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I understand why they did it. But just my perspective on it, I will have to replace all my lightning cables with usb-c, and the usb-c ecosystem seems like a ni

I understand why they did it. But just my perspective on it, I will have to replace all my lightning cables with usb-c, and the usb-c ecosystem seems like a nightmare to me from what I have seen. This would be my first usb-c device.

rootusrootus 3y ago
This is why the iPhone was nearly the last Apple device to switch to USB-C. Plenty of people will be irritated at having to buy bunch of new cables, and they've been accumulating Lightning cables for a decade. And unlike something like Micro USB, lightning cables don't often wear out. But it is better to finally make the jump. I've never been unhappy with Lightning, but almost everything else I own has now switched to USB-C.
- rstat1 3y ago
  My brother has an iPad with the Lightning port on it, and has to get new cables every few years because they start fraying and breaking around the bottom of the connector. And he isn't really rough or abusive with these cables either. Where as I still have MicroUSB cables from 10 or 12yrs ago that still look and work like new.
  - kaba0 3y ago
    That sounds like a “your brother problem”. Especially that an often touted negative of lightning cables is that the only movable part is inside the socket, which is harder to replace — so it makes even less sense why they could go wrong. My guess: he is buying cheap Chinese ones that have lower quality and you compare it to some higher quality ones. As many people can vouch for: lighting cables can easily work for many many years without any trouble whatsoever.
    - rstat1 3y ago
      I really don't think it is. It was a problem with the Apple one as well or else he wouldn't keep having to get new ones.
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      This definitely has to do with handling. I always wad my cables up and stuff them in bags, no care to careful winding or anything—but they last forever, as long as I’m the only one using them. What I don’t do is hold them under tension for long periods, or use them stretched taught then bent 90° right next to the connector. My wife and kids ruin cables in a few months, and that’s how they do it. I didn’t get what people were talking about with apple cables being fragile, until I saw that. I developed my habit because the same behavior is bad on ports, too. I’d developed an unconscious avoidance to doing those things before I ever owned an Apple device, or had one at work. So my Apple cables last forever unless my wife or kids get ahold of them.
      - kemayo 3y ago
        Contributing to this anecdata, it's the same for me. My cables last forever, my spouse runs through them at an accelerated rate. Coincidentally, they use their phone in bed with it plugged in...
        hotnfresh 3y ago
        Plug in, move as far away as possible, turn port away from direction of the wall outlet, to use it. Bonus points for also resting it on the bent-at-the-port cable. Yep, that’s the maneuver my family members use to ruin all our cables. Similar with laptop and tablet power cables—get far from the outlet so the cable’s under tension, turn device so port’s not facing the outlet.
        Dylan16807 3y ago
        Sounds like they could use a christmas gift of extra long cables with 90 degree ends.
      - dwaite 3y ago
        Yep. My replaced lightning and USB-C cables were all with the iPad, because in landscape I’ll have the connector at a tight bend. Now I just use a usb-c cable with a 90 degree bend built in.
      - 3y ago
    - Larrikin 3y ago
      It's an old problem that was a real problem. I personally have never had any cables fray, except for every white Apple cord I had owned. Up until a few years back when I noticed my replacement cord for yet another bad Apple cable felt different. Haven't had any issues with them after that. I assume they changed the manufacturing process.
    - faeriechangling 3y ago
      Hmm, I've known several Apple users who have experienced the same thing. Both with branded Apple cables and third party ones. I seemed to notice lighting users having more dead cables than USB-C users seemed to, and it seems to me that lightning cables more frequently omit robust strain relief for aesthetic reasons. The most frequent tendency I notice among people who have their cables fray is they use their phones while charging, but if you do certain things on your phone like long gaming sessions, you are almost forced to use your phone while it charges. So blaming the user feels a little bit like "you're holding it wrong" to me. Where I did notice a difference between USB-C and lightning is that the lightning PORT seemed more durable than USB-C ports. I own multiple phones with flaky USB-C ports, whereas lighting ports seem much more durable.
      - alexdbird 3y ago
        I suspect they're more durable too. We're about to find out, I suppose.
    - lxgr 3y ago
      In my experience, it's actually Apple cables that break pretty easily. It usually doesn't happen at the Lightning side, but at or near the strain relief, i.e. close to where the cable meets the plug. I've seen this happen for Apple MagSafe, Lightning, and I believe even USB-C.
    - Gigablah 3y ago
      Throwing another data point into the ring. Of all the lightning cables I bought, the genuine ones from Apple always failed first.
    - OJFord 3y ago
      Definitely not, Apple cables (not just Lightning, the old Magsafe ones and laptop USB-C ones too) are the worst for crumbling under stress at the point they bend near the plug. That rubbery coating just seems somehow worse for it than anything I've seen made/sold by anyone else. I noticed (I don't have one) the new Magsafe ones for the current MacBooks have changed to a braided fabric looking coating/sleeve instead.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    I guess there will always be someone who can damage any cable. I've never killed a lightning cable myself, and only ever seen someone else (my own mother) do it once -- and it wasn't the connector that broke, it was the cable at the strain relief. Hell, the cable still actually worked, but I was uncomfortable with the state of the cable and bought her a new one. When I was doing Android phones, I was going through a new Micro USB cable about every month or two. Never long enough to fray the cable itself, it was always the connector flaking out and refusing to make a good enough connection to charge reliably. Good riddance to Micro USB.
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    Absolutely not a Lightning-specific thing. Flimsy cables are flimsy cables and they will break and fray. USB-C, Lightning, whatever. The first-party Lightning cables from Apple have always been pretty flimsy so if Lightning cables have a bad rep in general, that's probably why. That's Apple's fault but not anything specific to Lightning. I've had a lot of Anker Lightning cables and they're about as bulletproof as a cable can possibly be.
- jorams 3y ago
  > and they've been accumulating Lightning cables for a decade. This is why I don't think Apple's electronic waste argument makes much sense. All devices I've bought in the last 5 years have been USB-C, while iPhone users were stuck on Lightning. If Apple had switched back then all those users would've been buying 5 years worth of cables that work with everything, rather than cables that work for only a few devices from a single manufacturer.
- lxgr 3y ago
  That makse sense: USB micro-B has the part that wears out (i.e. the spring making the connection) in the cable; Lightning has it in the port. Although I haven't really had a Lightning port fail on me yet, having the component more likely to eventually break in the cable rather than the device makes a lot of sense to me.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  Didn’t they just switch the MacBooks back to some version of MagSafe? Universal Apple cables seems like their ultimate thing to avoid
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    The brick is still USB-c and the macbooks still charge on all usb-c ports. The magsafe cable is just a nice to have. Also frees up one of your USB ports for use.
  - awad 3y ago
    My MagSafe MBP still accepts charge via USB-C. In fact I don't know that I've used MagSafe at all with it other than a handful of times borrowing someone else's charger.
  - baq 3y ago
    got a 100W desktop charger and a proper cable, works great. magsafe charger is collecting dust and is used only when travelling.
- jupp0r 3y ago
  Lightning cables wear out and break all the time for me.
- whywhywhywhy 3y ago
  >lightning cables don't often wear out. Look closely at the lightning cables in your house, calling it now at least one of them has a burnt pin (4th pin from the left most likely)
Matl 3y ago
> the usb-c ecosystem seems like a nightmare to me from what I have seen. Compared to lighting it only has advantages, faster charging, more universal. It's only a nightmare because you can carry almost anything over USB C incl. DisplayPort etc. which is not always clear if it's supported or not
- nani8ot 3y ago
  Agreed. Any compliant USB-C cable supports all the features lightning does, aka. power and USB 2.0 data. It also supports HDMI but that's used with an adapter anyway, so it's not a consideration if it works for a user.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    Most USB-C devices really only support DisplayPort for video output. There's an HDMI "alt mode", but almost no device uses that directly; most USB-C-to-HDMI adapters and cables are accordingly really combined USB-C to DisplayPort and DisplayPort to HDMI converters and translate one protocol to the other at the electrical and logical level.
    - chx 3y ago
      it's not "almost", it's literally no device: there are no hosts and there are no cables. And it was killed officially this year, too.
bootlooped 3y ago
For the vast majority of consumers, the usb-c ecosystem is fine. Buy name brand cables and chargers, they're fine.
- nomel 3y ago
  That's not the greatest advice. I saw my mom charging her phone with a fat, meter long, USB-C cable. I asked her why she was using such a short cable. She admitted it was annoying to use. She said it was $35, but it was fast charging! It was a 100W 10Gbps cable.
- ramenmeal 3y ago
  I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of consumers do not buy name brand cables.
  - eternityforest 3y ago
    The majority of consumers don't do anything that needs more than 2.0 speeds and 30Wish charging. If they do, they can probably afford name brand cables. In the next few years consumers will start getting laptops that need 60W, but most cables can do that now, and it won't be common for a few years now(Phones still had microUSB when I bought my laptop, many people have even older ones).
lambdasquirrel 3y ago
I know I’m in the minority but I preferred the smaller lightning cables to these USB-C cables that were designed to carry 100x the power that a phone would need.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  Lots of compact USB-C cables out there. They won't provide 100W to your laptop, but they'll charge your phone just fine.
faeriechangling 3y ago
It's overblown how much of a nightmare USB-C is. Yes there are many problems with the ecosystem, but it's still really not as bad as using both lightning and USB-C like Apple does, nor is it as bad as micro-usb. At my desk I have a laptop, keyboard, and mouse which typically all typically get charged off a single thunderbolt 4 cable. You can have anything from games controllers to bicycle lights to remote controls sharing a single charger. No need to fuss with adapters, or having a rats nest of different cables, or charge-only cables with microusb/usb-c/lightning at the end. C to C cables are also very nice since they allow phones and usb-c only laptops to charge any other USB-C device, and you can't accidentally flip them around the wrong way. The technology itself is great. It's the flawed implementations, the lack of standards enforcement, the confusing labelling of different types of cables, and the very gradual and slow death of lightning/micro-usb/USB-A that's really holds things back. Once you figure out what you need to buy, and finish buying the appropriate products that you need, it is nice.
- dwaite 3y ago
  > Yes there are many problems with the ecosystem, but it's still really not as bad as using both lightning and USB-C like Apple does[…] People underestimate just how stable lightning cables are. After 11 years they have two types of certified cables in terms of data and charging capabilities, and you can tell them apart by whether the other end is USB-A or USB-C
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    While there are different kinds of USB-C cable, they all support at least as much as a lightning cable. So while it's annoying when they're badly labeled, it's hard for me to see this as a downside in comparison to lightning.
    - paulmd 3y ago
      this is only true if you accept the circular definition of "well, if it does less than lightning then it's not a true USB-C cable". in practice there are lots of usb-c cables that don't do data, which all lightning cables do. they're just not officially certified ones. which means they're not "real" usb-c cables. again, the problem is it turns out in practice virtually nobody is using "real" usb-c cables, and if you want to stand on the formal definition, then we can formally say the standard has no real market penetration and can reasonably be disregarded until it catches traction. if you can walk into a bodega and be assured that the lightning cable sitting on the shelf is going to be a certified and approved cable with data transfer, and the usb-c cable probably won't, then that's kinda all that really matters. (and thus, we can see why certification programs like lightning exist. the $2 lightning cable on the bodega counter probably has better capabilities than the $5 usb-c cable on the counter because of the certification process.)
dahfizz 3y ago
The USB-C ecosystem is so confusing because the port can do so much. Worst case scenario, you get a cheap cable and you're stuck at the same charging speed and data speed as what lighting could do. It can only get better for you; lightning is an ancient port.

rootusrootus 3y ago

This is why the iPhone was nearly the last Apple device to switch to USB-C. Plenty of people will be irritated at having to buy bunch of new cables, and they've been accumulating Lightning cables for a decade. And unlike something like Micro USB, lightning cables don't often wear out. But it is better to finally make the jump. I've never been unhappy with Lightning, but almost everything else I own has now switched to USB-C.

rstat1 3y ago
My brother has an iPad with the Lightning port on it, and has to get new cables every few years because they start fraying and breaking around the bottom of the connector. And he isn't really rough or abusive with these cables either. Where as I still have MicroUSB cables from 10 or 12yrs ago that still look and work like new.
- kaba0 3y ago
  That sounds like a “your brother problem”. Especially that an often touted negative of lightning cables is that the only movable part is inside the socket, which is harder to replace — so it makes even less sense why they could go wrong. My guess: he is buying cheap Chinese ones that have lower quality and you compare it to some higher quality ones. As many people can vouch for: lighting cables can easily work for many many years without any trouble whatsoever.
  - rstat1 3y ago
    I really don't think it is. It was a problem with the Apple one as well or else he wouldn't keep having to get new ones.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    This definitely has to do with handling. I always wad my cables up and stuff them in bags, no care to careful winding or anything—but they last forever, as long as I’m the only one using them. What I don’t do is hold them under tension for long periods, or use them stretched taught then bent 90° right next to the connector. My wife and kids ruin cables in a few months, and that’s how they do it. I didn’t get what people were talking about with apple cables being fragile, until I saw that. I developed my habit because the same behavior is bad on ports, too. I’d developed an unconscious avoidance to doing those things before I ever owned an Apple device, or had one at work. So my Apple cables last forever unless my wife or kids get ahold of them.
    - kemayo 3y ago
      Contributing to this anecdata, it's the same for me. My cables last forever, my spouse runs through them at an accelerated rate. Coincidentally, they use their phone in bed with it plugged in...
      - hotnfresh 3y ago
        Plug in, move as far away as possible, turn port away from direction of the wall outlet, to use it. Bonus points for also resting it on the bent-at-the-port cable. Yep, that’s the maneuver my family members use to ruin all our cables. Similar with laptop and tablet power cables—get far from the outlet so the cable’s under tension, turn device so port’s not facing the outlet.
        Dylan16807 3y ago
        Sounds like they could use a christmas gift of extra long cables with 90 degree ends.
    - dwaite 3y ago
      Yep. My replaced lightning and USB-C cables were all with the iPad, because in landscape I’ll have the connector at a tight bend. Now I just use a usb-c cable with a 90 degree bend built in.
    - 3y ago
  - Larrikin 3y ago
    It's an old problem that was a real problem. I personally have never had any cables fray, except for every white Apple cord I had owned. Up until a few years back when I noticed my replacement cord for yet another bad Apple cable felt different. Haven't had any issues with them after that. I assume they changed the manufacturing process.
  - faeriechangling 3y ago
    Hmm, I've known several Apple users who have experienced the same thing. Both with branded Apple cables and third party ones. I seemed to notice lighting users having more dead cables than USB-C users seemed to, and it seems to me that lightning cables more frequently omit robust strain relief for aesthetic reasons. The most frequent tendency I notice among people who have their cables fray is they use their phones while charging, but if you do certain things on your phone like long gaming sessions, you are almost forced to use your phone while it charges. So blaming the user feels a little bit like "you're holding it wrong" to me. Where I did notice a difference between USB-C and lightning is that the lightning PORT seemed more durable than USB-C ports. I own multiple phones with flaky USB-C ports, whereas lighting ports seem much more durable.
    - alexdbird 3y ago
      I suspect they're more durable too. We're about to find out, I suppose.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    In my experience, it's actually Apple cables that break pretty easily. It usually doesn't happen at the Lightning side, but at or near the strain relief, i.e. close to where the cable meets the plug. I've seen this happen for Apple MagSafe, Lightning, and I believe even USB-C.
  - Gigablah 3y ago
    Throwing another data point into the ring. Of all the lightning cables I bought, the genuine ones from Apple always failed first.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    Definitely not, Apple cables (not just Lightning, the old Magsafe ones and laptop USB-C ones too) are the worst for crumbling under stress at the point they bend near the plug. That rubbery coating just seems somehow worse for it than anything I've seen made/sold by anyone else. I noticed (I don't have one) the new Magsafe ones for the current MacBooks have changed to a braided fabric looking coating/sleeve instead.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  I guess there will always be someone who can damage any cable. I've never killed a lightning cable myself, and only ever seen someone else (my own mother) do it once -- and it wasn't the connector that broke, it was the cable at the strain relief. Hell, the cable still actually worked, but I was uncomfortable with the state of the cable and bought her a new one. When I was doing Android phones, I was going through a new Micro USB cable about every month or two. Never long enough to fray the cable itself, it was always the connector flaking out and refusing to make a good enough connection to charge reliably. Good riddance to Micro USB.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  Absolutely not a Lightning-specific thing. Flimsy cables are flimsy cables and they will break and fray. USB-C, Lightning, whatever. The first-party Lightning cables from Apple have always been pretty flimsy so if Lightning cables have a bad rep in general, that's probably why. That's Apple's fault but not anything specific to Lightning. I've had a lot of Anker Lightning cables and they're about as bulletproof as a cable can possibly be.
jorams 3y ago
> and they've been accumulating Lightning cables for a decade. This is why I don't think Apple's electronic waste argument makes much sense. All devices I've bought in the last 5 years have been USB-C, while iPhone users were stuck on Lightning. If Apple had switched back then all those users would've been buying 5 years worth of cables that work with everything, rather than cables that work for only a few devices from a single manufacturer.
lxgr 3y ago
That makse sense: USB micro-B has the part that wears out (i.e. the spring making the connection) in the cable; Lightning has it in the port. Although I haven't really had a Lightning port fail on me yet, having the component more likely to eventually break in the cable rather than the device makes a lot of sense to me.
coffeebeqn 3y ago
Didn’t they just switch the MacBooks back to some version of MagSafe? Universal Apple cables seems like their ultimate thing to avoid
- Gigachad 3y ago
  The brick is still USB-c and the macbooks still charge on all usb-c ports. The magsafe cable is just a nice to have. Also frees up one of your USB ports for use.
- awad 3y ago
  My MagSafe MBP still accepts charge via USB-C. In fact I don't know that I've used MagSafe at all with it other than a handful of times borrowing someone else's charger.
- baq 3y ago
  got a 100W desktop charger and a proper cable, works great. magsafe charger is collecting dust and is used only when travelling.
jupp0r 3y ago
Lightning cables wear out and break all the time for me.
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
>lightning cables don't often wear out. Look closely at the lightning cables in your house, calling it now at least one of them has a burnt pin (4th pin from the left most likely)

Matl 3y ago

> the usb-c ecosystem seems like a nightmare to me from what I have seen. Compared to lighting it only has advantages, faster charging, more universal. It's only a nightmare because you can carry almost anything over USB C incl. DisplayPort etc. which is not always clear if it's supported or not

nani8ot 3y ago
Agreed. Any compliant USB-C cable supports all the features lightning does, aka. power and USB 2.0 data. It also supports HDMI but that's used with an adapter anyway, so it's not a consideration if it works for a user.
- lxgr 3y ago
  Most USB-C devices really only support DisplayPort for video output. There's an HDMI "alt mode", but almost no device uses that directly; most USB-C-to-HDMI adapters and cables are accordingly really combined USB-C to DisplayPort and DisplayPort to HDMI converters and translate one protocol to the other at the electrical and logical level.
  - chx 3y ago
    it's not "almost", it's literally no device: there are no hosts and there are no cables. And it was killed officially this year, too.

bootlooped 3y ago

For the vast majority of consumers, the usb-c ecosystem is fine. Buy name brand cables and chargers, they're fine.

nomel 3y ago
That's not the greatest advice. I saw my mom charging her phone with a fat, meter long, USB-C cable. I asked her why she was using such a short cable. She admitted it was annoying to use. She said it was $35, but it was fast charging! It was a 100W 10Gbps cable.
ramenmeal 3y ago
I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of consumers do not buy name brand cables.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  The majority of consumers don't do anything that needs more than 2.0 speeds and 30Wish charging. If they do, they can probably afford name brand cables. In the next few years consumers will start getting laptops that need 60W, but most cables can do that now, and it won't be common for a few years now(Phones still had microUSB when I bought my laptop, many people have even older ones).

lambdasquirrel 3y ago

I know I’m in the minority but I preferred the smaller lightning cables to these USB-C cables that were designed to carry 100x the power that a phone would need.

JohnBooty 3y ago
Lots of compact USB-C cables out there. They won't provide 100W to your laptop, but they'll charge your phone just fine.

faeriechangling 3y ago

It's overblown how much of a nightmare USB-C is. Yes there are many problems with the ecosystem, but it's still really not as bad as using both lightning and USB-C like Apple does, nor is it as bad as micro-usb. At my desk I have a laptop, keyboard, and mouse which typically all typically get charged off a single thunderbolt 4 cable. You can have anything from games controllers to bicycle lights to remote controls sharing a single charger. No need to fuss with adapters, or having a rats nest of different cables, or charge-only cables with microusb/usb-c/lightning at the end. C to C cables are also very nice since they allow phones and usb-c only laptops to charge any other USB-C device, and you can't accidentally flip them around the wrong way. The technology itself is great. It's the flawed implementations, the lack of standards enforcement, the confusing labelling of different types of cables, and the very gradual and slow death of lightning/micro-usb/USB-A that's really holds things back. Once you figure out what you need to buy, and finish buying the appropriate products that you need, it is nice.

dwaite 3y ago
> Yes there are many problems with the ecosystem, but it's still really not as bad as using both lightning and USB-C like Apple does[…] People underestimate just how stable lightning cables are. After 11 years they have two types of certified cables in terms of data and charging capabilities, and you can tell them apart by whether the other end is USB-A or USB-C
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  While there are different kinds of USB-C cable, they all support at least as much as a lightning cable. So while it's annoying when they're badly labeled, it's hard for me to see this as a downside in comparison to lightning.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    this is only true if you accept the circular definition of "well, if it does less than lightning then it's not a true USB-C cable". in practice there are lots of usb-c cables that don't do data, which all lightning cables do. they're just not officially certified ones. which means they're not "real" usb-c cables. again, the problem is it turns out in practice virtually nobody is using "real" usb-c cables, and if you want to stand on the formal definition, then we can formally say the standard has no real market penetration and can reasonably be disregarded until it catches traction. if you can walk into a bodega and be assured that the lightning cable sitting on the shelf is going to be a certified and approved cable with data transfer, and the usb-c cable probably won't, then that's kinda all that really matters. (and thus, we can see why certification programs like lightning exist. the $2 lightning cable on the bodega counter probably has better capabilities than the $5 usb-c cable on the counter because of the certification process.)

dahfizz 3y ago

The USB-C ecosystem is so confusing because the port can do so much. Worst case scenario, you get a cheap cable and you're stuck at the same charging speed and data speed as what lighting could do. It can only get better for you; lightning is an ancient port.