They’re also not engineered to the standards of an iPhone either. The cost comes from somewhere… everyone has been fine paying for usb 2.0 speeds over lightning on even the pro max versions as recently as today because they’re still selling iphones.
I get it, android phones have a better cost/benefit for you. Some people prefer the tradeoffs that Apple makes, like privacy, quality materials, a different OS, battery life, etc.
> everyone has been fine paying for usb 2.0 speeds over lightning on even the pro max versions as recently as today because they’re still selling iphones
Yes because they had no choice! Apple literally gave them no choice to select to use a 10 year old technology. Something that has been standard in Samsung Galaxy phones since 2017.
Unless they were willing to give up an entire ecosystem they had invested thousands of dollars in have purchased apps, have their data stored everything.
It's Stockholm syndrome.
It's almost as bad as the comment above saying "yah it's reasonable to need to pay for the Pro version for USB 3.0"!
And we all know if Apple had launched with USB 3.0 6 years before the competition and called it lightning 2.0, users old never stop talking about how necessary it is, and how Apple so incredibly caters to the needs of their users and how big a difference is it.
I don't know how they do it, but that company gets people to blindly believe whatever they're told. And rationalize away any terrible decision.
There is only one other consumer company that I've seen get away with that.
I agree with what you're saying, yes Apple is a terrible value; but Apple customer's don't seem to care about that and I'm not sure if it's really cause for outrage. I also doubt that most customers will even notice the difference. It is quite rare that I connect a cable to a phone for data transfer, and when I do, if I have a 2.0 cable nearby I wouldn't bother reaching any further for a 3.0 cable, even if the phone supports the faster speeds. Even if I'm loading up some movies for a flight or something, practically speaking it's such a rare event that I would just initiate the transfer and grab a snack or something. It's pretty obvious why they did this, I'm not sure it's such a bad engineering decision really, to make the best of the silicon they already have. And for users who actually do care, the ones who are lurking on HN, they are compelled to spend more for the speed.
You managed to entirely miss their point in response to complaining about iPhone pricing.
Namely that there are other factors that justify the cost of iPhones v. the cost of low to midrange Androids.
The proper counter to that would be for you to give examples of a low to midrange Android, at that low to midrange Android price, that is able to match the specs and build quality of an iPhone, besides USB speeds.
Alternatively you could also concede that they have a point of course.
They don't care about USB 2.0 because they're so brainwashed with crippled devices that they think that iCloud is necessary to get data from their phone to their PC.
Yeah it must be the kool aid and not the fact that the average iPhone user barely ever transfers anything from their iPhone to a PC much less ever uses their cable for data transfer.
I know more seniors that know their way around AirDrop (or things “magically” appearing on their desktop device via iCloud, unbeknownst to them) than people that even realize that the cable they use to charge their iPhone could also transfer data.
Next you’re gonna tell me that they don’t care about Cat5 because they’re brainwashed to think WiFi is necessary to get internet.
it's crazy to me just how much fanboy wars have fallen into "products that I don't want to buy should be outlawed". especially in this android-vs-iphone arena.
> If this was any other company they would be lambasted.
I’m sorry, are we still talking about Apple here?
The very same Apple that gets lambasted no matter what they do because it makes for great clickbait and fuel for fandroids?
They very same Apple that got lambasted for being the first to fully embrace USB-C on their 12” MacBook back in 2015 and now is being lambasted for being the last to adopt USB-C on their phone lineup.
I shudder to think what other companies go through if your definition’s threshold for being “lambasted” is so high.
> Presumably the same product team that decided we didn't need a headphone jack, as we could just buy more overpriced and profitable dongles and cables.
They were right. I haven't missed the headphone jack once. Bluetooth earphones are cheap and easy to come by, if you want premium sound you can buy an expensive set. The headphone jack was outdated and not needed. If you REALLY want a wired set, a dongle is <£10 from apple or <£5 from amazon. This is a stupid complaint.
People with crazy ass multi-hundred (or thousand) dollar headphones complaining about a fucking $8 dongle will never cease to amuse me.
I actually wonder if they wanted to get rid of the headphone jack not because of the space it took up (which is significant for the number of connections) but for help with 'water-proofing'.
I also feel like one of the main reasons for at least the design of the lightning connector was multi-faceted. At the time their obvious other choice would have been micro usb B, which is a terrible connector that fails often, especially in cases where it is heavily used. It would have been a support nightmare for them. The design of lightning being a thicker 'core' type connector rather than the flimsy core of a micro usb B or even usb C probably made it easier to make water resistant and cut down on hardware support concerning the connector. I know that on the few occasions when I was having problems with cable connections to an ipad or iphone i'd grab a pair of tweezers and find some lint in the female side of the connetor.
A dongle that I have to carry everywhere, that is trivial to lose, and that blocks charging my device unless I buy an even more expensive and awkwardly shaped/sized dongle - a real winner.
By you. People with existing setups and sometimes expensive headphones would disagree. And the whole donglemania is ridiculous - especially models with only Thunderbolt ports are practically unusable without a hub.
It's difficult to detect sarcasm these day so please excuse me if I misunderstood your comment. But Apple is notorious for extorting disproportionate money for features that cost much less in competing products, such as memory and disk storage, and also for straight anti-customer behavior such as making most key parts irreplaceable by users so they have to stick with whatever specs they got. The only thing "I trust Apple with" is that they do their best to maximize profits.
Suppose I've already sunk my money into a "special" thing and find out it lacks some bog standard goodness. Perhaps it was even designed to lack this goodness. I might reflexively ask, "Does anyone actually need that goodness?" in a desperate attempt to save face and prevent myself from feeling like a goober.
Above, my face-saving sentence was written to seem so reflexive and thoughtless that the query ends up sounding absurd. I mean, technically, it is at least coherent to ask whether the time saved by not having to deal with a particular class of problems is ever necessary, in any sense from remaining employed to the survival of the human species. In any case, it's also a red herring.
Above, someone called this face-saving tactic a "cope" which I've never heard but now love. :)