https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66778528
Apple confirms new iPhone 15 will have a common USB-C charging port after EU forces it into the change.
Apple forced to ditch iPhone lightning charger::Apple confirms new iPhone 15 will have a common USB-C charging port after EU forces it into the change.
They first started using USB c on the macbooks in 2015. There's no way that it took 8 years to get it ready for the iPhone. In that time they've also released several other devices and accessories which have used lightning.
To me this doesn't point to a planned gradual shift over to USB c but one that was forced by neccesity on the macbook then by regulation on the iPhone.
The narrative around Lightning was always that they’d keep it for 10 years and then move to something new, Schiller even called it “a modern connector for the next decade” when it was announced, and at the time it was better than anything else on the market.
No one who’s been paying attention is surprised that Apple switched this year and not next. I’d love to go dig up my years old comments on Reddit about this but like many of us I deleted my whole history. I had hoped they’d advance the timeline and release the 14 with USBC because of the EU regs, but I’m convinced this was the plan because they waited for the lighting to fulfill its 10 year target (just like with the 30 pin connector) and not until the EU regs actually forced them in 2024.
When the iPad switched to USBC in 2018 it was a foregone conclusion that iPhone would too, and the assumption was always for it to happen in 2023.
How does it take 5 years to integrate the world's most popular and standardised connector?
Call me a cynic, but maybe they just wanted another five years of selling over priced cables and another five years of controlling another part of the "ecosystem".
I’m saying it was a choice to ride out the full 10 years with lightning, not a limitation. They tooled up for 10 years of lightning and they stuck to the plan.
Apple produces hardware at a scale not imaginable to mortal people. When they want to use a chip in their phone, they just buy up the chip's factory's entire production run for the next few years.
Apple was the only company that had no shortages during the chip troubles of 2020/21/22. That’s because they plan ahead. They have a logistics person at the helm, and it’s very visible.
All of this naturally leads to ridiculous planning cycles.
as every accessory with a lightning port just became e-waste. I guess Mother Nature didn’t see that.
I think it's interesting that you see this as USB-C's fault.
If Apple had stuck to a standard connector they would have been on usb-c in a year or two anyway and none of that e-waste would exist.
Or if they went back on their word and switched to usb-c from lightning after a couple years, there would also be way less Lightning e-waste. What do you think happens to all those Lightning accessories when someone switches from iPhone to a different device?
Apple's proprietary Lightning connector is responsible for the e-waste, not USB-C or regulators.
These regulations will stop companies like Apple making proprietary connectors purely for profit that generate all the e-waste in the first place.
Lol, a cable is barely e waste. The power Adapter is where the e waste is, and those usb A blocks can easily still be used, even if you only have usb-C cables lying around. For very little money, you can buy an Adapter from usb-A to C and you can still use them. I don’t get the eWaste argument on copper cables…
USB-C was finalized 2 years later so the decade of Lighting e-waste is still on Apple for holding out as long as they did.
Maybe instead of designing a whole new Lightning connector they should have been pioneers and been one of the first to make a USB-C phone.
"Hence the removal of the headphone jack."
What does that have to do with USB vs Lightning? Besides, Lightning to Headphone Jack adapters as well as lightning airpods use a DAC inside the cable.
Boy, some of you are really drinking the Apple koolaid.
As far as I know the fastest charging over lightning even now is 20 Watts which is far too slow for a laptop with a large battery. I suspect that they couldn't use lightning on the macbooks for that reason.
If their intention was to limit waste then they wouldn't have continued to produce lightning accessories if the plan was to transition in just a few years
Laptops were never charged with lightning and it makes zero sense that they ever would. It was never necessary and they received a LOT of hate over using USB-C on the laptops because they were extremely early to the party. The exact same hate was heaped on them when they implemented USB before everyone else.
You apparently don’t remember (or care) about how they faced a lot of backlash when they moved from the 30-pin to Lightning on iPhone. They promised accessory manufacturers that they wouldn’t change the iPhone port again for at least 10 years, and we are right at that mark. Other products have been transitioning to USB-C in a somewhat logical order. All of the products that charge with lightning now are iPhone accessories and there is little reason to have different charge ports on products that are meant to be used together.
The only argument that isn’t just pure ignorance seems to boil down to “Apple evil”
They have a magsafe port and come with a MagSafe cable (which is USB -> MagSafe) but they charge just fine with usb-c. I can't remember when I last used my MagSafe cable (I think it's in a box somewhere) because it normally charges while docked and it makes more sense to carry an USB cable on the go.
This law is more than a decade in the making, the only reason it was on Apples roadmap is because of this law.
The EU doesn't have to mandate a new connector when something new comes up, it just has to be an open standard, ANY open standard. This is miles better for everyone. And the EU doesn't force the whole world to adapt their standard, it's just not economical to produce different versions for different markets, but they are very much allowed to sell whatever to their non EU customers.
If you really want the lightning adapter back, you can ask one of the many people who soldered a usb-c connector in an iphone 12/13/14. If one person can do it, I'm pretty sure Apple can, too.
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Give over. They were passive aggressive as fuck in their statements after the EU mandated it.
I don't know any reason why switching to USB-C would've been on Apple's roadmap. Controlling the lighting ecosystem is far too valuable for them. Apple's refusal to switch to the common USB-C is one of the reasons this law exists in it's current form.
If it’s all about pumping up Lightning, why did the iPad leave it?
Because Lightning is too slow and low-power for the functionality they felt necessary for the iPad.
You can't do real video output over USB2.0, charging current is limited, and you can't effectively use it for data and charging at the same time outside of limited configurations.
Your mistake is overlooking the fact that Lightning is woefully outdated.
iPhones have been able to get away with it this long by doing most everything wirelessly and convincing users like you that it's somehow better to have a slower, less powerful connector on their phone.
They couldn't get away with the same limitations on a tablet.
I guess if a new/better connector comes along we have to wait for the EU to give everyone permission to move the technology forward?
The EU is mandating open standards, not specific open standards.
If a new and better connector comes around they are welcome/encouraged to use it. As long as it's an open standard and not proprietary e-waste generating junk
Theyre not stupid if you read it before writing about it on Lemmy you'd see they're required to review regularly with stakeholders to agree and amend requirements 'in line with scientific and technological progress, consumer convenience and environmental developments'
Apple would have implemented USB-C ages ago if they had any intention of ever doing it willingly.
Everything they make uses USB-C except the iphone which uses lightning and funnily enough they get a substantial cut out of every accessory and cable sale.
The EU has a FAQ somewhere addressing this, can't find it though.
And calling the EU a regional government is underplaying their power and international influence a LOT.
Eh, I don't know Apple's intentions but this specific design change isn't that complicated. The lightning port still uses the USB protocol so the firmware will be the same or very similar. The supporting electronics also wouldn't change much, but at most they'd omit/add a few small passives and slightly reroute that part of the circuit to make things fit together. They'd also have to lock down a large production run of USB ports, but any manufacturer would accommodate a customer as large as Apple. They'd need to test fit it with the new phone chassis but that's relatively simple as well. Regulatory certification would also be smooth sailing for a change this simple, since most of what's changing is simply the form factor.
I figure it would take two years before customers would see this design change from the moment engineering was assigned it.
I'm an electrical engineer who works in production if that matters.
I doubt Apple just learned of the pending EU rule 12 months ago as it was passed.
The alternative is to take a gamble that it won't be approved and then be stuck with phones that weren't in compliance (ignoring the 24 month grace period) and having the development clock start immediately for future models. I'm sure they saw which way the winds were blowing, knew they had no populist counter argument opposing the change, and decided it was in their best interest to join literally every other manufacturer on the planet in using a standard port.
It's really hard to say without being personally involved. Two years is a very comfortable amount of time to implement that specific change. The biggest hurdle is passing regulatory testing early enough to begin manufacturing in time to build a large enough stockpile before release. If they really pushed it and threw enough people at it, manufacturing could begin as little as 6 months after starting. But that's a very risky timeline because about a million things will still go wrong all throughout the process, and "simple" design changes like this are never, ever simple.
I'm impressed if they began production one year after deciding to make the change. The EU directive might've been approved roughly a year ago, but Apple might've seen writing on the wall and started earlier too. Regardless of context, this is definitely not a >2-3 year process though.
Could they?
Yeah probably. USB-C connectors are ubiquitous, I'm certain they could acquire the necessary components in short notice if they had to. From my understanding they essentially did just swap the connector and kept the same USB2.0 controller.
Did they?
I doubt it, they had plenty of notice this was coming and were likely already preparing for it.
I wouldn't be surprised if the second USB-C iPhone release gets a modern controller with USB 3.2 or even 4, and Apple talks it up like they have single-handedly made USB-C fast all by theirselves (and imply that other mobile devices haven't had the same for far longer)
Why are you getting downvoted 🤔 I’m pretty sure apple would have kept lighting on the "cheap" phones until the complete removal of any port (I assume they kill the port on the "cheap" phone in the next 5 years) and give the pro thunderbolt like they did this year. I’m thinking this, because I bet not even 1% of "cheap" iPhone users uses the port for data transfer (keep in mind that 1% of "cheap" iPhone users are still plenty talking in absolute numbers)
Just because Apple forced their users to switch everything to wireless, doesn't mean cables are obsolete.
More users would use cable if it was actually decently implemented, like with many Android manufacturers.
Because cable has many advantages over wireless, like having transfer speeds more than 10 times faster.
I know you didn’t mean it that way, but that is actually the best solution from a production side, which Cook is. Just change one line in the process. Instead of a lightning port, it’s a usbc port.
It’s a phone. I don’t know why everyone wants 40 Gbps. Not that you’ll ever get unless you pony up for a $100 cable.
With all that said, it was hilarious to see them talk about usb 2 and how 3 is 20x faster because that shit was straight out of 20 years ago.
I know you're not the same person they replied to, but this is "arguing out of both sides of your mouth."
It can't be that "Apple carefully plans out everything years in advance so it had to be USB-C anyway due to the difficulty in adapting a new port" and also that "they do a simple one line change in the production run to swap to USB-C" because these two things are diametrically opposed to one another.
Hey, maybe the production process and internal documentation is so shit that it does in fact take several years in advance to plan out a simple swap of the connector XD
Never said they carefully planned out usb c. All I said was that changing the physical port is the cheapest and most cost effective way of doing it. No need to change the entire module.
It’s all right there. So no idea man
I acknowledged that you weren't the person making the initial claim right at the beginning of my comment, but the flow of the discussion here is:
A) Initial claim: USB-C was coming anyway because it takes years to integrate this stuff into new devices
B) Counter-argument: If it took them years to integrate this port into the device then why does it appear to be slapped together with shit data speed?
C) Your counter counter-argument: it appears slapped together because it's a simple one line change in the production process and is very simple
A and C can't be true because they're diametrically opposed. If B and C are true then A is false.
I think it's more that USB 2 speeds at the bare minimum are a really trash value for an $800 phone. I get what you mean, as this will push the "pro" consumers who absolutely must have 4K ProRes RAW video/photo transfers to buy the Pro models, but for real. It is shitty from a consumer perspective regardless.
You get the same speeds on the 15 as lightning. Same power delivery. The Pro got bumped up to usb 3.0. Nothing ground breaking but fast enough to record video to an external source.
The rest is the internet being the internet. Not sure why everyone expected TB4 40 Gbps speeds on a phone 🤷♂️
Oh man you have not followed all of this progress have you? the EU has been pushing for this for a long time now, if this was their planall along Apple could have stated that they planned to do this in the future but that they were waiting for closure of their original connector, but they didn't, all their communications until this decission was made have been that lightning was not going away. Suddenly, it was their plan all along. It's... so much like apple to do this and so in line for their fans to eat it up.
itr's not about sharing their plans publicly, it's about their intent being 180 of what they say now. When this was being worked on in the EU, Apple was pretty clearly against it. If their plan was to do it anyway them opposing the forced change would make no sense.
Are people astroturfing here? Seriously? It may be one of the worst place for that, and it looks like a very bad troll.
If they were going to switch anyway, they wouldn't have struggled until the EU had to make regulations around it.
Regulations means the market can't regulate itself. The market in this case being Apple.
I'm sure the push for non proprietary standards before the latest EU rules had some part to play as well
They had until the beginning of 2024, that is by 2024 USB C had to be the standard, leaving Apple no choice with Iphones introduced in 2023's fall.
I think they wanted to go to usb-c (as that's what all their other products use) but they didn't want to face the backlash from customers when "all their cables and docks had to be changed again". Luckily for apple the EU gave them a fall guy.
If that was the case apple wouldn't talk so openly about how that's bad for the consumer. They want to keep Lightning since they want to control the iPhone accessory ecosystem.
Of course they would, "I'm sorry that all your accessories no longer work guys, it was all the EU's fault".
It probably depends on the consumer. Most (older) people I know are always irritated which cable they actually need, so it's great to just be able to give them one with USB C.
Edit: They often have other devices with USB C anyway (e.g. headphones).
😏next will be replaceable batteries, alternative App Stores and messengers who have to use a open protocol for chat (open in a sense that different chat apps can Talk to each other, but the privacy is still protected. Like eMail but with end to end encryption)
It's not, really. They're not being forced to interoperate or adopt a standard intermediary protocol, just to publish APIs. WhatsApp and iMessage will still be totally separate services if they want to be.
I hope that the protocol is open source and approved by trusted privacy protection peoples everywhere in the world. But yea, better everyone would have their own matrix servers, I agree.
Which government? There isn't just one in the EU.
Or are you talking about the US government?
I live in the EU so yes I know
I was talking about an abstract entity government not any government in particular
So funny seeing Apple fans eat up their PR. Ooh it was Apple's plan all along? They did it because it's more environmentally friendly? Yeah right and it only coincides the very same year EU is enforcing every manufacturer to go USB-C route. No one ever stopped to think if Apple is so environmentally friendly why were they fighting right to repair act.
And don't give me that "iPad had USB-C" speech. If lightning port could handle higher currents, iPad would have gone that route as well. USB has been standard for many years now but they have pushed so many different ports instead of going USB route. They don't care about anything else other than milking a bit more money from their users.
In my opinion, Apple's choice to reduce the number and variety of ports on their devices in order to sell more dongles was where mobile device enshitification began in earnest. Now my phone just spys on me and vomits ads constantly and I can't even plug in my fucking headphones.
They take ages to adopt great features that have existed on Android devices for years, and yet are THE leader of what corners to cut in the industry.
We like to call it innovation here, innovative ideas to fuck everyone and get a bit of bonus for the ceo
For me, nothing could ever possibly top Apple's rejection of strain relievers on their cables. It's absolutely the perfect blend of their overrated design sense with their unerring corporate instinct for planned obsolescence.
Also let us not forget Apple is the only laptop manufacturer whose laptops have failing SATA cables. I am yet to run into any laptop with drive cables failing.
Indeed. And yet I have never mentioned anything about what age laptops I was talking about. Then again, Apple was also only manufacturer with unibody laptop whose two parts unglued when you used your laptop for anything more intensive because they designed air flow in such a way so that hot air blows on "unibody" glued part. It's just comedy all around.
Actually, Apple supports the right to repair law now: https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/23/23843506/apple-california-right-to-repair-sb-244
They saw the the writing on the wall, and turned colours as soon as they saw they were fighiting a loosing battle.
Like any populist leader, they have just seen which way the crowd is moving, ran to the front and pretended that's what they were going to do all along.
I want to say that people like you falling for this is mind blowing, but it actually just seems to be a rather depressing part of human nature. I'll never understand why people show such loyalty to a company that only cares about how much money they can extract from your pockets.
Ye no, i will only say they support it the moment their devices isnt made to not be repaired and have dark patterns all over them
No, they were forced to.
If you actually look closer to their setup, it is extremely difficult and costs tons of money. Just to make their Genius bars seem reasonable.
Thank fuck, the lightning charger is hot dogshit, IMO. Th lack of compatibility of iphone is annoying, particularly around how 3rd party charging cords won't work with their products sometimes.
I had an iphone for over a decade, and finally switched to android. It suits me better. I spend a lot less time thinking 'i should be able to do this' and looking for a workaround
I'll say this. For how much shit Steve Jobs gets, regardless of his personal life, he would never allow this shit to happen. That crazy bastard is responsible for getting rid of the floppy drive and pushing the industry towards USB 1.0 because he believed enough in it. That we would benefit.
You can find old forum posts of the original iMac launch and see how surprised and somewhat upset people are at this revelation. Now look where we are.
Pushed the industry towards USB before inevitably abandoning it for their proprietary lightning charger.
You do realize lightning was conceptualized AFTER his death?
Not only that, but the industry standard at the time was Micro USB. So either a really good, reversible charger for the time, or a piece of shit cable that dies after 4 months. Take your pick.
ok now im really curious, what are you plugging into your CELL PHONE that requires 10 gigabit?
Obviously video. You must be an old fashion person that doesn't record anything on their literally 4k HDR 60fps pocket camera. But I only back up all my stuff directly off my micro SD card because I don't have 24h to empty all 128GB of it via USB 2.0.
It takes 35.5 minutes to transfer 128GB over USB 2.0, not 24 hours.
128GB of 4k 60fps video on the iphone is roughly 5-6 hours of video. Considering MicroSD cards under ideal conditions can only write at roughly 1.5x USB 2.0 speed, you're not really saving a whole lot of time. Especially considering that sustained writes cause a lot of heat in those cards and throughput is drastically reduced within under a minute of transfer time. No idea where you got the 24h empty time from, maybe there's something wrong with your adapter.
It takes sooooo long to transfer like 10-30k photos though. Even though the data amount is the same, it takes way longer when it’s a billion 10MB files. I’m shocked that my high end 2018 phone still plugs in at USB2 speeds.
I’m very jazzed iPhones are switching to USBC. I love the actual cable for lightning, it’s super unfiddly to plug in blind. But I DO have to wrap both ends with electrical tape and heat shrink to make sure they last. Well, I don’t HAVE to, but it does help.
Apple's 4k/60 HDR Prores is about 6GB per minute of footage. The on-device storage is much, much faster than MicroSD cards.
So if you shoot 10 minutes of footage, with 60GB of files:
Note that Airdrop requires apple devices on both sides, which isn't a given in a video workflow.
Also, the faster data connection opens up possibilities for tethered shooting where the pipe is fat enough to pull down the whole video at full uncompressed quality, which might make a huge difference for any kind of project where the on-board storage is a limiting factor.
I mean…. sure but if youre going to invest that much in high speed massive storage devices to do tethered shooting you’re maybe someone who uses an actual camera instead of a phone? That adds huge benefits like wide aperture and multiple lenses.
Your battery will die before you fill the internal storage. Attaching external storage occupies the charging port.
It's a qualitative difference in investment when the phone you were already going to buy shoots video at quality settings that basically can't be beat in the same form factor. Cameras of similar size and weight can't compete with the quality, and cameras of similar quality can't compete with the size and weight (or price).
It'll occupy a particular market, even if it won't cover all of them. The $4000, 3 lb (1.3 kg) mirrorless+lens kit isn't going to compete with the $1000 iPhone in every space, and there will be a use for high quality (but not the top professional quality) at reasonable price and accessibility.
It already captures the quality. Might as well build on board the ability to transfer full quality video at reasonable speeds.
I had this question as well. I don’t think I’ve physically plugged my iPhone 11 in for data/photo/video syncing since I got it. Everything is super fast over wifi, there’s no reason for a cord. Only thing I use the port for is charging and sometimes audio. I’d probably have been fine if they dropped the port, but I’m happy they kept it for now.
Hey I'm with you, don't really need faster wired data speeds.
But I guess Apple has changed their goals if they are leaving out common functionality available in all other flagship devices simply because it's not strictly necessary 🤷
Fair, but most midrange phones have at least USB3 as well, no?
I don't actually know for certain, but I can't imagine why they wouldn't.
My uneducated guess is this: the iPhone 15 uses the same A16 chip as the 14 Pro did, to more easily produce it at scale and cost effectively. The 14 Pro had Lightning and therefore 2.0 speeds. The 15 kept the 2.0 speed because the A16 couldn’t (readily?) be reengineered to support a 3.0 connector.
You’d be surprised how much vlogging and videography is performed with iPhones. Even LMG use one for GameLinked
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The Pro version does have it.
Everything to push people into buying even more expensive shit, right?
The base 15 has the processor from the 14 pro, which does not have the USB 3.0 controller on it.
Just like the base 14 had the processor from the 13 pro ...and the base 13 had the processor from the 12 pro
you get the idea.
Only good thing about Lightning was the connector itself, but USB-C is a much needed improvement. The speed thing though, that gets me, especially when non-flagship devices aren’t limited to 2.x speeds.
Yeah the lightning charger in my experience immediately breaks when I put it in any position it just doesn't like.
Edit: should clarify I use an Android now
You'll feel right at home with usb-c then. I use both every day and, honestly, they both suck.
But with Usb-c you get Power Delivery which kicks the shit out of old 5v 2a nonsense
I find usb-c generally better. faster charging, as you've pointed out. I find the connections usually a lot more secure too. I have one cord in my car for android auto that's a finicky little bitch, though, and I'm about to yeet that thing, if I ever remember to replace it. All of my other cords have held up well, and it's really nice to have the ability to charge all of my devices with one cord.
Just curious why you think USB C sucks? I think it's gotten to a mature point now with PD 3.0 or 3.1. I have 1 cable next to my bed that will charge my phone, headphones, laptop, tablet etc. No worrying at all.
Part of the issue is exactly what you just mentioned: There are a lot of different standards with varying degrees of compatibility, and none of them are visibly different from one another. There isn’t a good way to immediately identify which cables are “good” and which will just outright refuse to charge your devices. So some of my USB-C cables will charge low power devices, but not bigger things like a laptop or iPad.
Meanwhile, the lightning charger was really really good at enforcing uniformity across different cables. Because you knew you could plug any lighting cable into any lightning port, and it would charge just fine. Yes, this inevitably caused issues with speed as tech progressed and Apple refused to upgrade to new standards. But that refusal also helped them maintain uniformity. Apple also shifted away from hardline data transfers years ago; 99.9% of iPhone users will have iCloud backups happen automatically via wifi, and iCloud means you’re not doing full phone backups every time. You only do the initial backup, then it simply pushes daily changes as you go whenever you connect to wifi. So the actual amount of data that gets transferred is relatively low with day-to-day usage, and it doesn’t eat into your limited call phone data plan. The regular user rarely (if ever) needs to transfer anything via the lightning port, because wireless sync takes care of things as long as they’re on wifi.
The rapid development of USB-C has been great for the tech. But it also means that (as someone who has an iPhone and has very little need for USB-C cables) I’ve bought more USB-C cables in the past two or three years than I have lightning cables. Because my five year old lightning cables are still working fine, while all of my USB-C cables from before the pandemic had to be replaced; Not because they were broken, but simply because newer devices would refuse to charge with them.
Yeah I get that there are some teething issues but for an iphone geezer now it should be pretty ubiquitous. USB C to USB C cables will do 60w. Then if they have the special chip they can do 100W + (5A).
It's even less of an issue for an iphone 15 that will likely top out at 25w.
But with Usb-c you get Power Delivery
iPhones have supported the PD spec since 2017 (iPhone 8 and iPhone X), assuming the cable supports it (requiring USB-C to Lightning). Their big mistake was not shipping a PD-compatible charger and cable in the box, so very few users actually got one.
I always feel like usbc could just flip out at any moment. I like the lightning connector better in that regard at least. Usbc just seems looser.
Use a product with less shit USB-C ports then?
Literally never had a C port that wasn't as tight as a classic USB
Nowhere near the loosening issues micro and mini had in their times
In that reasoning they made confuses me.
I've also never had a usb-c just fallout/ feel non-secure. You'd think with the increased surface area with the usb-c ring fitting between the port wall and the center peg of the port would increases gripyness logically. Vs The single peg insert of a lightning cable.
But eh, im no physics doctor.
Lightning has the divots in the sides of the cable and then two idk spring loaded bits that press in there on the phone side. It's insanely secure, one could argue possibly too much, but I can hang my phone from the cord and it won't fall out.
Now that's not to say USB-C is bad like it falls out or anything, just that it takes more force to disconnect a lightning cable than USB-C.
Ah yes the clips! I stand corrected haha.
I haven't owned an Apple product since the ipod nano, so the only lightning cables im used too, are user owned devices, which are normally chewed up without the little side clips functioning.
Ty, for the reminder!
Nah, lightning connectors have spring clips that hold the connector secure inside the port. Apple does a lot of things wrong, but the lightning port was at least very secure. It has a good solid snap into place, and is more than strong enough to hang the phone from the cord.
Plus the actual lightning connector is damned near indestructible because it’s basically solid metal. I’ve had cables fail before, but always because of the actual cable. The jacket will come unbraided, or the copper wires will fray. But that’s up to the individual manufacturer, not Apple specifically; Any USB cable will be prone to those same issues, because they’re using the exact same cable. The connector has never been broken or deformed. Hell, the one I’m using on my bedside table has literally been run over by a car, and it still works just fine.
I’ve only ever had one lightning charger break. Been using iPhones for a decade.
…I do electrical tape and heat shrink the ends, though. So they probably helps a little.
Charger compatibility is a big thing. Back in the ancient days, sales men used to tell me to buy a Nokia phone because everyone had a Nokia charger at home. If you bought an Ericsson or Siemens, nobody could help you if you ran out of battery.
Well that didn’t last forever, since Nokia eventually decided to switch to a slim connection, but before that the compatibility was really good.
Honestly, Apple still are being assholes assholes and - either via firmware or software - are limiting transfer speeds of the standard non-Pro iPhone 15's USB-C connector down from 10gb/s to 480mb/s (Lightning cable speeds) (scroll down to the "Charging and Expansion" section to see for yourselves).
The EU should hit them with a fine or ban EU sales of the 15 non-Pro model for skirting the law.
Are you sure it's firmware or software limited?
I assumed they just kept the lightning controller, which as you said had USB 2.0 speeds, and then hardwired a USB-C adapter into the phone/circuit board. So it's a hardware limit.
The non-pro iphone 15 uses a different processor (A16 vs A17) which doesn't have the controller for 10gbps speeds. Its the processor from the iphone 14 pro.
The Pixel 2, which is 5 (almost 6!) years old, had better transfer speeds than this brand new $799 phone.
It's not even close, it's the Pixel 2 with 1.5Gbps vs the iPhone with ~0.5Gbps.
Apple's software is good but they are an absolute trash company that routinely screws their blind customers.
An apropos of that, I was looking to buy a mac mini because it looks so affordable. However, if I want more storage or RAM, I'm screwed.
I decided to buy a mini PC and installed mint. If I wanted the same amount of RAM it would have been like twice the price.
I'm not defending apple (their upgrades are insane) but it's not the same type of RAM. It's a unified on chip memory that can be accessed way faster than ddr5.
Cost to performance apple products are very competitive. People often don't account for quality when they compare these products.
And thus they get extra money for the sale of the more expensive one. That's the plan for why the cheaper model exists anyway
Honestly I can’t imagine anyone that would care enough about hardwire transfer speeds more than raw performance. Imo, anyone that cares about those raw transfer speeds will already want the A17 Pro and wouldn’t settle for the A16 Bionic.
I think there’s high speed and standard speed. I’d understand more if the pro was thunderbolt and the non pro was usb 3. Going usb2 is way below standard speed in this day and age.
The 15 uses an older chip that was designed for iPhones with lighting cables limited to USB 2. So it's unlikely the hardware is there for USB 3/4 speeds. But it's not unfeasible to add a dedicated chip for faster USB speeds.
Where as the pro model uses a new chipset. Designed for the 15 pro and likely the 16 non-pro. This has on due USB 3. It would be short sighted to not include it here.
Both phones would have very fast WiFi, I imagine that's the use case for 90%+ of users.
pretty much all smartphones past few years have been incremental upgrades. Sometimes theres some gimmick but it really feels like we’ve reached a peak
Idk why you're being downvoted, its true. Folding screen technology has been pretty much the only major innovation in the phone space for a while now.
Folding is high on the “neato” scale but isn’t considered a major milestone because it’s really sort of a gimmick and in smartphone terms, is a small niche feature. Most people don’t want a thicker phone that can become a too-small tablet by slowly forming a damage crease down its screen.
You can say that about literally every feature. But folding has been around 5 years and isn’t becoming integral to every device. Front facing cameras were within 5 years.
Disagree, the technology is improving and the shapes of the phone are becoming more usable.
Anecdotally, i know a good amount of people who switched/want to switch off iphone to android specifically for folding phones. The form factor of the zflip/razr is a lot more usable for people who have small pockets or people who just think it's plain cool.
The "damage crease" isnt a huge deal, and most people upgrade after 3ish years anyway so as long as it can make it that far it won't matter to them.
I’m excited about the Thread Network Protocol in the Pro version. I have no idea what will be implemented yet and Matter/Theead are rolling out way too slowly but it will be interesting to find out
NOOOOOOO! This goes against their narrative that they chose to do it! How dare you!
The only thing Apple chose themselves was placing an artificial limit on the port.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Apple has confirmed its new iPhone will not feature its proprietary lightning charging port, after the EU forced it into the change.
The tech giant said that the iPhone 15, unveiled at its annual event on Wednesday, would use a USB-C cable as the "universally accepted standard".
The EU had told the tech giant to ditch its proprietary charging ports to make life easier for consumers, save them money, and help reduce e-waste by encouraging re-use of chargers.
But some experts questioned whether consumers would be prepared to pay the high price tags given the devices are not hugely different to their predecessors.
"Convincing users to fork out for these new devices will not be easy during a cost-of-living crisis," said Paolo Pescatore, analyst and founder of PP Foresight.
"Some will see the new features as incremental, [although] collectively they enhance the overall experience which is priceless among Apple's core user base."
The original article contains 457 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 67%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Now, I'm waiting how they will use marketing and communication on ditching the magsafe and going back to only USB-C.
Magsafe it's pretty cool tho. Plus they open sourced it so next Qi standard is probably gonna have it. I don't know what I'm talking about btw.
We are not speaking about the same magsafe. EU requires in the near future USB-C for laptops too. Apple must include USB-C by default and ditching the magsafe.
Are they going to ditch it though? As I understand, they don't need to ditch it as long as USB-C charging remains an option.
For charging alone, Magsafe is objectively the better choice because it snaps in and out of place, so it's both easier to insert and won't pull your laptop off the living room table if your kid or dog runs into the cable. For docking in your dedicated workspace, you'll still use USB-C attached to your monitor of course, it's excellent for that and Magsafe doesn't do data.
Yeah, I think it says that you have to support USB-C charging. But you can add whatever else you want. And if I remember correctly, macbooks can be charged via C and magsafe already. So all up to snuff
The regulation is the same as for smartphones. In the EU, laptops must charge with USB-C by default. Apple can still include on the laptop a magsafe port which will be useless for the consumer in this area. The easiest to comply for Apple is to put a USB-C to USB-C cable instead of the USB-C to magsafe for Europe.
My laptop can already charge over USB-C from my docking station, or with a MagSafe cable. It’s an older M1 laptop but that ought to cover any such requirement
In apple's defense, lightning pre-dates USB-C by a few years. There are a ton of lightning accessories in the wild that have been made useless e-waste by this forced change. I'm glad we're all on an agreed-upon standard, though. It had to happen at some point.
They were the first/earliest to release a consumer a consumer device with USB C. They were also part of the consortium that developed USB C.
I think they were scared of the backlash they got the first time they switched from the iPod connector the lighting cable. This made them promise not to change the connector for 10 years.
If they changed earlier they would have broken their promise.
Apple should have had the foresight to see USB C was on the way. It was released two years after lighting.
It's possible apple was convinced the connector should work either way unlike USB micro. But the USB consortium preferred a simpler design that was not reversible. Releasing the lighting connector forced the USB consortium to accept a reversible connector.
Before lightning and USB-C every manufacturer had their own connector. Then the EU told the manufacturers toneither come up with a common connector or they would regulate. Then, Apple started with lighting and other manufacturers joined under micro USB B. The EU was still not happy because Apple went their own way and, after USB C came out and was good (micro USB was quite bad TBF) they forced everyone to use USB C
They're just going to try to make one that's ever so slightly better, and then patent it again
Wireless charging is a thing, but I'd say it's less practical than just cleaning your port out every now and again.