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Apple probably wouldn’t have changed to usbc for their phones. Lightning was a mobile phone / other development, whilst usbc and its contributions came from the

by ricw 10mo ago

Apple probably wouldn’t have changed to usbc for their phones. Lightning was a mobile phone / other development, whilst usbc and its contributions came from their Mac department. They did not like each others standards. I know Apple engineers working on the phone who dislike the change even up to this day…

giantrobot 10mo ago
USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime. The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which makes it more robust and easier to clean.
- KK7NIL 10mo ago
  > USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime. USB-C connectors are usually rated for 10k cycles. Do you have any evidence that lighting connectors are rated for more cycles than that? > The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which makes it more robust and easier to clean. This is very weak a priori arguing. I could just as well argue that USB-C has the center blade shielded instead of exposed and so is more durable. Unless you have some empirical evidence on this I don't see a strong argument for better durability from either connector.
  - jdiff 10mo ago
    My Pixel 8 certainly hasn't gone through 10k cycles and it barely holds on to any USB-C connector I put inside it. They all fall out even when laying still on a flat surface. There's always outliers, of course, but I had this issue with USB Micro-B on at least one other device and never saw it with a Lightning connector.
    - nl 10mo ago
      My lightning connector on my iPhone 12 is completely unreliable - I need to twist the phone against the cable to get it to change. Fortunately MagSafe works fine!
      - stouset 10mo ago
        This is probably lint buildup. You can scrape it out with any thin and stiff object like a safety pin. A small amount of lint gets into the hole. You pack it in when you plug in the cable. Repeat a thousand times and now you have a stiff “plug” of lint that prevents the connector from fully entering your device.
    - bashkiddie 10mo ago
      Your Pixel 8 could be about two years old. The connector performed way under spec and you should send it in for repair (assuming your are in a country with a 2 year warranty period)
      - jdiff 10mo ago
        Unfortunately we're nearing the anniversary of the warranty's expiration.
    - vel0city 10mo ago
      I find it's often lint in the USB-C port. Cleaning it out with a non-conductive tool like a toothpick or a dry toothbrush usually solves it for me when that happenens.
    - cyberax 10mo ago
      I've had dozens of devices with USB-C. I've yet to have even a single one that had any problems with them. To be fair, I'm using iPhones mostly for app testing, so I also had very few issues with them. What do you guys all do with your devices?!?
  - yearolinuxdsktp 10mo ago
    The 10K cycle insertion rating for USB-C is an idealized metric that does not include lateral force, torque, device movement, or real-world wear patterns. These non-axial forces are a known cause of USB-C port failures and are explicitly not accounted for in the standard 10k-cycle durability claim. USB-C center tongue female design means that the port will break before the cable. With lightning, the cable plug takes all the stress. Apple doesn’t publish insertion cycles rating for Lightning connectors, so it’s impossible to provide empirical evidence of that. In my personal experience, I’ve had two USB-C ports go bad on two MacBooks. I’ve yet to own a USB-C-charging phone, but I’ve never had a Lightning port fail.
    - KK7NIL 10mo ago
      > These non-axial forces are a known cause of USB-C port failures and are explicitly not accounted for in the standard 10k-cycle durability claim. I agree and that's par for the course for any standard, they have to limit the requirements to something that is economically manufacutrable and testable. Meanwhile, lightning connectors have no public standard to speak of so this is a mute point. > USB-C center tongue female design means that the port will break before the cable. With lightning, the cable plug takes all the stress. This is another a priori armchair expert argument which I just put very little weight on without data to back it up. > Apple doesn’t publish insertion cycles rating for Lightning connectors, so it’s impossible to provide empirical evidence of that. That conclusion does not follow. We can still obtain empirical evidence through direct testing without Apple publishing anything. > In my personal experience, I’ve had two USB-C ports go bad on two MacBooks. I’ve yet to own a USB-C-charging phone, but I’ve never had a Lightning port fail. That's fair, everyone has different anecdotal experiences as a foundation for their opinion here. The problem is that anecdotal data is just not very informative to others, that's all.
      - BenjiWiebe 10mo ago
        *moot point
    - cesarb 10mo ago
      > USB-C center tongue female design means that the port will break before the cable. With lightning, the cable plug takes all the stress. Are you sure it's the center tongue which takes all the stress, and not the round shell? AFAIK, USB-C is designed so that the cable breaks before the port, because the parts which wear the most with use (the contact and retention springs) are in the cable, not on the device.
  - stouset 10mo ago
    My own empirical evidence suggests that USB-C ports stop holding tightly onto cables after light to moderate use. To be fair, Lightning ports were prone to being clogged with lint, but that was fixable in twenty seconds with a safety pin.
    - bdangubic 10mo ago
      exactly!
    - f33d5173 10mo ago
      My experience is that plugs from the same manufacturer as the device tend to keep holding tightly, but mixing makers is unreliable. Apple plugs in particular tend to slide out of my samsung phone really easily. I guess whoever speced usbc didn't bother with the details of how it would stay in, and every manufacturer figured out their own solution.
  - anamax 10mo ago
    > This is very weak a priori arguing. I could just as well argue that USB-C has the center blade shielded instead of exposed and so is more durable. The unshielded Lightning center blade is on a $5 connector. If it breaks, I'm out $5 and it's reasonable to have spares. The shielded USB-C center blade is part of an expensive device. If it breaks....
    - Dylan16807 10mo ago
      Have you ever seen either kind of port break on the inside? This speculation is just as weak without any evidence.
      - tpmoney 10mo ago
        I did wind up replacing the USB C ports on a 4 year old computer recently because it was dodgy as hell. When i got it under the microscope it the longer bus power pin contacts (and one or two of the others) had been badly worn/squished/stretched in a way that I guess was causing them to bridge to other pins. I assume some USB-C cable had some gunk in the connector which was hard enough to damage the contacts on the center blade, and the user didn't notice (because how often do you look into the end of your USB-C cable?). It probably presented as a cable that wasn't seating right or didn't go all the way in and whatever was inside probably fell out when it was removed and they tried again. And for what it's worth, damage to the center blade does seem to be a common failure mode for USB-C and mini-usb connectors. Less frequent for something like HDMI but it does seem to happen from time to time. Lightning never felt like it locked in as securely as USB connectors do, but at the same time, every time I saw a damaged lightning connector it was always on the male (and therefore usually cheaper accessory) side.
      - klausa 10mo ago
        I've had multiple USB-C chargers broken like this. Now, admittedly, "being yanked by a robot vacuum and falling on the ground" is outside the design parameters for a port; but I absolutely had USB-C ports fail in a way that Lightning would have not. (Not the person you're replying to, but also a "Lightning was a better physical connector than USB-C" weirdo.)
- PunchyHamster 10mo ago
  Incorrect. You want springy bits on part that is easily replaceable - the cable. USB-C does that, the springy bits are in the connector, not the socket. My phone is now 6 years old, zero problems on usb-c connector
ebbi 10mo ago
Did they give reasons for why they don't like the change?
llm_nerd 10mo ago
"I know Apple engineers working on the phone" Groan. Come on. Cite one. A single "Apple engineer" to support this ridiculous claim of insider knowledge. What year do you think it is? You understand that the SoC and I/O blocks are largely shared between the Mac and the iPad / iPhone now, right? This invention of some big bifurcation is not reality based. The A14 SoC (which became the foundation for the Mac's M1) had I/O hardware to support USB-C all the ways back to the iPhone 12. Which makes sense as this chipset was used in iPads that came with USB-C. Pretty weird for hardware that is largely the same to "not like each others standards".
- klausa 10mo ago
  The I/O blocks are similar, but very much not the same between the different Axy/Mz chips. They're different even between A19 Pro in an iPhone Air and the one in 17 Pros! The Air one doesn't support 10Gbps USB-C.
  - llm_nerd 10mo ago
    Well sure, they're iterating between models. But in many cases they're quite literally copy/pasting designs. Any imagined separation between the hardware teams is fantasy based. The comment I replied to is nonsensical. "They're different even between A19 Pro in an iPhone Air and the one in 17 Pros" The SoC and I/O blocks are quite literally identical. An A19 Pro is an A19 Pro, aside from binning for core disables. The difference is in the wiring and physical connector on the device which puts a ceiling on the features supported, one of which is 10Gbps. The Air famously includes some new "3D printed" super thin Titanium USB-C port, using the 4 pins rather than the "pro" 9 pin 10Gbps capable connector. The SoC is identical, they just only wired it up for USB 2.0.

by ricw 10mo ago

giantrobot 10mo ago

USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime. The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which makes it more robust and easier to clean.

KK7NIL 10mo ago
> USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime. USB-C connectors are usually rated for 10k cycles. Do you have any evidence that lighting connectors are rated for more cycles than that? > The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which makes it more robust and easier to clean. This is very weak a priori arguing. I could just as well argue that USB-C has the center blade shielded instead of exposed and so is more durable. Unless you have some empirical evidence on this I don't see a strong argument for better durability from either connector.
- jdiff 10mo ago
  My Pixel 8 certainly hasn't gone through 10k cycles and it barely holds on to any USB-C connector I put inside it. They all fall out even when laying still on a flat surface. There's always outliers, of course, but I had this issue with USB Micro-B on at least one other device and never saw it with a Lightning connector.
  - nl 10mo ago
    My lightning connector on my iPhone 12 is completely unreliable - I need to twist the phone against the cable to get it to change. Fortunately MagSafe works fine!
    - stouset 10mo ago
      This is probably lint buildup. You can scrape it out with any thin and stiff object like a safety pin. A small amount of lint gets into the hole. You pack it in when you plug in the cable. Repeat a thousand times and now you have a stiff “plug” of lint that prevents the connector from fully entering your device.
  - bashkiddie 10mo ago
    Your Pixel 8 could be about two years old. The connector performed way under spec and you should send it in for repair (assuming your are in a country with a 2 year warranty period)
    - jdiff 10mo ago
      Unfortunately we're nearing the anniversary of the warranty's expiration.
  - vel0city 10mo ago
    I find it's often lint in the USB-C port. Cleaning it out with a non-conductive tool like a toothpick or a dry toothbrush usually solves it for me when that happenens.
  - cyberax 10mo ago
    I've had dozens of devices with USB-C. I've yet to have even a single one that had any problems with them. To be fair, I'm using iPhones mostly for app testing, so I also had very few issues with them. What do you guys all do with your devices?!?
- yearolinuxdsktp 10mo ago
  The 10K cycle insertion rating for USB-C is an idealized metric that does not include lateral force, torque, device movement, or real-world wear patterns. These non-axial forces are a known cause of USB-C port failures and are explicitly not accounted for in the standard 10k-cycle durability claim. USB-C center tongue female design means that the port will break before the cable. With lightning, the cable plug takes all the stress. Apple doesn’t publish insertion cycles rating for Lightning connectors, so it’s impossible to provide empirical evidence of that. In my personal experience, I’ve had two USB-C ports go bad on two MacBooks. I’ve yet to own a USB-C-charging phone, but I’ve never had a Lightning port fail.
  - KK7NIL 10mo ago
    > These non-axial forces are a known cause of USB-C port failures and are explicitly not accounted for in the standard 10k-cycle durability claim. I agree and that's par for the course for any standard, they have to limit the requirements to something that is economically manufacutrable and testable. Meanwhile, lightning connectors have no public standard to speak of so this is a mute point. > USB-C center tongue female design means that the port will break before the cable. With lightning, the cable plug takes all the stress. This is another a priori armchair expert argument which I just put very little weight on without data to back it up. > Apple doesn’t publish insertion cycles rating for Lightning connectors, so it’s impossible to provide empirical evidence of that. That conclusion does not follow. We can still obtain empirical evidence through direct testing without Apple publishing anything. > In my personal experience, I’ve had two USB-C ports go bad on two MacBooks. I’ve yet to own a USB-C-charging phone, but I’ve never had a Lightning port fail. That's fair, everyone has different anecdotal experiences as a foundation for their opinion here. The problem is that anecdotal data is just not very informative to others, that's all.
    - BenjiWiebe 10mo ago
      *moot point
  - cesarb 10mo ago
    > USB-C center tongue female design means that the port will break before the cable. With lightning, the cable plug takes all the stress. Are you sure it's the center tongue which takes all the stress, and not the round shell? AFAIK, USB-C is designed so that the cable breaks before the port, because the parts which wear the most with use (the contact and retention springs) are in the cable, not on the device.
- stouset 10mo ago
  My own empirical evidence suggests that USB-C ports stop holding tightly onto cables after light to moderate use. To be fair, Lightning ports were prone to being clogged with lint, but that was fixable in twenty seconds with a safety pin.
  - bdangubic 10mo ago
    exactly!
  - f33d5173 10mo ago
    My experience is that plugs from the same manufacturer as the device tend to keep holding tightly, but mixing makers is unreliable. Apple plugs in particular tend to slide out of my samsung phone really easily. I guess whoever speced usbc didn't bother with the details of how it would stay in, and every manufacturer figured out their own solution.
- anamax 10mo ago
  > This is very weak a priori arguing. I could just as well argue that USB-C has the center blade shielded instead of exposed and so is more durable. The unshielded Lightning center blade is on a $5 connector. If it breaks, I'm out $5 and it's reasonable to have spares. The shielded USB-C center blade is part of an expensive device. If it breaks....
  - Dylan16807 10mo ago
    Have you ever seen either kind of port break on the inside? This speculation is just as weak without any evidence.
    - tpmoney 10mo ago
      I did wind up replacing the USB C ports on a 4 year old computer recently because it was dodgy as hell. When i got it under the microscope it the longer bus power pin contacts (and one or two of the others) had been badly worn/squished/stretched in a way that I guess was causing them to bridge to other pins. I assume some USB-C cable had some gunk in the connector which was hard enough to damage the contacts on the center blade, and the user didn't notice (because how often do you look into the end of your USB-C cable?). It probably presented as a cable that wasn't seating right or didn't go all the way in and whatever was inside probably fell out when it was removed and they tried again. And for what it's worth, damage to the center blade does seem to be a common failure mode for USB-C and mini-usb connectors. Less frequent for something like HDMI but it does seem to happen from time to time. Lightning never felt like it locked in as securely as USB connectors do, but at the same time, every time I saw a damaged lightning connector it was always on the male (and therefore usually cheaper accessory) side.
    - klausa 10mo ago
      I've had multiple USB-C chargers broken like this. Now, admittedly, "being yanked by a robot vacuum and falling on the ground" is outside the design parameters for a port; but I absolutely had USB-C ports fail in a way that Lightning would have not. (Not the person you're replying to, but also a "Lightning was a better physical connector than USB-C" weirdo.)
PunchyHamster 10mo ago
Incorrect. You want springy bits on part that is easily replaceable - the cable. USB-C does that, the springy bits are in the connector, not the socket. My phone is now 6 years old, zero problems on usb-c connector

ebbi 10mo ago

Did they give reasons for why they don't like the change?

llm_nerd 10mo ago

"I know Apple engineers working on the phone" Groan. Come on. Cite one. A single "Apple engineer" to support this ridiculous claim of insider knowledge. What year do you think it is? You understand that the SoC and I/O blocks are largely shared between the Mac and the iPad / iPhone now, right? This invention of some big bifurcation is not reality based. The A14 SoC (which became the foundation for the Mac's M1) had I/O hardware to support USB-C all the ways back to the iPhone 12. Which makes sense as this chipset was used in iPads that came with USB-C. Pretty weird for hardware that is largely the same to "not like each others standards".

klausa 10mo ago
The I/O blocks are similar, but very much not the same between the different Axy/Mz chips. They're different even between A19 Pro in an iPhone Air and the one in 17 Pros! The Air one doesn't support 10Gbps USB-C.
- llm_nerd 10mo ago
  Well sure, they're iterating between models. But in many cases they're quite literally copy/pasting designs. Any imagined separation between the hardware teams is fantasy based. The comment I replied to is nonsensical. "They're different even between A19 Pro in an iPhone Air and the one in 17 Pros" The SoC and I/O blocks are quite literally identical. An A19 Pro is an A19 Pro, aside from binning for core disables. The difference is in the wiring and physical connector on the device which puts a ceiling on the features supported, one of which is 10Gbps. The Air famously includes some new "3D printed" super thin Titanium USB-C port, using the 4 pins rather than the "pro" 9 pin 10Gbps capable connector. The SoC is identical, they just only wired it up for USB 2.0.