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> [USB-C is a connector] literally designed to break just like every USB connector before it. Do you have any evidence USB-C is literally designed to break? Th

> [USB-C is a connector] literally designed to break just like every USB connector before it. Do you have any evidence USB-C is literally designed to break? That seems like an extraordinary claim to me.

HumblyTossed 3y ago
They don't. But they're "so tired of people ..."
dpkonofa 3y ago
It seems conspiratorial but consider that the companies making the standards and manufacturing the cables have an incentive to get people to buy as many cables as possible and to do so regularly. It’s the same complaint that people leverage against Apple normally - that Apple designs their Lightning cables to be fragile so that people are forced to replace them. I don’t think there’s actually strong evidence for either argument. I have USB cables that I’ve had for years and then I’ve had cables that I had for a few months that went bad or were poorly made. I’ve mostly had good luck with my Apple cables and never had a problem with chargers or headphones like some.
KennyBlanken 3y ago
It is very difficult to damage a lightning port by sticking something into it because the contacts are deep inside the port and only the tiniest bit is exposed, enough to mate with the plug, and the male plug has zero moving or bending parts: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8059819/verge_DSC_8885_2040pxl_2.jpg https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8059819/ve... In fact, it's remarkably easy to clean a Lightning port and the common advice is "just stick a toothpick in." There's almost no risk of damaging the pins inside. It's also very easy to inspect for debris. Meanwhile with USB-C, you have a very, very thin piece of plastic in the center with contacts on either side, coming out very close to the face of the connector, so you end up with shit like this happening: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/hadimg_usbc_conn_10.png https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/hadimg_usbc_... Further, the retention mechanism for Lightning is incredibly simple and durable. A large clip that snaps, either side, into large detents on either side: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/6wSwQDSxsENkhPXC-640x480.jpg http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/6wSwQD... On USB-C they do something kinda sorta similar, but instead of being around the outside of the connector and thus nice and beefy (and protected - there's no way to bend or deform the ends), it's tiny little prongs inside the connector, completely unsupported mechanically and exposed to being bent by debris in either connector, or something being jammed inside. Further: look at the plugs and connectors. The male lightning connector? Really it just needs to be the right thickness and the pads need to be in the right places. The female connector is similarly very simple. The retention mechanism is also very obviously low-tolerance. Look at the design of the USB-C connector and imagine the long list of tolerances needed to get it to work right because you have the entire working guts of the device-side connector in the center of said connector going into the plug.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  The lightning connector has one major flaw: the springs are in the phone side. Over time these wear out which is why its much better to have the phone side have simple static contact surfaces and the spring loaded contacts on the cable side which is much cheaper to replace. USB until C also did this wrong and C fixed that mistake.
  - Fnoord 3y ago
    Yep, here's a picture describing the issue [1] [1] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-often-do-the-lightning-port-tabs-get-damaged-due-to-overuse.2246448/?post=28688538#post-28688538 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-often-do-the-lightn...
  - stouset 3y ago
    I have had at least a dozen Lightning devices and I have never had the springs wear out. I’ve never even heard of this happening. In fact, if those springs are steel and properly designed to prevent unexpected loads, they physically can’t ever wear out.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      Springs will always wear out. Every connector has a number of rated insertions. Some are as low as tens of cycles only (like the 12HVPWR connector on GPUs), USB-A has 1500, USB-C 10,000 precisely because of this inversion. For Lightning it's not known because it's a proprietary standard but it will have a number of mating cycles.
iudqnolq 3y ago
The USB-c male connector is deliberately designed to break so that if you stress a plugged in setup you'll break the cable instead of the connector soldered into your phone, which is harder to repair. Maybe they misinterpreted that?
- Miraste 3y ago
  Notably, Lightning is designed to do the opposite. Whoops, the 1 cent connector broke, time for a new iPhone.
  - Zinu 3y ago
    What do you mean? How can the connector in the phone break when it’s just a hole?
    - KerrAvon 3y ago
      USB mini/micro B ports can break off the PC board when they’re not anchored solidly.
      - Fnoord 3y ago
        This was a flaw on the Nokia N900. Or at least, on some of the devices. I solved the issue by using TOPK magnetic cables. The magnet would remain in the port (microUSB, lightning, or USB-C, not sure about miniUSB but I got like one device which uses that), and all the cables would work with it. I even leave them connected (the LED does not draw much power and I got solar anyway) which allows me to quickly start or stop charging a device. Which, given I got quite a few, is very useful. Another issue is I keep getting leftover microUSB but need more and more USB-C for which the feature isn't very important (the more USB-C I'd have, the easier it'd be to stop using magnetic cables). The exception is my MBP as it has a MagSafe (v3, my wife's MBP and my old MBP having v2) but I forgive Apple for that; its very useful and probably where TOPK got their inspiration from.
    - comex 3y ago
      According to another comment, there are springs that wear out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927409
ask_b123 3y ago
Anecdotal, but I've had to resort to charge my MacBook Pro and my iPad with my Switch's USB-C cable because the other 2 broke/stopped working.

HumblyTossed 3y ago

They don't. But they're "so tired of people ..."

dpkonofa 3y ago

It seems conspiratorial but consider that the companies making the standards and manufacturing the cables have an incentive to get people to buy as many cables as possible and to do so regularly. It’s the same complaint that people leverage against Apple normally - that Apple designs their Lightning cables to be fragile so that people are forced to replace them. I don’t think there’s actually strong evidence for either argument. I have USB cables that I’ve had for years and then I’ve had cables that I had for a few months that went bad or were poorly made. I’ve mostly had good luck with my Apple cables and never had a problem with chargers or headphones like some.

KennyBlanken 3y ago

It is very difficult to damage a lightning port by sticking something into it because the contacts are deep inside the port and only the tiniest bit is exposed, enough to mate with the plug, and the male plug has zero moving or bending parts: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8059819/verge_DSC_8885_2040pxl_2.jpg https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8059819/ve... In fact, it's remarkably easy to clean a Lightning port and the common advice is "just stick a toothpick in." There's almost no risk of damaging the pins inside. It's also very easy to inspect for debris. Meanwhile with USB-C, you have a very, very thin piece of plastic in the center with contacts on either side, coming out very close to the face of the connector, so you end up with shit like this happening: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/hadimg_usbc_conn_10.png https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/hadimg_usbc_... Further, the retention mechanism for Lightning is incredibly simple and durable. A large clip that snaps, either side, into large detents on either side: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/6wSwQDSxsENkhPXC-640x480.jpg http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/6wSwQD... On USB-C they do something kinda sorta similar, but instead of being around the outside of the connector and thus nice and beefy (and protected - there's no way to bend or deform the ends), it's tiny little prongs inside the connector, completely unsupported mechanically and exposed to being bent by debris in either connector, or something being jammed inside. Further: look at the plugs and connectors. The male lightning connector? Really it just needs to be the right thickness and the pads need to be in the right places. The female connector is similarly very simple. The retention mechanism is also very obviously low-tolerance. Look at the design of the USB-C connector and imagine the long list of tolerances needed to get it to work right because you have the entire working guts of the device-side connector in the center of said connector going into the plug.

wkat4242 3y ago
The lightning connector has one major flaw: the springs are in the phone side. Over time these wear out which is why its much better to have the phone side have simple static contact surfaces and the spring loaded contacts on the cable side which is much cheaper to replace. USB until C also did this wrong and C fixed that mistake.
- Fnoord 3y ago
  Yep, here's a picture describing the issue [1] [1] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-often-do-the-lightning-port-tabs-get-damaged-due-to-overuse.2246448/?post=28688538#post-28688538 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-often-do-the-lightn...
- stouset 3y ago
  I have had at least a dozen Lightning devices and I have never had the springs wear out. I’ve never even heard of this happening. In fact, if those springs are steel and properly designed to prevent unexpected loads, they physically can’t ever wear out.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Springs will always wear out. Every connector has a number of rated insertions. Some are as low as tens of cycles only (like the 12HVPWR connector on GPUs), USB-A has 1500, USB-C 10,000 precisely because of this inversion. For Lightning it's not known because it's a proprietary standard but it will have a number of mating cycles.

iudqnolq 3y ago

The USB-c male connector is deliberately designed to break so that if you stress a plugged in setup you'll break the cable instead of the connector soldered into your phone, which is harder to repair. Maybe they misinterpreted that?

Miraste 3y ago
Notably, Lightning is designed to do the opposite. Whoops, the 1 cent connector broke, time for a new iPhone.
- Zinu 3y ago
  What do you mean? How can the connector in the phone break when it’s just a hole?
  - KerrAvon 3y ago
    USB mini/micro B ports can break off the PC board when they’re not anchored solidly.
    - Fnoord 3y ago
      This was a flaw on the Nokia N900. Or at least, on some of the devices. I solved the issue by using TOPK magnetic cables. The magnet would remain in the port (microUSB, lightning, or USB-C, not sure about miniUSB but I got like one device which uses that), and all the cables would work with it. I even leave them connected (the LED does not draw much power and I got solar anyway) which allows me to quickly start or stop charging a device. Which, given I got quite a few, is very useful. Another issue is I keep getting leftover microUSB but need more and more USB-C for which the feature isn't very important (the more USB-C I'd have, the easier it'd be to stop using magnetic cables). The exception is my MBP as it has a MagSafe (v3, my wife's MBP and my old MBP having v2) but I forgive Apple for that; its very useful and probably where TOPK got their inspiration from.
  - comex 3y ago
    According to another comment, there are springs that wear out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927409

ask_b123 3y ago

Anecdotal, but I've had to resort to charge my MacBook Pro and my iPad with my Switch's USB-C cable because the other 2 broke/stopped working.