[a13o]

The last time they changed their connector (to lightning) they invalidated a lot of third party accessories designed around the old connector. Not simple stuff, like cables, but docks galore; many in expensive long-term purchases like luxury cars and stereo equipment. It stressed a lot of partnerships that define Apple's luxury brand status.

[Gigachad]

I remember there used to be a huge number of these speakers where you would sit the phone or ipod on the connector/stand. And all of those got obsoleted by the switch to lightning, but I don't think I've seen a single design like that since the 30 pin connector was dropped. It's all bluetooth now. And with the more even split between iphones and android these days, no hardware maker would put a fixed lightning stand on a device now.

[a13o]

I think between Bluetooth for data and Qi for power delivery, many consumer use-cases have been able to avoid the same trap as last time. But there's still a fair amount of devices in the point of sale space that dock directly to the lightning port. You'll see them if you look for them at the farmers market. So Apple isn't fully out of this bind yet.

[prettyStandard]

I agree that switching creates waste, not switching creates other waste. If they wanted to minimize waste, they should have released lighting and usb-c iphones years ago and slowly phased out the lighting. Maybe even just update lightning to support USBC speeds. But alas we are stuck with this local optimum when there was a better global optimum that we missed for profit.

[askvictor]

If they wanted to minimize waste they would have contributed to developing USB-C, which would have been in the pipeline when they were working on Lightning. Or failing that, making Lightning an open standard that other gadget makers could adopt. But that doesn't make as much money as vendor lock-in.

[dagmx]

They were one of the contributors to USB-C based on the learnings from lightning though, and one of the earliest adopters of it with their Macs.

I get people want to do the whole “<XYZ Company> is evil” but at least get the basics of the argument right.

[viraptor]

There's a few portable ultrasound devices with lightning connectors. For example https://www.butterflynetwork.com/iq-ultrasound-individuals

[zamalek]

Luckily there is an existing ecosystem of USB-C accessories. Many provide both USB-C and lightning versions.

Apple are dragging their feet because one form of Apple tax is going away.

[saiya-jin]

Apple is the only one who should be concerned about its 'luxury' brand status, we users have completely different priorities then tax-evading mega corporations milking its users base with high margins.

And Apple a luxury in 2023, really? Competition phones are more expensive and loaded with better hardware, some look significantly better (cough notch cough), Apple also has budget phones... I don't think you understand the term luxury if you include current Apple into it. Louis Vuitton is an example of luxury brand. Apple is alternative to Android or Windows for laptops, thats it.