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Apologies in advance for the rant: > the Lightning connector Lightning is the better-engineered physical connector. Quite-heavy phones can be held up on a cha

by derefr 5y ago

Apologies in advance for the rant: > the Lightning connector Lightning is the better-engineered physical connector. Quite-heavy phones can be held up on a charging cradle with 100% of the load placed on the Lightning connector, while this would destroy a USB-C connector. A Lightning jack is a solid piece of aluminum, plus two plastic bits on either side with wires running up them. It's simple and robust. The socket is equally simple. USB-C — all of the USBs, really — give unneeded opportunity to catch debris inside the connectors and then force said debris into the slots, gumming it up. Lightning avoids this; the jack is designed to be completely flat+smooth+convex, so no debris collects on/in it. The only reason USB-C doesn't just use a Lightning connector is spite. IIRC, Apple offered the USB Forum the Lightning connector patents if they wanted them, but they refused. Instead, the USB Forum copied what they considered the desirable features of Lightning — e.g. reversibility; but implemented them worse (with non-mirrored sense pins requiring USB PHYs to understand orientation); and then sought extra trouble trying to solve problems that people provably hadn't been having with Lightning (e.g. re-adding a shroud for the pins — presumably to protect from scratches/rust — when nobody has ever had a Lightning cable fail for this reason; where this design choice increased the failure rate of USB-C sockets. The cables are supposed to have the sacrificial side of the connection!)

goosedragons 5y ago
Hah! I had to clean pocket lint out of my XS like a half dozen times in the two years I used it. I've known a few people with iPhones that have had this problem too where it stops charging and the culprit is lint. Apple even has a special tool just for this for purpose they give to Geniuses. Maybe it doesn't happen cable end but it sure happens pocket end. I've mostly had Android phones and haven't had to clean as many USB C ports as the XS. Lightning also has that problem where the 4th pin burns out and now you have a cable that charges one way. I've yet to have that happen on a USB C cable.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  That's a lot of lint! I've had iPhones from day 1 and only needed to clean out 4-5 times total. Easy to do with a toothpick or canned air!
- derefr 5y ago
  > Maybe it doesn't happen cable end but it sure happens pocket end. I've mostly had Android phones and haven't had to clean as many USB C ports as the XS. I mean, from an engineering/repair POV, these sorts of short-term, user-correctable connection faults are a good trade-off for having fewer long-term, actual-repair-needed "junk getting in there and breaking something" problems. See, on the complete opposite end of engineering robustness: the butterfly keyboard. The hinges in those things just loved to hoover in debris, and then ground themselves apart, with user repair (i.e. popping off the keycaps to get the debris out before it can break your keyboard) being "inadvisable" at best (i.e. likely destroying the hinges just as well as the debris would have.) > Lightning also has that problem where the 4th pin burns out and now you have a cable that charges one way. This is true, but it's due to the electrical design (sense and VCC right next to each-other), not the physical connector design. If USB-C had used a Lightning physical connector, they could have corrected this problem just by ordering the pinout differently.
  - FireBeyond 5y ago
    To me, the device with the Lightning connector (my phone, my AirPods) spends far more time in places (like my jacket, jeans, shirt pocket, etc.) than do any of the connector ends in my many USB-C cables.
- Retric 5y ago
  That’s odd, I have never cleaned lint from an iPhone and I am on a long upgrade cycle. It might be an issue with your case or something.
- brewdad 5y ago
  Does no one use the Nintendo cartridge solution anymore?
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Doesn't work. The lightning connector compacts the dust tightly and it can't be blown away.
crossroadsguy 5y ago
You must be using a dust repelling, perfectly engineered, made of naturally occurring purest of metals, first time in any iPhone kinda lighting connector because mine needs dust cleaning often.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I must be living somewhere with minimal dust because I have never dust cleaned any of my or my family member’s iPhones, in years. Especially not the lighting jack.
emptyparadise 5y ago
>The only reason USB-C doesn't just use a Lightning connector is spite. IIRC, Apple offered the USB Forum the Lightning connector patents if they wanted them, but they refused. I'd love to read more about this, especially since I also heard somebody claim that USB-C was based on an older Apple power socket.
- dagmx 5y ago
  A few googlers on HN have previously told me that the USB-C connector came out of the Chromebook team
- vxNsr 5y ago
  My understanding was some what different and also came from comments made here: apple made both connectors and offered the worse one (type-c) to the USB Forum. Because it was reversible, smaller than usb-A and overall a better design vs usb-A they took it, but lightning is the superior connection.

by derefr 5y ago

goosedragons 5y ago

Hah! I had to clean pocket lint out of my XS like a half dozen times in the two years I used it. I've known a few people with iPhones that have had this problem too where it stops charging and the culprit is lint. Apple even has a special tool just for this for purpose they give to Geniuses. Maybe it doesn't happen cable end but it sure happens pocket end. I've mostly had Android phones and haven't had to clean as many USB C ports as the XS. Lightning also has that problem where the 4th pin burns out and now you have a cable that charges one way. I've yet to have that happen on a USB C cable.

gnicholas 5y ago
That's a lot of lint! I've had iPhones from day 1 and only needed to clean out 4-5 times total. Easy to do with a toothpick or canned air!
derefr 5y ago
> Maybe it doesn't happen cable end but it sure happens pocket end. I've mostly had Android phones and haven't had to clean as many USB C ports as the XS. I mean, from an engineering/repair POV, these sorts of short-term, user-correctable connection faults are a good trade-off for having fewer long-term, actual-repair-needed "junk getting in there and breaking something" problems. See, on the complete opposite end of engineering robustness: the butterfly keyboard. The hinges in those things just loved to hoover in debris, and then ground themselves apart, with user repair (i.e. popping off the keycaps to get the debris out before it can break your keyboard) being "inadvisable" at best (i.e. likely destroying the hinges just as well as the debris would have.) > Lightning also has that problem where the 4th pin burns out and now you have a cable that charges one way. This is true, but it's due to the electrical design (sense and VCC right next to each-other), not the physical connector design. If USB-C had used a Lightning physical connector, they could have corrected this problem just by ordering the pinout differently.
- FireBeyond 5y ago
  To me, the device with the Lightning connector (my phone, my AirPods) spends far more time in places (like my jacket, jeans, shirt pocket, etc.) than do any of the connector ends in my many USB-C cables.
Retric 5y ago
That’s odd, I have never cleaned lint from an iPhone and I am on a long upgrade cycle. It might be an issue with your case or something.
brewdad 5y ago
Does no one use the Nintendo cartridge solution anymore?
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Doesn't work. The lightning connector compacts the dust tightly and it can't be blown away.

crossroadsguy 5y ago

You must be using a dust repelling, perfectly engineered, made of naturally occurring purest of metals, first time in any iPhone kinda lighting connector because mine needs dust cleaning often.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
I must be living somewhere with minimal dust because I have never dust cleaned any of my or my family member’s iPhones, in years. Especially not the lighting jack.

emptyparadise 5y ago

>The only reason USB-C doesn't just use a Lightning connector is spite. IIRC, Apple offered the USB Forum the Lightning connector patents if they wanted them, but they refused. I'd love to read more about this, especially since I also heard somebody claim that USB-C was based on an older Apple power socket.

dagmx 5y ago
A few googlers on HN have previously told me that the USB-C connector came out of the Chromebook team
vxNsr 5y ago
My understanding was some what different and also came from comments made here: apple made both connectors and offered the worse one (type-c) to the USB Forum. Because it was reversible, smaller than usb-A and overall a better design vs usb-A they took it, but lightning is the superior connection.