[rnk]

The same thing can be said for the unnecessary apple lightning plug - it serves no purpose other than apple selling adapters and blocking usb-c use. Yet it keeps being used. Lots of companies have things with only usb-c but the real problem is not new use, it's the billions of devices with usb-a plugs on them. In my house there are probably 10 usb-c plugs across several computers and 100 usb-a things to plug in.

[tinus_hn]

The Lightning connector was introduced in 2012 while USB-C was introduced in 2014.

My theory is that Apple made commitments to keep supporting the Lightning connector on their phones for a number of years to get manufacturers to create devices with it.

Say whatever you want, when it was introduced it was clearly a big improvement over the micro USB connectors everyone else was using. By now it’s holding them back though.

[ghaff]

The main purpose lightning serves is that it removes a barrier to Apple customers upgrading to the next iPhone. Apple will get to USB-C--probably sooner rather than later; I wouldn't bet against this year--but that's actually a case of getting onto a standard even though there's no real advantage right now for Apple customers and some pain.

[threeseed]

Apple won't move to USB-C for the iPhone.

They are actively looking at how to transmit data over the Magsafe adapter. Once that happens there will be no ports.