Any transition from one standard to another will cause waste. And my view is it is only worth doing if there is a tangible benefit to doing so. In the case of the transition to USBC the benefit is the ability to remove charging bricks and cables from boxed products because everything will use the same charging brick and cable. This massively reduces the amount of those products being manufactured and thrown away.
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EU Gives Final Approval to Law That Will Force iPhone to Switch to USB-C
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I’m with you on that. Especially as most chargers will still work with the appropriate cable, although the umpteen original 5W iPhone ones that I still have kicking around will be a bit slow.
I just mean there seems to be a lot of opposition to moving to USB-C that I don’t recall happening last time there was a connector change.
The opposition is that for end users, there isn’t a huge benefit. You get the same small, reversible connector that’ll charge your iPhone just as quickly or slowly as it always did. And you will need to buy all new cables and accessories with a USBC connector on them.
The main beneficiary is the environment, in the longer term.
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So, aside from the smaller connector (which probably only really benefited Apple by using less space on the logic board), why do I not remember people complaining about having to replace 30-pin connectors with lightning cables?
I suspect that had Apple (and not the EU) announced that all their devices in future would use USB-C, people would have been a lot more ok with it.
There was a huge amount of complaining about it. But the benefits were very obvious to users in that they now had a reversible connector which meant plugging in their device to charge was easier and more convenient. I’m not sure the same sort of user benefit exists for USBC.
Right-angled versions should have been normalised years ago. Why Apple hasn’t made their own is beyond me.
In times of proprietary connectors, they were - and still are - replaced when people simply switched from one device or manufacturer to another one.
They will have to be replaced eventually anyways. But there’s millions of Lightning devices in use that will continue to be used for years. We can pass the cables down.
Quite the contrary, USB type C connectors are physically inferior to Lightning (though higher PD levels and bandwidth are obvious advantages).
I believe that some of the criticism at least in niche forums (such as here) also comes from general aversion to government regulation and/or a feeling of superiority over Europe and its economy / politics in general.
There are several things you can do with your old lightning cables. You can offer them to your friends, you can include them with the phone when you sell it, you can post on your neighborhood forum, or can even donate them to a local shelter or another worthy cause. When adults buy new devices the old ones usually get passed down to their kids so these Cales will always have a use until they fail.
Just because you upgrade doesn't mean you have to throw things out.
Just because you upgrade doesn't mean you have to throw things out.
I agree about the aversion, but here we have a perfect example of how without any regulatory pressure the industry innovated around USB-C while Apple didn't with Lighting. Regulation isn't going to stop USB-C innovation.
The single best thing about USBC is that it is reversible, which Apple did first with lightning.
Cables don't last forever - usually the device outlasts the cables. Most of the lightning cables out there will still be used as long as there are still lightning devices around. Heck, I still have a classic 30-pin cable to charge my iPad 2! I certainly won't be throwing it away before the iPad itself.
Just because a mistake was made in the past doesn't mean we should perpetuate it forever.
Exactly. But USB-C reversibility is even better than with lightning, because not only is the connector reversible, the cable is too. I hate fumbling around with lightning cables in the dark trying to figure out which end is which!
That is also a benefit, although I suspect most lightning cables remain permanently plugged into a charging brick and wall socket which somewhat negates that.
In fairness, governments in general and the EU in particular don't have a good track record when selecting technology winners and losers.
The EU gave us the cookie acceptance thing, which my guess is that it probably wastes at least a few lifetimes every day, worldwide, just by making hundreds of millions of people to repeatedly click on accept/reject buttons. It's peak stupidity. As C.S. Lewis said, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - hence came the GDPR monster.
Before that they were at war with Microsoft. By the time the bureaucrats were done imposing billions in fines, the casus belii had utterly disappeared since market forces rendered Internet Explorer unwanted and obsolete, and the Microsoft Media Player was a non-issue to begin with.
So yeah USB-C is fine, I don't have a problem ditching Lightning in favour of it. I've got an iPad Pro with USB-C, a Macbook with USB-C, a secondary Android phone with USB-C, it's no hardship. We just don't know what we could have had, if we let the market innovate instead of stagnate.
I'll say something though - I go through USB-C cables quite fast, some just stop working for no good reason. I have no such problems with Lightning cables. My impression is that the average USB-C cable that you can buy in a shop is junk.
The change to USB-C was inevitable. Legislation like this seems like government overreach.
Ugh. ANY change will force those cables to go obsolete. Even going from the 30 pin dock to lightning did that. Point is we cannot have everything we want. The next change will force the last one to go obsolete.
Point is, consumer devices are only part of the problem. We also have professional devices and they all love to use their proprietary crap for no good reason , which coincidentally enough you can't use elsewhere. Even DC laptop chargers were annoying enough to have different diameter connectors, and guess what - the old one was binned,
What we need is reduced waste at the same time as interoperability/compatibility. We cannot have our cakes and eat them. At least we need to look to do something responsible.
Is it possible you were in a coma for a few years around that time? There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the switch to Lightning, and having to buy new Lightning cables and accessories and discard old 30-pin cables.
It's not just the cables. It's also the devices that will either be forcibly or prematurely become e-waste.
You original argument was that this was wasteful.
Why not wait until the next standard?
Why do this 10 years into the life cycle of the port?
Your suggestion is the epitome of wasteful but with good intentions.
I’d also expect it to be the other way around with cables and charging bricks easily outlasting the devices themselves.
USB-C is still early in its lifecycle.
It’s almost certain there will not be a new, physically incompatible plug standard to replace USB-C in the next 10 years.
That was a much more serious change because Lightning was such an extreme radical change compared to the previous 30-pin iPod connector.
First, I'm not sure how one change qualifies as more "extreme radical" than the other - are you referring just to the size of the connector? Second, you phrase that as though it has some bearing on the comment to which you replied. I don't see it. The point was, there was, indeed, an uproar when the iPhone switched from 30-pin to Lightning.
Why USB C ? the lightning cable has. Been around and widely used forever now. With the way things are going now I expect we will be sitting here in a few years time talking about USB D, USB E, USB F.