Comment by Dylan16807 10 months ago
They didn't switch normal iPads until 2022.
I really don't understand the argument that it was inevitable when they spent more than five years shipping lightning on phones and most iPads and USB-C on laptops. Maybe they would have switched on their own, maybe not. But they were clearly not just moving USB-C through their product line piece by piece, or everything would have had it many years earlier.
>Apple started shipping exclusively USB-C cables/chargers with iPhones with the 11 in 2019.
Did they? I thought they only moved to USB-C with the iPhone 15 in 2023. Thats what Wikipedia shows me as well.
Edit: Oh you mean the _charger_ was USB-C with a USB-C to Lightning cable. The actual phone didn't get a USB-C port until iPhone 15.
There are really only six options:
1. Keep using Lightning
2. Update Lightning
3. Switch to another proprietary connector
4. Switch to a standard but non-USB-C connector
5. Switch to full wireless
6. Switch to USB-C
(1) Makes no sense, they were going to switch to something eventually. If anyone doubts that and thinks Lightning was going to stick around forever, they don't live in the real world. It's so far from reasonable it's not worth considering. Lighting is worse than USB-C for data rates and power, it was outdated years before they made the switch.
(2) Could have made sense but they would have done it earlier if it was in their plans. They could have done that around '20-'21 and given a "Look, see, our new connector is 10x faster than USB-C and fast charges in half the time!" But it would have to match or beat USB-C to make any sense. Maintaining compatibility does means people still get to use old cables with slower charging and data rates for a while until those cables break or get lost, and it means the new cable can still be used with old devices (but will drop to whatever data and power rates they support). It also means Apple has to have, for the iPhone only, an extra team maintaining an extra connector type not used by anything else.
(3) Same issue as (2), but this one has to beat USB-C. And switching to a different proprietary connector means their customers now need at least 3 cables (4 for Apple Watch users, but those folks have to have at least 2 cables anyways since that one is wireless charging only). Users would need Lighting for accessors/peripherals, USB-C for iPad, MBP, and <new proprietary> for a new iPhone. That would go over well.
(4) Same problems as (2) and (3) but at least it's standard. It also has to beat USB-C and what connector would they use that's standard, popular, and not USB-C?
(5) Not viable for the phones. Too many consumers expect their phones to connect, physically, to cars and headsets. Without a 3.5 mm jack that leaves the Lightning, and now USB-C, connector. With cars, unless you have wireless CarPlay (newer cars only) you're SOL for CarPlay, and it's a downgrade to lose that and end up with just audio over Bluetooth. This hurts them substantially in the market and is non-viable. In 5 years, may be a different story.
(6) They already switched to USB-C on pretty much everything else. It opens up every USB-C peripheral (most of Apple's own are already wireless, with Lightning or USB-C to charge, increasingly USB-C). It's the standard connector. It offers fast charging and higher data rates. They already have licenses and contracts in place to use it. They don't have to dedicate an engineering team to support a one-off variant.
(6) is the most sensible option followed by (2). (2) should have happened years ago if it was in their plans. The regulations may have moved up the timeline, but it didn't change what was going to happen.
So what's your argument, which of the non-USB-C options do you think was on Apple's agenda before the regulators came calling? Given that they'd already switched almost every other device in their lineup to USB-C, what was Apple going to do with the iPhone?
> (6) is the most sensible option followed by (2). (2) should have happened years ago if it was in their plans. The regulations may have moved up the timeline, but it didn't change what was going to happen.
It did happen. They added USB 3 5Gbps speed to the lightning port on the 2015 iPad Pro, requiring the lightning to usb 3 camera connector kit.
In 2019, they bundled usb-c to lightning cabling and a usb-c charger with the iPhone 11 and 11 pro. The hardware was updated to support USB-PD, and the USB-C to Lightning cables increased the max wattage over the USB-A variants from 18W to 30W.
But outside pro usage, the port doesn't need USB 3 speeds - in fact, unless they purchased an external hard disk I don't believe most people own a cable capable of USB 3 data speeds. The biggest benefit is Amazon gets to sell a charging cable that costs a few cents less to produce.
Well they're not going to switch just for the sake of switching. USB-C has no capabilities that they care about compared to lightning (for phones), that's why they didn't change for so many years. It's just more compatible, and they didn't care about being compatible.
I think your argument against 1 is flawed, because I can say the same thing about USB-C, that they won't use it forever.
Or in other words, I pick (1b), they likely, not for sure but likely, would have kept using lighting until the same year they end up switching away from USB-C, whenever that may be.
In the future we might see (4) or (5). I note that you also think (5) might happen in a while, so your reasoning is compatible with (1) in the short term followed by (5) in the longer term.
> USB-C has no capabilities that they care about compared to lightning (for phones)
On the new Pro phones they have been heavily marketing the capability to record ProRes Log video to external USB C 3.1 drives (something not supported recording to internal storage and that Lightning was too slow for)
When they replaced 30-pin with Lightning, they announced it with "this is our connector for the next 10 years". Now it's been 10 years. Simple as that.
If a specific time promise was the main motivation to stick with lightning, they could have easily said that. I've never seen anyone bring up that mention of ten years before.
> USB-C has no capabilities that they care about compared to lightning (for phones),
Being able to share 1 cable type for charging laptops and phones and data transfer Ana basically everything else is pretty useful/convenient.
Right, but that falls under being compatible, and has been true since about 2015.
Apple started shipping exclusively USB-C cables/chargers with iPhones with the 11 in 2019. There's certainly a case to be made that they should have done that earlier (iPhone X or even back with the iPhone 7).
It is perhaps worth noting that the USB-IF and Apple had a "complex" relationship for many years, and to this day Apple still doesn't sell a single 1st party device or cable which is USB certified.