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Some of their design/business decisions have always struck me as odd for a company that tries to present as unified, designer, futuristic, sleek, easy-to-use. T

by astrea 3y ago

Some of their design/business decisions have always struck me as odd for a company that tries to present as unified, designer, futuristic, sleek, easy-to-use. They should have committed whole hog to Thunderbolt imo. It's honestly even more embarrassing for them to have waited this long to phase out Lightning (and that it required massive legal action). USB-C came out NINE YEARS AGO.

Apocryphon 3y ago
Is USB-D on the horizon at this point
- CharlesW 3y ago
  Happily, no. USB-C refers to the physical connector, and we’re done with physical connector changes for a few years.
  - Apocryphon 3y ago
    Puns aside, is there a next generation speculative standard being designed already? A la 6G, HTTP/3, etc.
    - CharlesW 3y ago
      My guess is that USB-C/Thunderbolt ports will gradually become a niche “pro” feature, replaced on most consumer devices with UWB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-wideband https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-wideband
  - ericmay 3y ago
    Well I think we are actually done for more than a few years. Legislation mandating USB-C will lead to stagnation there. Who is going to bother creating a new physical connector design? I say this as a fan of USB-C and Apple changing it so that we have USB-C on devices. Though I’m perplexed as to why they added HDMI and SD card slots back on the Mac instead of maintaining USB-C everywhere. That was a bit of a disappointment as now I have to hope a dongle is available and have to plan for connectivity versus USB-C everywhere. Sigh
    - zlsa 3y ago
      I completely agree - having four Thunderbolt ports was amazing, and I'm sad that one of them has become a dedicated HDMI port. I like the SD card slot, though, but even then I'd rather have four Thunderbolt ports than three Thunderbolt, HDMI, and an SD card slot.
      - lxgr 3y ago
        Absolutely. The HDMI port on the 2021 models doesn’t even support 4K60 at 10 bit (HDR); the USB-C/TB/DisplayPort ports can supply much more. They could have fit two in the space of the HDMI port! At least on the 2023 models the native HDMI port can do something that’s not possible using adapters yet (i.e. output HDMI VRR, which is somewhat important if Apple really wants to make gaming on macOS a thing).
    - remedan 3y ago
      EU legislation previously mandated micro USB on phones. That didn't seem to kill innovation, we still got USB-C. The only thing it killed was every manufacturer using a different bad connector. I don't see any downsides.
      - ericmay 3y ago
        Apple was an exception and this feels different to me. Everybody and everything is standardizing on USB-C. If you don’t see any potential downsides you aren’t looking hard enough. And this comes from someone who has wanted USB-C for a long time.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        > Apple was an exception and this feels different to me. They were an exception because they already had the bestselling smartphone at the time they switched away from the 30-pin connector. Apple could have put a DC barrel-jack as the main power connector and the market would have no choice but to adopt it. They seized the opportunity to create a functionally-identical protocol to USB and encumber it with a licensed connector for personal gain. Regardless of how you feel about the connectors at the time, this was not a serious alternative to USB. > Everybody and everything is standardizing on USB-C. Yeah, I wonder which company was known/hated for pushing USB-C early-on as a connection standard yet not fully adopting it themselves. > If you don’t see any potential downsides you aren’t looking hard enough. No, if you don't see the problem with the status-quo then you're being blinded by baseless loyalty. From a regulatory perspective, the situation is this; public utilities cannot converge on a serial specification as long as the iPhone uses Lightning. So, they have to weigh the benefits and downsides to the scenario. Apple's connector is more physically advanced, but also license-encumbered and genuinely impossible to standardize a-la USB. Apple made no attempt to formalize Lightning under USB-IF. Their horse isn't even on the racetrack. If you consider Lightning's value to be greater than the overall harm of converging on a USB standard, then you should lobby Apple to make it an open spec and remove MFi in favor of USB class-compliance. Until that point, it will be deservedly remembered by history as a petty attempt to push unwanted IP on customers who would otherwise have no choice in the matter.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
Not to mention that Lightning is slow as hell, and can't even deliver the throughput that the 30-pin port could.
- lxgr 3y ago
  The 30-pin port also only has USB 2.0 in terms of digital connections, no?
  - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
    Probably, but Apple re-used a bunch of the other pins for all kinds of signaling that's not USB. And had room left over for a proper line-level audio output... heaven forbid that they'd have that today. I still use a Lightning-to-30-pin adapter that has this audio output, and it functions correctly... in that the phone's volume setting has no effect on the level coming from the line out, so you only have the volume control on the amp to deal with.

by astrea 3y ago

Apocryphon 3y ago

Is USB-D on the horizon at this point

CharlesW 3y ago
Happily, no. USB-C refers to the physical connector, and we’re done with physical connector changes for a few years.
- Apocryphon 3y ago
  Puns aside, is there a next generation speculative standard being designed already? A la 6G, HTTP/3, etc.
  - CharlesW 3y ago
    My guess is that USB-C/Thunderbolt ports will gradually become a niche “pro” feature, replaced on most consumer devices with UWB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-wideband https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-wideband
- ericmay 3y ago
  Well I think we are actually done for more than a few years. Legislation mandating USB-C will lead to stagnation there. Who is going to bother creating a new physical connector design? I say this as a fan of USB-C and Apple changing it so that we have USB-C on devices. Though I’m perplexed as to why they added HDMI and SD card slots back on the Mac instead of maintaining USB-C everywhere. That was a bit of a disappointment as now I have to hope a dongle is available and have to plan for connectivity versus USB-C everywhere. Sigh
  - zlsa 3y ago
    I completely agree - having four Thunderbolt ports was amazing, and I'm sad that one of them has become a dedicated HDMI port. I like the SD card slot, though, but even then I'd rather have four Thunderbolt ports than three Thunderbolt, HDMI, and an SD card slot.
    - lxgr 3y ago
      Absolutely. The HDMI port on the 2021 models doesn’t even support 4K60 at 10 bit (HDR); the USB-C/TB/DisplayPort ports can supply much more. They could have fit two in the space of the HDMI port! At least on the 2023 models the native HDMI port can do something that’s not possible using adapters yet (i.e. output HDMI VRR, which is somewhat important if Apple really wants to make gaming on macOS a thing).
  - remedan 3y ago
    EU legislation previously mandated micro USB on phones. That didn't seem to kill innovation, we still got USB-C. The only thing it killed was every manufacturer using a different bad connector. I don't see any downsides.
    - ericmay 3y ago
      Apple was an exception and this feels different to me. Everybody and everything is standardizing on USB-C. If you don’t see any potential downsides you aren’t looking hard enough. And this comes from someone who has wanted USB-C for a long time.
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        > Apple was an exception and this feels different to me. They were an exception because they already had the bestselling smartphone at the time they switched away from the 30-pin connector. Apple could have put a DC barrel-jack as the main power connector and the market would have no choice but to adopt it. They seized the opportunity to create a functionally-identical protocol to USB and encumber it with a licensed connector for personal gain. Regardless of how you feel about the connectors at the time, this was not a serious alternative to USB. > Everybody and everything is standardizing on USB-C. Yeah, I wonder which company was known/hated for pushing USB-C early-on as a connection standard yet not fully adopting it themselves. > If you don’t see any potential downsides you aren’t looking hard enough. No, if you don't see the problem with the status-quo then you're being blinded by baseless loyalty. From a regulatory perspective, the situation is this; public utilities cannot converge on a serial specification as long as the iPhone uses Lightning. So, they have to weigh the benefits and downsides to the scenario. Apple's connector is more physically advanced, but also license-encumbered and genuinely impossible to standardize a-la USB. Apple made no attempt to formalize Lightning under USB-IF. Their horse isn't even on the racetrack. If you consider Lightning's value to be greater than the overall harm of converging on a USB standard, then you should lobby Apple to make it an open spec and remove MFi in favor of USB class-compliance. Until that point, it will be deservedly remembered by history as a petty attempt to push unwanted IP on customers who would otherwise have no choice in the matter.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago

Not to mention that Lightning is slow as hell, and can't even deliver the throughput that the 30-pin port could.

lxgr 3y ago
The 30-pin port also only has USB 2.0 in terms of digital connections, no?
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
  Probably, but Apple re-used a bunch of the other pins for all kinds of signaling that's not USB. And had room left over for a proper line-level audio output... heaven forbid that they'd have that today. I still use a Lightning-to-30-pin adapter that has this audio output, and it functions correctly... in that the phone's volume setting has no effect on the level coming from the line out, so you only have the volume control on the amp to deal with.