other things, though).

[sssilver]

The connector also has pretty much phenomenal build quality, compared to every other whatever USB cable shipped with whatever device.

[dexterdog]

It makes Apple more money and keeps hate between iPhone and Android users because they can't share chargers.