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tobybrut

macrumors 65816
Sep 10, 2010
1,142
1,588
The USB C plug is loose fitting compared to lightning and is a downgrade. It doesn't retain its tight fit as long
Absolutely. I hate the USB-C physical connector because it's cost me a lot of money in replacement parts. I mentioned in another post how many devices I've had to repair because they could no longer hold a USB-C cable. The only connector I hate more is the F-connector.
 

Wando64

macrumors 68020
Jul 11, 2013
2,206
2,812
Too late for iphone 13 and iphone 14 apple will go port-less and avoid the EU again

I almost hope you get what you wish and get to live with slower communication, slower charging and the inability to connect to any of your external storage, ever after.

I really don’t understand why so many dislike the EU so much that they would rather make their life worse as long as they go against it.
I don’t know where you are, but it seems to be a national sport in the UK right now.
 
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The_Martini_Cat

macrumors 6502
Aug 4, 2015
295
330
Wow European Parliament voting together for user convenience ?? Can Apple design teams compete? This would be funny if it weren’t as funny as a crutch ?? But is lightning that great? It’s always caused me problems & now I pretty much always recharge wireless. Are they going to regulate that in Europe too???
 
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Azzin

macrumors 603
Jun 23, 2010
5,427
3,724
London, England.
I’m in the UK, so this EU ruling (if it happens) won’t affect me, but I can’t help but think I’d actually much prefer everything to have a Lightning connector, instead of USB C.

As it stands, my main devices are a 2018 Mac Mini (standard C7 connection), a 12.9” USB C iPad Pro and an iPhone 12 Pro Max.

XBOX controllers use USB C, so does my DJI drone and my desk fan.

So I guess, it’s predominantly USB C in my house!

I‘m also not what you’d call a power user, so don’t need the high bandwidth that USB C offers.
 

Nozuka

macrumors 68040
Jul 3, 2012
3,534
6,003
Absolutely. I hate the USB-C physical connector because it's cost me a lot of money in replacement parts. I mentioned in another post how many devices I've had to repair because they could no longer hold a USB-C cable. The only connector I hate more is the F-connector.

Never had any problems on my Macbook or iPad.

Plenty of people had problems with the lightning port on their iPhones too.


Pretty much every device in my house is USB-C now, except the iPhone.
If Apple doesn't come to their senses, i hope they will be forced.
 
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revs

macrumors 6502
Jun 2, 2008
444
383
UK
Moving to USB-C isn't really that bad - the problem is if the EU decide what the common charger is, then we have USB-C today, USB-C in 5 years, USB-C in 10...20 years.

Unless of course every company can agree on what and when to 'upgrade' the connector together. Which won't happen
 

08380728

Cancelled
Aug 20, 2007
422
165
Is it technically superior to USB-C? I honestly don't know. I just don't have the facts.
So here’s a fact for you, USB C cable ends are female, which Lightning they are male.
The male tab with the connections of USBC are inside the port on the laptop and phone, if someone has their hand or foot on the cable plug close to the port of the laptop or phone, the tab inside the port will break and will be a costly repair or replacement, the cable will likely survive.

Under the same situation with a Lightning cable, the tab will break off the end of the cable but the internal port on device will survive...

Finally, USB forum has a long and consistent history of designing poorly engineered connectors, its taken them over 20 years to reach USB C and yet still the scenario above again exposes their ineptitude.

Apple‘s Lightening connector probably should have become the standard, USB IF probably copied the concept but simply reversed the mating…
 

tobybrut

macrumors 65816
Sep 10, 2010
1,142
1,588
Never had any problems on my Macbook or iPad.

Plenty of people had problems with the lightning port on their iPhones too.


Pretty much every device in my house is USB-C now, except the iPhone.
If Apple doesn't come to their senses, i hope they will be forced.
My family has had so many problems with bad MacBook Pro ports that I've gotten those MagSafe-like connectors you can find on Amazon where you attach the USB-C connector permanently in a port so you don't have to keep inserting and removing it. I've taken in many a MBP where Apple support has had to either replace the motherboard or a USB-C daughter card because the port no longer holds the cable anymore. MB replacements alone are $800. I'm lucky if the particular MBP used a daughter card instead. Those replacements are only about $80.

I am going to be quite happy when Apple puts MagSafe back on their laptops because it'll save me a lot of money in the future.
 
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barkomatic

macrumors 601
Aug 8, 2008
4,526
2,846
Manhattan
This could extend beyond charging cables if the EU also decides it needs to regulate the types of wireless charger you have as well. Perhaps the solution is for Apple to manufacture advanced iPhone models for the U.S./U.K. while the EU gets the gimped models. This could make for some interesting collectibles.
 

mazz0

macrumors 68040
Mar 23, 2011
3,152
3,614
Leeds, UK
apple wasn't too concerned about their e-waste claim when they've changed their cords before. hollow argument by them.
You mean the one time they did that 9 years ago?

Did they do a study for how much e-waste would be generated by forcing 2/3 of all phones to switch to USB-C? If half of all phones had USB micro-B...
To be fair there was a very good chance that any replacements to those phones would have USB-C anyway.

Please stop making sense. These Euro-bureaucrats can't comprehend such logic.
I can't believe you wrote "Euro-bureaucrats" when the portmanteau is so obvious!

There’s still a ton of Bluetooth speakers, baby, toys, travel devices, etc
Are people really still giving birth to babies that use micro-USB? It's 2021 for goodness' sake!
 

08380728

Cancelled
Aug 20, 2007
422
165
MacRumors these text entry forms you use interfere with autocorrect and and creat some bizarre auto suggested words that are mixes of letter that have no sense and nothing related to any diction words. total headfsck, typing a sentence take 5 minutes correcting the mess it creates.
 
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MistaBungle

macrumors 6502a
Apr 3, 2005
628
29
I will update my thoughts. I think they will have flagship phones always staying with MagSafe but maybe an SE every few years will have USBC for those that don't like that.
 

Manzanito

macrumors 65816
Apr 9, 2010
1,089
1,771
Did they do a study for how much e-waste would be generated by forcing 2/3 of all phones to switch to USB-C? If half of all phones had USB micro-B and more than a fifth have Lightning, how many of those accessories, cables, and chargers would end up in landfills because they can no longer use them with new phones? It seems to me they'd generate a lot less e-waste by forcing people to USB micro-B, though I doubt anyone would want that since it's a terrible connector.

The natural solution would be to leave things alone and stop forcing people to change if they don't want to.
2/3 of all phones?
 

randyhudson

Suspended
Oct 28, 2007
681
981
USA
Great, then I have to buy all the Cables I collected since 2012 all over again. ?
You really should consider buying a new iPad or MacBook. They really have come a long way. For example, both of them now feature industry standard USB C charging ports.
 

iamgalt

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2012
479
1,858
Yes please. Drives me nuts having to carry multiple chargers for iPad, iPhone now as well as different plugs cuz they don’t fit each other either!
OMG! You actually have to carry two cables around, rather than just one? How do you have the strength to even get out of bed in the morning living in such a dystopian world?

Talk about first world problems.
 

insoft.uk

macrumors regular
Mar 15, 2018
149
125
What will the EU do if Apple don’t adopt USB-C instead adopt Thunderbolt instead with PD or what if a phone manufacturer only adopt PD don’t even support USB-C or Thunderbolt just PD
 

AndiG

macrumors 65816
Nov 14, 2008
1,011
1,912
Germany
This would be awesome. The best and most expensive iPad is equipped with USB-C. Not a single USB-C cable I own broke - just don‘t ask me how many Lightning cables broke!

So why Apple wants to stick with Ligthning? It is a proprietary technology and it is under the control of Apple. If you want to do something with Ligthning you have to be a memeber of APPLEs MFI program.

Just imagine what happens if you just could connect with an iPhone. All the users would cheers and Tim Cook would cry.
 

ftaok

macrumors 603
Jan 23, 2002
6,488
1,573
East Coast
But this was worse a long time ago. Early flip-phones had different proprietary connectors depending on the brand. Motorola chargers didn't work with LG phones, or Samsung phones, etc.
I was a Motorola user before iPhone. It was awful back then. I had 4 Moto phones before my first iPhone. Each Moto phone had it's own type of charging port. The first 3 were proprietary. My last one (Moto SLDR) had a mini-USB, so at least that was a standard.

I have had 3 iPhones personally, and about a dozen or so within the family. All Lightning.

Another thought - pocket lint. Many people put their phones in their pockets or in a bag. The lightning port on iPhones can get pretty gunked up with lint. It's easy to clean out ... I personally use the sticky end of a post-it note and I've seen folks use a toothpick or something like that. How does one clean lint out of a USB-C port with the "flappy" piece in the way? Would using slime be a good idea. I'm pretty sure a toothpick would be a bad idea.
 

Sandstorm

macrumors 6502a
Sep 27, 2011
699
1,711
Riga, Latvia
ke about USB-C is, that the fragile middle part (I am nut sure how it is called in Englisch) of the connector is on the computer side and not on the plug, where it could be replaced by just replacing the cable.

They did. Were you aware Apple was one of the main inventors of USB-C? While it was a large industry-wide effort, Apple contributed greatly to the creation of the standard. Others were too slow to adopt it and Apple wasn't willing to wait years to replace the 30-pin dock connector.
Yes I'm very aware. And I'm 99,99% sure "others were too slow to adopt" and similar are all BS excuses. The one and only motivation was greed over greater good (both for the customers and environment, that they pretend to care so much about).
 
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jctevere

macrumors 6502
Feb 7, 2009
278
27
Not really sure which side of this fence I sit on. Most devices (even Apple’s own with MacBooks and iPad Pro) use USB-C now, so there would definitely be synergies by having iPhone use USB-C connectors instead of lightning.

However, I can also see the argument that it arguably could create more e-waste in the short term as people no longer have use of lightning cables for new iPhones. Although, to be honest, lightning cables don’t last forever, I seem to only get about 1-2 years before they stop working or get finicky and need to be replaced. Theoretically you could significantly reduce the number of charging cables required going forward if a common charger is used for all mobile electronic devices (users won’t have to buy as many extras for multiple locations such as house vs car or different rooms as they can share the cables that come with the various devices).

With all that said, I’m a bit hesitant for a standard to be enforced by a government authority, as I could see how that would stifle innovation. We might all still be stuck with USB-B if Apple hadn’t leap frogged with the lightning (frustrated with slow progress of standard development with USB-C). Ideally, companies should look to move to a unified connector, but not sure in the long run being forced to have a common one is a good idea.
 

tomtad

macrumors 68000
Jun 7, 2015
1,924
5,043
The iPhone is the last high performance computing device in my house that uses lightning. Everything else is on usb-c. My work computer, my MacBook Pro, android devices, and even the iPad Pro. It would be nice to just have one cable type (usb-c) for all my devices.
Same here and it's a pain in the arse, especially when travelling.
 
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