3 ms·

> I wish @Apple would devote an employee or two to cracking down on such a technological, psychological abomination as this. What can Apple do though? Any chan

> I wish @Apple would devote an employee or two to cracking down on such a technological, psychological abomination as this. What can Apple do though? Any change that cracks down on this will render these devices unusable for thousands of people, generate tons of e-waste, and create a huge backlash towards Apple. It reminds me of when FTDI permanently bricked FTDI clones [0]. Further, I'm not sure I agree with the OP's vitriol against these manufacturers. They're using an open standard to bypass Apple's MFi tax. It's a hack for sure, but if it leads to cheaper devices -- which is the ultimate goal for this segment of product -- I don't see the problem. I could see the problem if they're advertised as wired headphones without mentioning Bluetooth though. [0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/ftdi-admits-to-bricking-innocent-users-chips-in-silent-update/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/ftdi-admits-to-bricking-innoce...

amluto 2y ago
What can Apple do? They could make standards-compliant USB-C audio adapters work on the iPhone 15 and up, with no NDAs, magic chips, or Apple-specific standards. (Maybe the already do?)
- davekeck 2y ago
  Totally agree, the time to crack down on these devices was before they were needed in the first place. Apple created this situation, I just hope they don't feel the need to "fix it". Given their sensitivity to bad PR, I'd be very surprised if they did.
- lxgr 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure they already do. The story in the tweet mentions Lightning.
  - meatmanek 2y ago
    They _almost_ do. I can use a USBC-headphone dongle that came with some Pixel phone with my iPhone, but only for listening to music and videos. For video calls (at least Google Meet), the phone just plays the audio out its speakers like normal, and doesn't offer the option to use the headphone dongle. I thought this was a bug in Google Meet until I plugged in a first-party Apple dongle and it worked perfectly.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      Huh, very interesting! Since these adapters are active, I wonder if there's a slight mismatch in what the Pixel adapter advertises and what the iPhone expects. Maybe the iPhone identifies it as a USB speaker (i.e. output only)? I also wonder who's out of spec here: My guess would be Apple (especially Google's history of pushing USB-C and even producing some open-hardware debugging tools for it), but then again I've had my Macbook struggle with a Chromebook charger, and only that charger in the past. Would be curious to see a USB-knowledgeable person run a logic analyzer on the Pixel dongle to see what's going on.
    - brokenmachine 2y ago
      So they also gimped their USBC port to sell more airpods. What a surprise that is. There's no lengths that Apple won't go to to sell more dongles or overpriced airpods.
      - lxgr 2y ago
        So from the observation "a Google USB-C device does not work properly on an Apple phone", you immediately arrive at "Apple must be out of spec"? I'd also be really curious what's going on here, but you just seem to have an axe to grind. In my experience, Apple has been pretty ok at complying with standards (assuming they even implement a given one, anyway). For example, I've had a USB-C Chromebook charger that would cycle on and off when connected to my Macbook, while several other USB-C chargers (including very particular ones like the Nintendo Switch one) were able to charge it without any problem. From my point of view, the one Google product I used was the outlier, but I wouldn't go as far as saying "Google's USB-C implementations are crap and a money grab".
        brokenmachine 2y ago
        I also have a coworker who is an Apple victim who had previously complained to me that he couldn't get the microphone on his headset working with his iPhone, but I don't know what brand the headset was. So that made me even more inclined to think Apple has gimped their USBC ports to sell more dongles and airpods.

amluto 2y ago

What can Apple do? They could make standards-compliant USB-C audio adapters work on the iPhone 15 and up, with no NDAs, magic chips, or Apple-specific standards. (Maybe the already do?)

davekeck 2y ago
Totally agree, the time to crack down on these devices was before they were needed in the first place. Apple created this situation, I just hope they don't feel the need to "fix it". Given their sensitivity to bad PR, I'd be very surprised if they did.
lxgr 2y ago
I'm pretty sure they already do. The story in the tweet mentions Lightning.
- meatmanek 2y ago
  They _almost_ do. I can use a USBC-headphone dongle that came with some Pixel phone with my iPhone, but only for listening to music and videos. For video calls (at least Google Meet), the phone just plays the audio out its speakers like normal, and doesn't offer the option to use the headphone dongle. I thought this was a bug in Google Meet until I plugged in a first-party Apple dongle and it worked perfectly.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    Huh, very interesting! Since these adapters are active, I wonder if there's a slight mismatch in what the Pixel adapter advertises and what the iPhone expects. Maybe the iPhone identifies it as a USB speaker (i.e. output only)? I also wonder who's out of spec here: My guess would be Apple (especially Google's history of pushing USB-C and even producing some open-hardware debugging tools for it), but then again I've had my Macbook struggle with a Chromebook charger, and only that charger in the past. Would be curious to see a USB-knowledgeable person run a logic analyzer on the Pixel dongle to see what's going on.
  - brokenmachine 2y ago
    So they also gimped their USBC port to sell more airpods. What a surprise that is. There's no lengths that Apple won't go to to sell more dongles or overpriced airpods.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      So from the observation "a Google USB-C device does not work properly on an Apple phone", you immediately arrive at "Apple must be out of spec"? I'd also be really curious what's going on here, but you just seem to have an axe to grind. In my experience, Apple has been pretty ok at complying with standards (assuming they even implement a given one, anyway). For example, I've had a USB-C Chromebook charger that would cycle on and off when connected to my Macbook, while several other USB-C chargers (including very particular ones like the Nintendo Switch one) were able to charge it without any problem. From my point of view, the one Google product I used was the outlier, but I wouldn't go as far as saying "Google's USB-C implementations are crap and a money grab".
      - brokenmachine 2y ago
        I also have a coworker who is an Apple victim who had previously complained to me that he couldn't get the microphone on his headset working with his iPhone, but I don't know what brand the headset was. So that made me even more inclined to think Apple has gimped their USBC ports to sell more dongles and airpods.