Comment by usrnm
3 days ago
Apple also helped develop USB C more than a decade ago, they still had to be forced to actually use it in their phones. There is no contradiction here
3 days ago
Apple also helped develop USB C more than a decade ago, they still had to be forced to actually use it in their phones. There is no contradiction here
Apple said from the day that they made lightning cables that it would be supported for 10 years. They literally contractually guaranteed that to third party manufacturers in exchange for them creating a massive availability of cables for Apple users.
The EU “forced them” to switch to the standard they helped develop (USB C) on the 11th year after developing lighting. I’m sure it was all the EUs doing.
I haven't seen Apple say anything like that, all I saw were analysts saying that Apple's long term commitment to the format meant that you could expect a decade or so of lifetime like the previous 30pin connector.
Do you have a citation for what you're saying?
Phil Schiller announced Lightning as the modern connector for the next decade back in September 2012 during the release of the iPhone 5.
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Shocker, they never responded to back up their claim!
https://www.wsj.com/video/apple-executive-on-adoption-of-usb...
Apple argues that the law was dumb environmentally due to many people having Lightning-cables that wouldn't work in the future, so they obviously can't have intended to do the same changeover at the same time as the EU forced them to
That was hilarious, as though Lightning cables on average outlasted the devices they were used with. Meanwhile in the real world, Apple’s delicate “strain relief” started to fray and tear in 6-12 months of use, and thanks to their weird unnecessary DRM chip for MFi enforcement, third-party Lightning cables tended to become flaky for purely DRM reasons in a few months.
Show me anyone who had more than a couple of working Lightning cables left when they eliminated their last Lightning device.
Chinese cable manufacturers don't need contract guarantees to compete for the lucrative iPhone user market...
The cables have proprietary chips that need to be purchased from apple. And the target is companies that join their "Made For Apple" (MFI) program.
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There are many things they do which Apple argues benefits their users, but end up benefitting themselves in suspiciously manipulative ways. I'm not shocked they entered a 10 year contractual agreement, and that just so happened to allow them to make a lot of profit by using a proprietary cable.
They lock down individual parts to device serial numbers, this helps prevent fraudulent repair services with poor quality parts, it also ensures Apple is always involved in the repair process and they can make a lot of money on that.
They use a proprietary RAM design, this significantly improves hardware speeds but also stops you replacing or upgrading the modules yourself. They also just happen to charge a serious premium on RAM capacity, and don't sell the modules on their own. Even if a third-party did manufacture the modules and sell them separately, they are also locked down to serial numbers.
This is Apple's bread and butter, enforcing consumer hostile practices and spinning it into a benefit, usually filled with half-truths to muddy the waters. In all of these situations, it's possible to do better by the consumer but why would they? At the end of the day they're here to make money, as much as they possibly can, and they're uncontested in their own vender hardware, doesn't mean we shouldn't call them out for their awful practices every time they appear.
The iphone could have had both usbc and lightning, so if they cared about that they would have done it.
Apple also helped develop ARM, but I believe nobody likes to talk about that.
I wonder when the Europe is going to open up European companies like ASML, who are pretty much the de facto monopolies in their field. I believe the Nexperia incident showed that there's also a lot of political and national reasons behind such decisions, not just creating open and fair markets.
That's not right. They were an early investor in ARM Ltd., but they in no way "helped develop ARM". That was all Acorn. ARM Ltd was created because Apple thought ARM was a good fit for the Newton, but didn't want to be beholden to a competitor, which Acorn was.
Apple is the leader of nearly all new developments to the ARM ISA, which has evolved considerably since Acorn died.
Who is stopping someone from competing against ASML?
Who’s stopping anyone from competing with Apple?
Let’s force ASML to open up its manufacturing line and cancel their patents for squandering innovation, but wait they’re an incredible company that dominated the field with their hard work and diligence, so it’s not fair for them.
Similarly, the open markets should apply to everyone, not just dominant American firms.
Though, I’m not saying they’re innocent and I think they have to be even broken up due to their monopolistic behaviors.
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That did turn a huge number of chargers and accessories into e-waste though...
probably offset by travellers hauling less proprietary cables with them on holidays/business trips/commutes, i now travel with basically one cable to charge almost every device
yes, this is a little tongue in cheek, but i do appreciate the standardization around USB-C
edit: people need to just admit their lives got better with this forced change. (this is not a reply to you, general observation)
Chargers of that era typically had a USB A port and can still be used with an A to C cable
LIghtning due to its DRM chips (and the delicateness of Apple’s “aesthetics-first” first-party cables) was not a long-lived cable. We threw away probably 2-3 per year during the whole era. Throwing away the last couple before their natural death, when I finally eradicated Lightning from our home, was no great loss.
Lightning is just the snowcap on a mountain of Mini- and Micro-USB.
With the benefit of reduced waste in the future, though
You know you can get a lightning-to-C adapter for very little, right? Here you go, under $2 each: https://www.amazon.com/Lightning-Adapter-Charging-Transfer-C... (probably under $1 each if you have the patience to look for them in other sites)
And a lot of chargers don't have a cable built-in, they just have a USB-A or -C port - so it's just a matter of replacing the cable. But - again, if you'd rather not do even that, you're welcome to keep using your old cable with a USB-C converter
Users all got to complain that the EU are the meanies responsible for their old wires and chargers and accessory no longer being compatible, but it seems infinitely more likely that Apple was going to adopt USB-C on largely the same schedule even if the EU didn't intercede.
To be clear, Apple had already moved their laptops and computers to USB-C -- long in advance of almost any one else -- and had moved their iPad Pros and Air to USB-C, building out the accessory set supporting the same, years before the EU decree. Pretty convenient when they get to blame the EU for their smartphones making the utterly inevitable move.
They had Macs on USB-C for like 7 years before the iPhone. It was going to stay like that. Mac on USB-C meant more dongles to sell, iPhone on Lightning meant cable fees and control.
You think Apple is going to make the user experience on iPhones – a product that makes them hundreds of billions of dollars a year – to sell more cables‽ How much profit do you think they can possibly make with those cables?
Apple came under fire when they moved from 30-pin connectors to Lightning because people wanted to keep their 30-pin connectors. At the time, Apple said that they wouldn’t make people switch for another decade. They switched to USB-C eleven years later.
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There were hundreds of devices on Amazon that never paid Apple a fee to use Lightning.
And as far as USB C on Macs, are you complaining that Apple used an industry standard port?
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>iPhone on Lightning meant cable fees and control.
Strange, then, that Apple already moved the iPad Pro and iPad Air to USB-C, right? Didn't they get the memo about "cable fees and control"? It's almost like they were incrementally moving all their platforms over.
The cable fees conspiracy has always been a weird one. At the absolute highest, MFi fees were estimated at some $80M per year. Do you know how utterly irrelevant that number is to Apple? It's like 0.02% of their revenue. Far more logically they literally intended it as a quality assurance given that the company was very focused on user satisfaction.
EU kinda failed with it once before, they pushed for phone vendors to get to common standard https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/memo_1...
didn't work, apple still did their own thing so EU went "ok, fuck you, usb-c"
Apple probably wouldn’t have changed to usbc for their phones. Lightning was a mobile phone / other development, whilst usbc and its contributions came from their Mac department.
They did not like each others standards. I know Apple engineers working on the phone who dislike the change even up to this day…
USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime. The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which makes it more robust and easier to clean.
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Did they give reasons for why they don't like the change?
"I know Apple engineers working on the phone"
Groan. Come on. Cite one. A single "Apple engineer" to support this ridiculous claim of insider knowledge. What year do you think it is?
You understand that the SoC and I/O blocks are largely shared between the Mac and the iPad / iPhone now, right? This invention of some big bifurcation is not reality based. The A14 SoC (which became the foundation for the Mac's M1) had I/O hardware to support USB-C all the ways back to the iPhone 12. Which makes sense as this chipset was used in iPads that came with USB-C.
Pretty weird for hardware that is largely the same to "not like each others standards".
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It's conceivably politically incorrect to use this reference, but Apple was begging the EU not to throw them into that briar patch.
Begging? Apple filed a couple of light objections -- basically a "don't regulate us, bro" -- and then moved on. Their resistance was laughably superficial
Look, Apple is a predatory, extraordinarily greedy company, but these sorts of "thanks EU!" discussions are a riot. Thanks EU, for making Apple support a clone of an Apple feature that didn't exist until Apple made it, and for "forcing" Apple to transition their line to USB-C, which they were already almost completely done doing.
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People spent a whole decade complaining about the iPod dock -> Lightning change.
I'd wait to blame the EU also.
> but it seems infinitely more likely that Apple was going to adopt USB-C on largely the same schedule even if the EU didn't intercede
There is no reason to believe this at all given how hard Apple fought the EU on this.
Apple likely didn't want the precedent or bad press of the EU mandating changes in their supply chain.
Do you have any sources that "Apple fought the EU" regarding USB-C?
Absolutely. It is excessively obvious and I don’t understand how not much more of a common take that is.
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What are you talking about? The iPhone has been using USB-C globally since the iPhone 15 in 2023.
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Apple used USB-C on the iPhone 15 and 16 without being forced to do so. If Apple was indeed forced to use USB-C they would have postponed it to the 17.
Do you also think Apple was forced to use USB-C on the iPad and MacBook?
Apple cerifies/recieves licensencing fee for every thunderbolt cable. Apple only did move to usb-c when backlash is so high and eu law will certainly pass.
It is good for their pr to advertise that they moved to usbc because they wanted to rather than forced to by a government.Apple still tries/atleast tried to control usbc cable usage for iphones. Cables need to get certified.
Apple supported usbc on mac because it is superior and the impact to their revenue is very low. It is also jump from usb-a to usb -c
Wow , you need lot of homework to do. You missed the whole timeline of events, backlash with apple and usbc and just looking at headlines.
Or either misrepresenting the facts because you are a fan boy of a trillion dollar company. Please dont if its latter.
Do you have any source that states that Apple was forced? Given that they switched the iPhone to USB-C multiple product iterations before it was required makes it seem to be that they were not forced.