[BLanen]

There were non-apple lightning cables already.

And I have to say, the lightning connector itself is better than the usb-c connect in my opinion. I get that having the pins on the male* plug is a theoretical advantage in durability but that has not been my experience with usb-c connector durability on either end.

EDIT: usb-c has pins on the male plug. Which is what I meant. So female -> male.

[gwbas1c]

> the lightning connector itself is better than the usb-c connect in my opinion. I get that having the pins on the male* plug is a theoretical advantage in durability but that has not been my experience with usb-c connector durability on either end.

I always end up picking a lot of dust out of my usb-c ports on my phones; or otherwise the port wears out and disconnects before charging completes. (Right after my wife entered the hospital in labor, I needed to scrounge around for something to clean out my phone's port because the "go" bag only had a wired charger and my phone wouldn't charge on it.)

It's why I went to a wireless charger for daily use.

---

I'm real curious why lightning never became the standard. Was Apple trying to keep it proprietary? Was there a half-hearted attempt to open it up or otherwise convince the Android ecosystem to use it?

[Pet_Ant]

> I'm real curious why lightning never became the standard.

Because it is bad. In any connection there are springs that keep the tension, which will eventually wear out. They can either be on the cheap replaceable cable, or in the receptacle that is hardwired into your expensive device.

This is why, in part, USB Mini was replaced by USB Micro. ( https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/18552/why-wa... )

> Why Micro types offer better durability? Accomplished by moving leaf-spring from the PCB receptacle to plug, the most-stressed part is now on the cable side of the connection. Inexpensive cable bears most wear instead of the µUSB device.

Definitely had an iPhone where the port was worn out and getting it to connect was difficult.

[ianburrell]

One reason is that Lightning couldn't do the faster speeds or extra modes like USB-C. There were USB3 and display adapters but they were sort of hacks. USB-C was used for MacBooks and iPad Pros. USB-C allows passive adapters to USB2 and USB3.

[elzbardico]

For everyone one with issues with lint either in a USB or Lightning port I really recommend an inexpensive can of compressed air.

[hutattedonmyarm]

> I always end up picking a lot of dust out of my usb-c ports on my phones

Lightning has the same issue sadly

[Kirby64]

The advantage of Lightning here is there is a totally open port, so picking lint out of the port is substantially easier. With Type C you have to work around the 'tab' and it requires much much smaller tools.

[graemep]

I have not used lightning but I have found USB C to be much more fragile than USB A, although better than mini and micro. I would really rather have had evey thing be a few mm bigger and stick with A.

[yellowapple]

A USB-C successor (USB-D?) that's USB-A sized but with the added pins, reversibility, and bidirectionality of USB-C would be neat. But USB-C is “good enough” as a one-standard-to-rule-them-all that I don't think it'd be worth it unless there was a massive benefit (faster data transfer? beefier power lines? optical data lines?).

[valina-line]

That's fascinating; I've only had positive experience with USB-C cables and terrible with Lightning. What kind of cables do you commonly use?

[kubb]

Couldn't be further from my experience. They would always eventually stop connecting.

I didn't mention the single cable for everything advantage, that goes without saying.

[kotaKat]

I've also had basically zero issue with Lightning connectors, but had a constant battle with USB-C of every kind to figure out what's charging, what's data, what's PD, and so much more hassle.

I don't get why Apple was forced to colonize by the EU when they had the market-leading connector in place for significantly longer than USB-C even existed.

"It's only USB2!" Does it have to support the faster USB3 speeds? Not really... we don't have to keep forcing everything to include the latest kitchen sink support.

[wredcoll]

If apple had made lightning an actual standard everyone was using then the eu might have chosen that instead.

But they didn't. Every single other company/device was using usb(c) and it probably wasn't because of some kind if irrational dislike of words starting with the letter L.

[Aefiam]

As far as I understand Apple could have still supported an additional lightning port if they really cared about it.

Per gemini for making ligthning accessories you also have to pay 4$ to apple per device that are passed onto the consumer.

I dont know in what way that has to do with colonization.

USB everywhere is nice because you can use the same charger for all kind of devices and dont have to carry multiple with you.

The different kind of specs for usb cables is unfortunate, but you can just buy the highest spec ones and only use them.

[wlesieutre]

It was only 2.5 years between Apple's first device with Lightning (iPhone 5 in September 2012) and their first device with USB-C (12" Macbook in April 2015). It's not like Lightning had a huge track record at that point they just made a decision that they had switched connectors once and didn't want to turn around and do it again. Kind of understandable, but I'm glad to not have Lightning anymore.

Failure to have clear cable capability marking from the start is too bad though, if I needed a high speed USB cable longer than 6" (probably included with a hard drive enclosure or similar) I'm not sure if I own one, and if I do I have no idea which cable it is.