3 ms·

USB3 was released in 2009. 14 years is not enough to 'redesign'?

gjsman-1000 3y ago
Well, it's fairly obvious if you are reading the tea leaves that they never intended to move on from Lightning, but the EU forced their hand. There's no rational logic otherwise for delaying the move so long. Also, it takes 1-3 years to design a chip. Apple's probably finished with the A18 design at this moment and working on A19. They might, honestly, even be nearly finished with A19 and talking about A20. When the A16 was designed, the idea of being forced to move to USB-C was probably not a consideration, and they were probably still hoping that the wireless accessories / MagSafe system would take off even though it clearly hasn't by now. Which is stupid on their part but as an investor, I wouldn't want them to waste a billion or so for the sake of undoing the past to give USB 3 on iPhone 15s.
Kirby64 3y ago
USB3 isn't just a free upgrade though. It costs in terms of routing (extra wires/pins), it costs in terms of power (USB3 uses way more power during transfers), and it costs more in terms of silicon area, obviously. If the USB3 controller is as large as portrayed in the die shots for the new chip, that's actually a considerable cost in die area alone. It's disingenuous to say "it was released 14 years ago, what took so long?". Plenty of old technology is used when it is appropriate. If there's no valuable reason to adopt newer standards, it's a waste of money and engineering effort. The only reason, as far as I can tell, that other vendors all have USB3 is because Qualcomm put it in their chipset and forces vendors to buy it. Also, to nitpick, they're supporting 10gbit speeds for the pro, which was a spec released 6 years ago. Relatively recent as far as spec adoption goes.
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  Also, to nitpick, I have Transcend JetFlash 780 thumb drive from 2014 which allows me to copy files faster than 25MB/s. It wasn't released 6 years ago.
- ProfessorLayton 3y ago
  What Apple is doing is clear product segmentation through and through: Both the non-Pro and Pro iPhone models support native 4k display port via USB C, and the bandwidth required for that certainly exceeds USB 2 speeds. I went with the Pro model, but port speeds was a non-factor in that decision.
  - justsomehnguy 3y ago
    > support native 4k display port via USB C Which means it is a USB3 port.

Well, it's fairly obvious if you are reading the tea leaves that they never intended to move on from Lightning, but the EU forced their hand. There's no rational logic otherwise for delaying the move so long. Also, it takes 1-3 years to design a chip. Apple's probably finished with the A18 design at this moment and working on A19. They might, honestly, even be nearly finished with A19 and talking about A20. When the A16 was designed, the idea of being forced to move to USB-C was probably not a consideration, and they were probably still hoping that the wireless accessories / MagSafe system would take off even though it clearly hasn't by now. Which is stupid on their part but as an investor, I wouldn't want them to waste a billion or so for the sake of undoing the past to give USB 3 on iPhone 15s.

Kirby64 3y ago

USB3 isn't just a free upgrade though. It costs in terms of routing (extra wires/pins), it costs in terms of power (USB3 uses way more power during transfers), and it costs more in terms of silicon area, obviously. If the USB3 controller is as large as portrayed in the die shots for the new chip, that's actually a considerable cost in die area alone. It's disingenuous to say "it was released 14 years ago, what took so long?". Plenty of old technology is used when it is appropriate. If there's no valuable reason to adopt newer standards, it's a waste of money and engineering effort. The only reason, as far as I can tell, that other vendors all have USB3 is because Qualcomm put it in their chipset and forces vendors to buy it. Also, to nitpick, they're supporting 10gbit speeds for the pro, which was a spec released 6 years ago. Relatively recent as far as spec adoption goes.

justsomehnguy 3y ago
Also, to nitpick, I have Transcend JetFlash 780 thumb drive from 2014 which allows me to copy files faster than 25MB/s. It wasn't released 6 years ago.
ProfessorLayton 3y ago
What Apple is doing is clear product segmentation through and through: Both the non-Pro and Pro iPhone models support native 4k display port via USB C, and the bandwidth required for that certainly exceeds USB 2 speeds. I went with the Pro model, but port speeds was a non-factor in that decision.
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  > support native 4k display port via USB C Which means it is a USB3 port.