8 ms·

I don't see why "What about innovation?" is taken seriously as an argument anyway. USB-C is more than adequate, we could coast with it for the next hundred yea

I don't see why "What about innovation?" is taken seriously as an argument anyway. USB-C is more than adequate, we could coast with it for the next hundred years. Nobody is kept up at night by the lack of innovation in AC power plugs, the standards countries have settled on today, while not all equivalent, are all generally satisfactory in practice. Problem solved; stop fixing that which ain't broke and move on to other matters. Yeah yeah, "640k should be enough for everybody". There comes a point where that is actually true.

solarkraft 4y ago
> Nobody is kept up at night by the lack of innovation in AC power plugs Mandatory Tom Scott video about bri'ish power plugs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q :-)
- tleilaxu 4y ago
  British plugs are the only thing I will ever get nationalistic about. They’re great. Hurt like a sod to stand on if the prongs are face up though!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - kyriakos 4y ago
    Being in an ex British colony it's one of the good things left to us from that time but unfortunately it means we need adaptors wherever we travel.
- avar 4y ago
  That's a good overview of the features of UK plugs, but a terrible one for establishing the supposed superiority of the UK design. Much of what he describes is e.g. a feature of Schuko plugs/sockets. The main distinguishing feature of the UK design is a technical workaround for a problem that no longer exists (WWII copper shortage requiring the embedded fuse).
- oldgradstudent 4y ago
  Except that they're huge. Can't the same safety features fit in a smaller package?
- Zak 4y ago
  I like US plugs. Sure, it's easier to shock yourself with them, but you usually only do that once (because it feels bad, not because it's often fatal). I like them because they're small. I have a nifty little 3-port USB-A/C power supply where the plug folds flush. Europlug would have trouble doing that, and it's outright impossible with Schuko and UK plugs.
  - Lio 4y ago
    I have a nifty little 3-port USB-A/C power supply where the plug folds flush. ... and it's outright impossible with Schuko and UK plugs You mean exactly like this folding UK adapter from Apple? :P https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MGMY3B/A/apple-5w-usb-power-adapter-folding-pins https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MGMY3B/A/apple-5w-usb-... Other folding UK plug brands are available. /bbc_announcer_voice
    - Zak 4y ago
      That's the closest I've seen. There's still a huge amount of bulk devoted to the plug, but that does fold flat.
  - dzhiurgis 4y ago
    NZ plugs are small and don’t fall out. Best part is you can convert US plugs to NZ with a pair of pliers.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  We had to leave to EU to get those much safer 3 pin plugs we had since 1911. https://inews.co.uk/video/lbc-caller-three-pin-plugs-236449 https://inews.co.uk/video/lbc-caller-three-pin-plugs-236449
- Lio 4y ago
  "The live is brown because that's the colour your trousers will go if you touch it." Wonderful! :D
bloppe 4y ago
To be totally fair, it's not like a phone manufacturer is going to put 2 different ports on their device, so this is essentially regulating data as well as power. But also to be fair, USB-C cables that support thunderbolt 3 are a couple orders of magnitude faster (throughput) than Apple's lightning cables (40 Gbps vs ~480 Mbps), and if Apple could possibly support such speeds without releasing a new backwards-incompatible cable, they would have done so long ago. If Apple ever wanted to support faster than 40 Gbps, they would have to do so in concert with the rest of the tech industry and release it as an open standard. I'd like to hear somebody try to argue this is a bad thing.
- dwaite 4y ago
  > But also to be fair, USB-C cables that support thunderbolt 3 are a couple orders of magnitude faster (throughput) than Apple's lightning cables (40 Gbps vs ~480 Mbps) however, extremely few devices ship capable of these data rates, and many USB-C cables ship only supporting 480 mbps data transfer. > ... Apple could possibly support such speeds without releasing a new backwards-incompatible cable, they would have done so long ago. Lightning supports USB 3 (superspeed 5gbps) speeds. The lightning USB 3 camera adapter supports it for compatible devices. They did indeed figure this out long ago. They didn't do it because most people don't use lightning cables for data or even understand they _could_ use lightning cables for data. > If Apple ever wanted to support faster than 40 Gbps, they would have to do so in concert with the rest of the tech industry and release it as an open standard. I'd like to hear somebody try to argue this is a bad thing. Apple contributed to both thunderbolt iterations and to USB4. They were first adopters of both, as well as shipping the first USB-C laptop. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here.
tephra 4y ago
When they started this in 2009 they did want to make micro usb the thing everybody was forced to use. It's only by luck that it took enough time to not get stuck on that...
- elif 4y ago
  Contrarily, if they were able to pass that standard quickly, it would stand to reason that they could also pass a USB-C standard quickly. USB-C becoming standardized for phones will not slow the advancement of USB specs, and if the physical form factor becomes a constraint somehow, they will devise a better one and will standardize it likewise, even if consumer model phones can't ship with them from day 0. A great example of this is EV charging connectors. The Tesla spec was superior until recently, but because the EU has mandated CCS, as communication/payment has been implemented within the standard, European cars find themselves with a universal plug and a universal charging network that can be unilaterally improved. Meanwhile in the US we now have 2 charging networks on 2 standards, and no real path to unification.
  - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
    The Tesla spec still is superior. Europeans just don't get its benefits anymore. The CCS mandate was mostly protectionism and I strongly doubt it would have happened if Tesla were headquartered in Germany.
    - wbsss4412 4y ago
      How is it mostly protectionism? There are currently three different fast charging standards, Tesla’s, CCS, and Chademo, and a vast need for improvements in charging infrastructure. If you don’t have a common standard, you end up with a fragmented network that caps everyone’s utility. Imagine if ICE cars could only get gas from certain types of stations, it’s madness.
      - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
        > How is it mostly protectionism? Seriously? The clear leader for a decade has been Tesla, which is based in the US. Chademo also has a lot of traction and is dominant in Japan and parts of east Asia. CCS is popular in Europe (along with Tesla). The EU mandated that all must use CCS, which has never been dominant in terms of technology or market share. It's blatant protectionism.
tomp 4y ago
This argument would sound less hollow if there weren’t two existing superior (from a user experience perspective) alternatives already on the market. Apple’s Lightning (thinner than USB-C) and MagSafe (safer than USB-C for charging laptops… so glad Apple is transitioning back to it for M2 Airs)
- thaway2839 4y ago
  Lightning cables don't last. They are a complete disaster. And that's not even considering how a little bit of dust can prevent your device from charging at all, and lightning ports are a complete dust magnet. But the best argument against "what about lightning?" is the fact that Apple themselves don't use it on their higher powered devices like macs, and use USB-C instead.
  - alimov 4y ago
    Haven’t had any terrible experiences with lightning cables. I have several cables that are from 2016/2018 that I use regularly. But then again none of my type c cables go bad either… I think it would have been safer to say “from my experience <xyz>” instead of presenting your opinion as if it were more than just an opinion. I see how friends and family members treat their cables, tugging on the phone to disconnect instead of removing the cable by hand. Or placing the charger in a way that the cable is bent up against a piece of furniture. Regarding the lightning port, it’s actually quite easy to clean, compared to ports like usb-c (I’m guessing you know why that would be). Also using lightning on a Mac doesn’t make sense and that’s probably why they don’t do it.
  - ultrarunner 4y ago
    I was never sure if it was dust causing my phone to refuse to charge or Apple's gatekeeping "official" cables. There used to be jailbreak tweaks that would allow unauthorized cables to suddenly start working fine, but the best I could do in iOS 14 was get a cable to maintain the battery (without charging it). Perhaps Apple is shooting their own standard in the foot simply by enforcing their certification program. That said, you're absolutely right that its limit is reached already with phones. Some old cables have two pins (presumably VDD) that are discolored from use. Would not want lightning for charging a laptop.
biztos 4y ago
> the lack of innovation in AC power plugs Having lived in a country (Thailand) where both Euro and US plugs work just fine as long as you mind your voltage, I have become quite annoyed at that lack of innovation.
- stubish 4y ago
  In Thailand I became quite annoyed by the lack of grounding. If your sockets where actually modern enough to have ground, it is rarely connected to anything at all, or sometimes just screwed to the wall. Rare to find a ground spike in a dwelling. Common to get zapped by your shower's electric water heater.
  - biztos 4y ago
    My place in Bangkok is a nice modern luxury building... at least it was luxury when they built it 17 years ago, now it's falling apart a bit but the amenities are awesome. The electric is probably grounded straight into the Chao Phraya river. :-)
- FactolSarin 4y ago
  How could both be compatible? US plugs are meant operate at 120 volts, EU at 240. I don't see how both could be supported safely.
  - biztos 4y ago
    > as long as you mind your voltage It's not the plugs, it's the devices (or more commonly now, the power adapters) that work with 120, 240, or however many volts. Nowadays many (most?) things take both voltages or, AFAICT -- I'm no electrician! -- anything reasonably close. So in Thailand, for the most part, you can just plug in your MacBook or whatever and you don't need an adapter for the plug itself. Of course, if you're wrong about the voltage, things might go bad. And as the other reply noted, this convenience doesn't make it safer, quite the opposite. But I just generally have realized there's a lot of innovation that could be done in plugs and sockets, but isn't being done. As someone else commented above, the UK plugs are really interesting... but in my opinion maddeningly, unnecessarily big.
paulmd 4y ago
> I don't see why "What about innovation?" is taken seriously as an argument anyway. because the USB-IF historically has struggled to reach enough consensus from its stakeholders to allow innovation to take place. The entire reason that lightning exists in the first place is because USB-IF couldn't agree on a replacement for micro-B (which everyone agreed clearly needed improvement!) and one of the members just had to shrug and go do it themselves. Once one of the members had gone there and proven the concept, it lit a fire under the asses of the rest of the consortium. Same for why thunderbolt exists as a standard and not as USB 4 in the first place... not enough consensus to go there as an official standard rather than an extension. It took what, 10 years after Thunderbolt was standardized before we finally pulled ourselves out of the fecal lagoon of USB 3.x standards? And then you layer in the dysfunction from the members that are primarily interested in creating consumer confusion with the USB 3.0, USB3.1 Type-1, USB 3.1 Type-2, USB 3.2 Type-1, USB 3.2 Type-2, USB 3.2 Type-2x2 nonsense so that they can deceptively and maliciously sell yesterday's hardware with tomorrow's standard on the box... many of the members of USB-IF are interested in actively stalling progress if it means they save 30 cents on their BOM. This is not an organization with consumer interests at heart. They are a bad choice to be the legal guardian (more like, conservator) of all innovation.
- kanetw 4y ago
  Absolutely. On top of that, I feel like USB-C is deliberately engineered to sell more ICs. Which wouldn't be that huge of an issue except as a result, all relevant ICs are sold out (or unsuitable). CC/PD use a custom transmission standard so you can't implement it without a PHY, which basically means at least one dedicated IC.
  - Evidlo 4y ago
    Well you can still do USB2.0 over USB-C for all your low-speed, low-power gadgets.
    - kanetw 4y ago
      Yeah, that's about the only thing you can do without ICs. 500mA max, high-speed lanes unused.
fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
MagSafe-style charging connectors are an innovation that, IMO, justifies breaking compatibility. I dislike this forced standardization on USB-C because USB-3/USB-C is a user-hostile nightmare standard.
tester756 4y ago
>Gates himself has strenuously denied making the comment. In a newspaper column that he wrote in the mid-1990s, Gates responded to a student's question about the quote: "I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time." Later in the column, he added, "I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough. There's never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again."
drtjsw4ju 4y ago
What a shock, the European argument is "But why do you need so much innovation?" Pretty much summarizes their place in the world in a nutshell.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Lmfao, I've never been outside America or Canada. I'll take you calling me European as a compliment though.
Aeolun 4y ago
> There comes a point where that is actually true. Like IPv6
spoonjim 4y ago
Not sure how a technologist could think that USB-C is the best that we could do. It could be smaller, easier to attach in the dark, easier to attach with one hand, etc. etc. The government is not good at technology. They should step out of the way and let the consumer decide.
speleding 4y ago
Well, there are some serious drawbacks to USB-C. For one, it's not IP rated, which means you cannot use it to charge anything in a bathroom or a kitchen. That's a shame because there are a lot of appliances like electric toothbrushes that would also benefit from a single plug.
rnk 4y ago
The innovation was primarily financial innovation in taking money unnecessarily from your customers, except for a very few cases. Lightning was a good cable in the early days, but but then became a financial windfall for apple of course.

solarkraft 4y ago

> Nobody is kept up at night by the lack of innovation in AC power plugs Mandatory Tom Scott video about bri'ish power plugs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q :-)

tleilaxu 4y ago
British plugs are the only thing I will ever get nationalistic about. They’re great. Hurt like a sod to stand on if the prongs are face up though!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kyriakos 4y ago
  Being in an ex British colony it's one of the good things left to us from that time but unfortunately it means we need adaptors wherever we travel.
avar 4y ago
That's a good overview of the features of UK plugs, but a terrible one for establishing the supposed superiority of the UK design. Much of what he describes is e.g. a feature of Schuko plugs/sockets. The main distinguishing feature of the UK design is a technical workaround for a problem that no longer exists (WWII copper shortage requiring the embedded fuse).
oldgradstudent 4y ago
Except that they're huge. Can't the same safety features fit in a smaller package?
Zak 4y ago
I like US plugs. Sure, it's easier to shock yourself with them, but you usually only do that once (because it feels bad, not because it's often fatal). I like them because they're small. I have a nifty little 3-port USB-A/C power supply where the plug folds flush. Europlug would have trouble doing that, and it's outright impossible with Schuko and UK plugs.
- Lio 4y ago
  I have a nifty little 3-port USB-A/C power supply where the plug folds flush. ... and it's outright impossible with Schuko and UK plugs You mean exactly like this folding UK adapter from Apple? :P https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MGMY3B/A/apple-5w-usb-power-adapter-folding-pins https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MGMY3B/A/apple-5w-usb-... Other folding UK plug brands are available. /bbc_announcer_voice
  - Zak 4y ago
    That's the closest I've seen. There's still a huge amount of bulk devoted to the plug, but that does fold flat.
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  NZ plugs are small and don’t fall out. Best part is you can convert US plugs to NZ with a pair of pliers.
shapefrog 4y ago
We had to leave to EU to get those much safer 3 pin plugs we had since 1911. https://inews.co.uk/video/lbc-caller-three-pin-plugs-236449 https://inews.co.uk/video/lbc-caller-three-pin-plugs-236449
Lio 4y ago
"The live is brown because that's the colour your trousers will go if you touch it." Wonderful! :D

bloppe 4y ago

To be totally fair, it's not like a phone manufacturer is going to put 2 different ports on their device, so this is essentially regulating data as well as power. But also to be fair, USB-C cables that support thunderbolt 3 are a couple orders of magnitude faster (throughput) than Apple's lightning cables (40 Gbps vs ~480 Mbps), and if Apple could possibly support such speeds without releasing a new backwards-incompatible cable, they would have done so long ago. If Apple ever wanted to support faster than 40 Gbps, they would have to do so in concert with the rest of the tech industry and release it as an open standard. I'd like to hear somebody try to argue this is a bad thing.

dwaite 4y ago
> But also to be fair, USB-C cables that support thunderbolt 3 are a couple orders of magnitude faster (throughput) than Apple's lightning cables (40 Gbps vs ~480 Mbps) however, extremely few devices ship capable of these data rates, and many USB-C cables ship only supporting 480 mbps data transfer. > ... Apple could possibly support such speeds without releasing a new backwards-incompatible cable, they would have done so long ago. Lightning supports USB 3 (superspeed 5gbps) speeds. The lightning USB 3 camera adapter supports it for compatible devices. They did indeed figure this out long ago. They didn't do it because most people don't use lightning cables for data or even understand they _could_ use lightning cables for data. > If Apple ever wanted to support faster than 40 Gbps, they would have to do so in concert with the rest of the tech industry and release it as an open standard. I'd like to hear somebody try to argue this is a bad thing. Apple contributed to both thunderbolt iterations and to USB4. They were first adopters of both, as well as shipping the first USB-C laptop. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here.

tephra 4y ago

When they started this in 2009 they did want to make micro usb the thing everybody was forced to use. It's only by luck that it took enough time to not get stuck on that...

elif 4y ago
Contrarily, if they were able to pass that standard quickly, it would stand to reason that they could also pass a USB-C standard quickly. USB-C becoming standardized for phones will not slow the advancement of USB specs, and if the physical form factor becomes a constraint somehow, they will devise a better one and will standardize it likewise, even if consumer model phones can't ship with them from day 0. A great example of this is EV charging connectors. The Tesla spec was superior until recently, but because the EU has mandated CCS, as communication/payment has been implemented within the standard, European cars find themselves with a universal plug and a universal charging network that can be unilaterally improved. Meanwhile in the US we now have 2 charging networks on 2 standards, and no real path to unification.
- AlchemistCamp 4y ago
  The Tesla spec still is superior. Europeans just don't get its benefits anymore. The CCS mandate was mostly protectionism and I strongly doubt it would have happened if Tesla were headquartered in Germany.
  - wbsss4412 4y ago
    How is it mostly protectionism? There are currently three different fast charging standards, Tesla’s, CCS, and Chademo, and a vast need for improvements in charging infrastructure. If you don’t have a common standard, you end up with a fragmented network that caps everyone’s utility. Imagine if ICE cars could only get gas from certain types of stations, it’s madness.
    - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
      > How is it mostly protectionism? Seriously? The clear leader for a decade has been Tesla, which is based in the US. Chademo also has a lot of traction and is dominant in Japan and parts of east Asia. CCS is popular in Europe (along with Tesla). The EU mandated that all must use CCS, which has never been dominant in terms of technology or market share. It's blatant protectionism.

tomp 4y ago

This argument would sound less hollow if there weren’t two existing superior (from a user experience perspective) alternatives already on the market. Apple’s Lightning (thinner than USB-C) and MagSafe (safer than USB-C for charging laptops… so glad Apple is transitioning back to it for M2 Airs)

thaway2839 4y ago
Lightning cables don't last. They are a complete disaster. And that's not even considering how a little bit of dust can prevent your device from charging at all, and lightning ports are a complete dust magnet. But the best argument against "what about lightning?" is the fact that Apple themselves don't use it on their higher powered devices like macs, and use USB-C instead.
- alimov 4y ago
  Haven’t had any terrible experiences with lightning cables. I have several cables that are from 2016/2018 that I use regularly. But then again none of my type c cables go bad either… I think it would have been safer to say “from my experience <xyz>” instead of presenting your opinion as if it were more than just an opinion. I see how friends and family members treat their cables, tugging on the phone to disconnect instead of removing the cable by hand. Or placing the charger in a way that the cable is bent up against a piece of furniture. Regarding the lightning port, it’s actually quite easy to clean, compared to ports like usb-c (I’m guessing you know why that would be). Also using lightning on a Mac doesn’t make sense and that’s probably why they don’t do it.
- ultrarunner 4y ago
  I was never sure if it was dust causing my phone to refuse to charge or Apple's gatekeeping "official" cables. There used to be jailbreak tweaks that would allow unauthorized cables to suddenly start working fine, but the best I could do in iOS 14 was get a cable to maintain the battery (without charging it). Perhaps Apple is shooting their own standard in the foot simply by enforcing their certification program. That said, you're absolutely right that its limit is reached already with phones. Some old cables have two pins (presumably VDD) that are discolored from use. Would not want lightning for charging a laptop.

biztos 4y ago

> the lack of innovation in AC power plugs Having lived in a country (Thailand) where both Euro and US plugs work just fine as long as you mind your voltage, I have become quite annoyed at that lack of innovation.

stubish 4y ago
In Thailand I became quite annoyed by the lack of grounding. If your sockets where actually modern enough to have ground, it is rarely connected to anything at all, or sometimes just screwed to the wall. Rare to find a ground spike in a dwelling. Common to get zapped by your shower's electric water heater.
- biztos 4y ago
  My place in Bangkok is a nice modern luxury building... at least it was luxury when they built it 17 years ago, now it's falling apart a bit but the amenities are awesome. The electric is probably grounded straight into the Chao Phraya river. :-)
FactolSarin 4y ago
How could both be compatible? US plugs are meant operate at 120 volts, EU at 240. I don't see how both could be supported safely.
- biztos 4y ago
  > as long as you mind your voltage It's not the plugs, it's the devices (or more commonly now, the power adapters) that work with 120, 240, or however many volts. Nowadays many (most?) things take both voltages or, AFAICT -- I'm no electrician! -- anything reasonably close. So in Thailand, for the most part, you can just plug in your MacBook or whatever and you don't need an adapter for the plug itself. Of course, if you're wrong about the voltage, things might go bad. And as the other reply noted, this convenience doesn't make it safer, quite the opposite. But I just generally have realized there's a lot of innovation that could be done in plugs and sockets, but isn't being done. As someone else commented above, the UK plugs are really interesting... but in my opinion maddeningly, unnecessarily big.

paulmd 4y ago

> I don't see why "What about innovation?" is taken seriously as an argument anyway. because the USB-IF historically has struggled to reach enough consensus from its stakeholders to allow innovation to take place. The entire reason that lightning exists in the first place is because USB-IF couldn't agree on a replacement for micro-B (which everyone agreed clearly needed improvement!) and one of the members just had to shrug and go do it themselves. Once one of the members had gone there and proven the concept, it lit a fire under the asses of the rest of the consortium. Same for why thunderbolt exists as a standard and not as USB 4 in the first place... not enough consensus to go there as an official standard rather than an extension. It took what, 10 years after Thunderbolt was standardized before we finally pulled ourselves out of the fecal lagoon of USB 3.x standards? And then you layer in the dysfunction from the members that are primarily interested in creating consumer confusion with the USB 3.0, USB3.1 Type-1, USB 3.1 Type-2, USB 3.2 Type-1, USB 3.2 Type-2, USB 3.2 Type-2x2 nonsense so that they can deceptively and maliciously sell yesterday's hardware with tomorrow's standard on the box... many of the members of USB-IF are interested in actively stalling progress if it means they save 30 cents on their BOM. This is not an organization with consumer interests at heart. They are a bad choice to be the legal guardian (more like, conservator) of all innovation.

kanetw 4y ago
Absolutely. On top of that, I feel like USB-C is deliberately engineered to sell more ICs. Which wouldn't be that huge of an issue except as a result, all relevant ICs are sold out (or unsuitable). CC/PD use a custom transmission standard so you can't implement it without a PHY, which basically means at least one dedicated IC.
- Evidlo 4y ago
  Well you can still do USB2.0 over USB-C for all your low-speed, low-power gadgets.
  - kanetw 4y ago
    Yeah, that's about the only thing you can do without ICs. 500mA max, high-speed lanes unused.

fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago

MagSafe-style charging connectors are an innovation that, IMO, justifies breaking compatibility. I dislike this forced standardization on USB-C because USB-3/USB-C is a user-hostile nightmare standard.

tester756 4y ago

>Gates himself has strenuously denied making the comment. In a newspaper column that he wrote in the mid-1990s, Gates responded to a student's question about the quote: "I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time." Later in the column, he added, "I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough. There's never a citation; the quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again."

drtjsw4ju 4y ago

What a shock, the European argument is "But why do you need so much innovation?" Pretty much summarizes their place in the world in a nutshell.

robonerd 4y ago
Lmfao, I've never been outside America or Canada. I'll take you calling me European as a compliment though.

Aeolun 4y ago

> There comes a point where that is actually true. Like IPv6

spoonjim 4y ago

Not sure how a technologist could think that USB-C is the best that we could do. It could be smaller, easier to attach in the dark, easier to attach with one hand, etc. etc. The government is not good at technology. They should step out of the way and let the consumer decide.

speleding 4y ago

Well, there are some serious drawbacks to USB-C. For one, it's not IP rated, which means you cannot use it to charge anything in a bathroom or a kitchen. That's a shame because there are a lot of appliances like electric toothbrushes that would also benefit from a single plug.

rnk 4y ago

The innovation was primarily financial innovation in taking money unnecessarily from your customers, except for a very few cases. Lightning was a good cable in the early days, but but then became a financial windfall for apple of course.