The reign of the Lightning cable is over, and the USB-C era has begun — leaving us wondering what sets one charger apart from another. We do a teardown of Apple's Thunderbolt 4 and its competitors.
You do know that Apple was involved in the development of USB-C (about a quarter of the people working on it were from Apple) and was one of the first companies to put USB-C on a laptop (in 2015) ?
The vastness of the ecosystem built around Apple products cannot be understated. You can’t just change the iPhone port every few years.
Ditching the 30-pin adapter created no small degree of controversy. Though the device itself got favorable reviews, the New York Times’ tech columnist at the time called it “not just a slap in the face to loyal customers” but a “jab in the eye.”
The Lightning connector was introduced on September 12, 2012, with iPhone 5. And there was so much controversy around it that they publicly committed to using it for at least 10 years.
The USB-C spec was not finalized until nearly two years later, in August 2014.
I can’t fault a company for activity committing to a decade of compatibility with peripherals. And I certainly can’t fault them for avoiding the disaster called Micro USB.
Oh right, i forgot Mac’s are primarily used for making phone calls, texts, are kept in pockets when traveling, and USB-C is mainstream now so charging is a breeze, but screw iphones ami’rite?
Come on man. The talk has always been about apple not implementing the industry standard charging port on their phones. It goes back to the 30 pin days. They just want to make proprietary items for mad profits and milk it until all sheeps wake up.
Ok fine. What else besides data transfer and charging did you need back then when memory was expensive and data wasn’t that important to have on phones besides phone numbers and text? USB Mini / USB Micro could easily handle data transfer and charging just fine.
Edit: im fine with using any cable, be it 30 pin, lighting, usb c, etc. etc. As long as everyone uses the same cable. Keep it simple, convenient, and reduce extra waste.
The 30 pin dock connector had line-level audio output, as well as serial data lines for remote control. Back in the day I could plug my iPod or iPhone into my car and browse my music on a display on my dashboard and play back the audio over my car stereo. The dock connector also carried analog video (both composite and s-video), line audio input, firewire and was able to power accessories (3.3v) as well as charge the iPhone/iPod.
There was nothing at all at the time that could do all this using a single connector.
im fine with using any cable, be it 30 pin, lighting, usb c, etc. etc. As long as everyone uses the same cable. Keep it simple, convenient, and reduce extra waste.
But that’s not what we have with USB-C. Now, the situation is even more complicated than it was before. We still have a whole bunch of different cables, but now they all look the same and use the same connector. You can no longer easily tell them apart and there is no easy way to tell from the port on a device what features it supports and what cable it needs.
If I see a USB-C port on a device it tells me exactly nothing. Is it a USB host or not? Can the port be used to charge the device ? At what wattage? How big a charger do I need? What kind of USB data transfer speed does it support ? 12Mbit, 480Mbit, 10Gbit? Does the port support Thunderbolt? Displayport alt. mode? HDMI? Analog audio? MHL? HDMI? VirtualLink? What cable do I need ? a 5W, 10W, 30W? 60W? 100W?
A 40 Gbit 100W Thunderbolt 4 cable looks exactly the same as a 5W 480Mbit USB 2.0 cable. A cable that can carry a displayport signal looks exactly the same as one that can’t.
And shit is even more confusing than that. The USB-C spec supports an HDMI alt-mode. Cables with a USB-C connector on one side and a HDMI connector on the other exist. You’d think that to be able to use this cable your device needs to support HDMI alt. mode. Nope. HDMI alt. mode isn’t actually used, not even in USB-C to HDMI cables. Instead all such cables require DisplayPort alt. mode, as they all contain a displayport-to-HDMI converter chip.
So simple and convenient that we now have this USB-C standard.
You do know that Apple was involved in the development of USB-C (about a quarter of the people working on it were from Apple) and was one of the first companies to put USB-C on a laptop (in 2015) ?
Involved doesnt mean they implemented it fully (until now).
I remember it being fully implemented on my MacBook. What exactly was missing?
iPhones.
True, because they already had a better connector for that specific use-case. But USB-C and Thunderbolt have been implemented on MacBooks for ages.
The vastness of the ecosystem built around Apple products cannot be understated. You can’t just change the iPhone port every few years.
The Lightning connector was introduced on September 12, 2012, with iPhone 5. And there was so much controversy around it that they publicly committed to using it for at least 10 years.
The USB-C spec was not finalized until nearly two years later, in August 2014.
I can’t fault a company for activity committing to a decade of compatibility with peripherals. And I certainly can’t fault them for avoiding the disaster called Micro USB.
iPhones were missing (until now)
So what? They didn’t implement the port on the iPhone until recently. When did USB-C come out again? …
So? They implemented it fully on their laptops.
Oh right, i forgot Mac’s are primarily used for making phone calls, texts, are kept in pockets when traveling, and USB-C is mainstream now so charging is a breeze, but screw iphones ami’rite?
What does making phone calls have to do with anything?
And who even uses a cable to charge their phone? I can’t remember the last time I used a cable to charge my phone, it’s probably years ago.
Come on man. The talk has always been about apple not implementing the industry standard charging port on their phones. It goes back to the 30 pin days. They just want to make proprietary items for mad profits and milk it until all sheeps wake up.
Both the 30 pin connector and Lightning were much more capable than the ‘industry standard’ at the time they were introduced.
Ok fine. What else besides data transfer and charging did you need back then when memory was expensive and data wasn’t that important to have on phones besides phone numbers and text? USB Mini / USB Micro could easily handle data transfer and charging just fine.
Edit: im fine with using any cable, be it 30 pin, lighting, usb c, etc. etc. As long as everyone uses the same cable. Keep it simple, convenient, and reduce extra waste.
The 30 pin dock connector had line-level audio output, as well as serial data lines for remote control. Back in the day I could plug my iPod or iPhone into my car and browse my music on a display on my dashboard and play back the audio over my car stereo. The dock connector also carried analog video (both composite and s-video), line audio input, firewire and was able to power accessories (3.3v) as well as charge the iPhone/iPod.
There was nothing at all at the time that could do all this using a single connector.
But that’s not what we have with USB-C. Now, the situation is even more complicated than it was before. We still have a whole bunch of different cables, but now they all look the same and use the same connector. You can no longer easily tell them apart and there is no easy way to tell from the port on a device what features it supports and what cable it needs.
If I see a USB-C port on a device it tells me exactly nothing. Is it a USB host or not? Can the port be used to charge the device ? At what wattage? How big a charger do I need? What kind of USB data transfer speed does it support ? 12Mbit, 480Mbit, 10Gbit? Does the port support Thunderbolt? Displayport alt. mode? HDMI? Analog audio? MHL? HDMI? VirtualLink? What cable do I need ? a 5W, 10W, 30W? 60W? 100W?
A 40 Gbit 100W Thunderbolt 4 cable looks exactly the same as a 5W 480Mbit USB 2.0 cable. A cable that can carry a displayport signal looks exactly the same as one that can’t.
And shit is even more confusing than that. The USB-C spec supports an HDMI alt-mode. Cables with a USB-C connector on one side and a HDMI connector on the other exist. You’d think that to be able to use this cable your device needs to support HDMI alt. mode. Nope. HDMI alt. mode isn’t actually used, not even in USB-C to HDMI cables. Instead all such cables require DisplayPort alt. mode, as they all contain a displayport-to-HDMI converter chip.
So simple and convenient that we now have this USB-C standard.
I use cables every time to charge my phone. I hate wireless charging, so I keep it simple with a cable.