[smoldesu]

USB-C cables are an investment in the future. Apple helped design the USB-C (and associated Thunderbolt spec) and knew that they would inevitably be forced to switch to USB-C. The iPad came first (to make it "Pro"), but the writing has been on the wall since Macbooks started charging over USB-C. There were legitimately no benefits to using Lightning besides the licensing fees that they charged when people made Lightning-based peripherals.

Maybe for you, Lightning cables don't seem like such a bad investment. To me, it's an source of imminent E-waste. The Lightning port on my Magic Trackpad 2 is the only thing that makes it feel dated, and unfortunately the feature that will eventually make it unusable. There is literally zero reason this accessory should have shipped with the port.

[SllX]

There’s always new cable standards. Even if 100% of Apple’s products that currently use lightning switched to USB-C tomorrow, I expect I’ll still be using lightning cables for the next 5 years just on devices I already own; and further into the future at some point even after everything I have is on USB-C there will be some cable standard to replace that too.

It’s not like lightning is some obscure connection: there’s a good distribution of stuff out there using either Lightning, USB-C or even microUSB and this is still better than the mix of connector types that used to be more prevalent. USB-C is fine, but there’s nothing to evangelize and it’s not going to decrease the amount of cables in use at any given time, nor stave off cable replacements. It might reduce the amount of cables you travel with by 1, maybe.

[smoldesu]

Lightning is some obscure connector, though. It's proprietary and Apple directly controls the licensing for people who want to use it. USB-C is a component in a class of it's own, there are no royalties to be paid when you manufacture something with it. For everyone who isn't Apple, USB-C is a direct upgrade. That's just a fact of modern manufacturing, not a subjective opinion from an Apple pariah.

> but there’s nothing to evangelize and it’s not going to decrease the amount of cables in use at any given time, nor stave off cable replacements

That's the point of having a universal connector, though. The USB-C standard can be modified in the same way Thunderbolt can, and if Apple wants to upgrade/change USB-C then they can do it the same way they did in 2014. There are other parties involved in the development of hardware ecosystems though, so bringing Apple to-point is the only recourse we have for fixing the situation. If Apple doesn't like that, they should have shown more initiative upgrading their USB2.0-based serial connector.

[SllX]

> Lightning is some obscure connector, though.

In terms of the quantity of devices shipped and still in use since Apple introduced it on the iPhone 5? This is flatly false; and it’s not just iPhones but also: iPods, iPads, AirPods, Magic Mice, Keyboards, and Trackpads. Apple moves massive amounts of product, and their biggest sellers tend to be supported for longer than their direct competitors.

Lightning is proprietary, but it isn’t obscure.

> For everyone who isn't Apple, USB-C is a direct upgrade. That's just a fact of modern manufacturing, not a subjective opinion from an Apple pariah.

Correct. My last (and only two) Android phones went from microUSB to USB-C. The USB-C connector was more durable, but I also learned the hard way that you can’t just pickup a USB-C cable and expect USB 3.1 or greater transfer rates. The first extra cable I bought back when there only maybe three options at most was a USB 2.0 cable with a Type-C connector.

My travel USB-C cables also held up less well than my travel Lightning cables.

> That's the point of having a universal connector, though.

More accurately, this is the hope. Time will tell us if it is a false hope or if the hope has been realized. Personally I’m hoping when Apple makes the jump, they also up the transfer rates. It’s not that Apple couldn’t make a lightning connector that supported > USB 2.0 transfer rates, but they only chose to do so for one product release ever (the original iPad Pro).

I think people are pinning a lot of hopes on USB-C and: microUSB to USB-C, it was warranted. Type-A to Type-C, it was warranted. I don’t think it makes a damn bit of difference going Lightning to Type-C. Maybe some fringe situational benefits, but I’m not convinced Type-C is the final standard we will see; nor will it “solve” cable waste.

[smoldesu]

Type C will not be the last cable we see, but even if it staves off a new standard for only 5 years, it will be massively effective at reducing cable waste. Again, maybe you don't see the benefits if you're fully-entrenched in Apple's ecosystem. As someone who only has one or two of their peripherals, Lightning is the worst part of their products. Even for people in the Apple ecosystem, switching from Lightning to USB-C likely wouldn't require any new cables - anyone who owns a recent Macbook or iPad likely already owns a USB-C cable, if not having the one from their Switch/headphones/game controller/DAC/monitor. Lightning is just another thing, and it's existence becomes increasingly annoying the further you exist from Apple's ecosystem. It only becomes infuriating when you realize that Apple's omission of USB-C is entirely arbitrary and not held up by technical limitation.

> I also learned the hard way that you can’t just pickup a USB-C cable and expect USB 3.1 or greater transfer rates.

Apple designed the Thunderbolt spec with their own two hands to ensure this isn't an issue. Increasing the upper bounds of transfer speed won't ruin the iPhone experience any more than it ruined the Macbook experience.

> More accurately, this is the hope.

The hope is that the world's largest companies would treat their consumers with a modicum of respect instead of telling me to buy my mom an iPhone or to buy another e-waste cable for an accessory I can barely justify using. Apple has always been on the forefront of technical adoption - their refusal to abandon Lightning is product negligence, plain and simple. It's so obvious that European legislators can see it without even being told the technical benefits. We're out of hope, our only recourse is literally taking Apple to court and fining them obscene amounts of money until they listen. This has started in Europe (where consumer protection is strong) but eventually America will start raising their eyebrows too. The defense for Apple's market position becomes weaker every day.

[SllX]

> As someone who only has one or two of their peripherals, Lightning is the worst part of their products.

And as someone with a few things around that still take microUSB: that is by far the worst thing about those products. I also know that if I had bought those same products 5 years earlier than I had, each one of them would take a different cable standard from each other and none of it would be compatible with anything else in my house. So the worst thing here is an inconvenience now that was a solid upgrade at the time.

> It only becomes infuriating when you realize that Apple's omission of USB-C is entirely arbitrary and not held up by technical limitation.

By the time Type-C was a realistic consideration, Apple had already sold large quantities of Lightning connectors in their products to a customer base that was still complaining about the transition from the 30-pin Dock connector. Not immediately rushing to replace Lightning when there were still large numbers of products using 30-pin in-use was a good business decision, not an arbitrary one.

> Apple designed the Thunderbolt spec with their own two hands to ensure this isn't an issue.

Apple and Intel collaborated. Don’t give them too much credit. Also: Type-C != Thunderbolt != USB.

> Apple has always been on the forefront of technical adoption - their refusal to abandon Lightning is product negligence, plain and simple.

There’s a lot of things I can point to at Apple under Tim Cook’s tenure and call “product negligence”. This isn’t one of them. I think the negligent part is in not upgrading the transfer rates at some point in the last 10 years, but not immediately abandoning Lightning for Type-C isn’t one of them, and the e-waste concerns are way overblown. People will buy as many cables as they think they need. If you can swap cables around from other products, that’s actually pretty great, but it’s a fringe benefit because if you’re maintaining a ratio of cables to devices anyway, the most likely outcome isn’t that there will be fewer cables manufactured and thrown away, but that there will be more cables of a particular variety manufactured and thrown away. You might save on one or two cables, but the moment the ratio of devices that need a charge to cables tips too high, you’re just going to buy another cable. Which cable? Whichever one you need for whatever you want to use it for, but if its primary purpose is to deliver electricity and not bits (the most common application for even data cables), the shape of the connector is basically just a detail because the other end is probably going to be Type-C or Type-A USB, chosen based on what bricks you have available or are willing to purchase.

My only hope with an upcoming iPhone connector transition is that we’ll see transfer rates of at least 5 Gbps, and I dare not hope for more lest I be disappointed.