> The European Commissioner for Competition ... is considering clamping down on tech companies who have made “unsatisfactory progress” towards common charging standards ... Apple is now the biggest player to have not adopted the USB Type-C standard for its flagship phones ... This is no idle threat ... the European Commission were recently behind the record €4.3 billion fine levied on Google
> Apple’s upcoming iPad Pro rumored to switch from Lightning to USB-C ... Ming-Chi Kuo says that the next high-end version of the tablet will switch over to USB Type-C
The EU mandating which connector the actual phone has is a huge overreach. All Lightning-supported devices can be plugged into USB ports appropriately.
This all started because of the incredible amount of e-waste because every brand used their own standard. Things didn't seem much better when USB started becoming standard on the other end of the cable for data and charging. Apple's original compromise was to offer lightning to micro-usb adapters[1].
> The Micro connector is also designed to reduce the mechanical wear on the device; instead the easier-to-replace cable is designed to bear the mechanical wear of connection and disconnection.
I would posit that Android devices are actually worse historically than Apple ones. Many of them will not properly charge unless you either connect them to a charger manufactured by the device manufacturer, or to a PC/Mac (where they likely won't draw anything more than 500mA).
I've had far more luck using Apple devices with non-Apple chargers, than the other way around.
I've used _lots_ of different Android devices since I purchased the original Android G1 device in 2009 and I never had a problem with chargers (although I don't use the original chargers most of the time).
Not necessarily, considering Apple's market dominance. A good majority of accessory makers usually weigh either developing for USB or Apple's proprietary connectors (40 pin and Lightning). If Lighting were to become legacy because of this move, it would mean more competition between accessory manufacturers. And more competition means more innovation.
Apple most definitely has no dominance for its smartphones anywhere. Even in US where it's larger than anywhere else, Apple's market share is much less than 50%.
Apple is kinda put into a tight spot with lightning; they spent a bunch of money developing the connector an accessory platform. Now usb-c is taking over and they've moved to 100% usb-c on their laptops. it'll be interesting to see if the lightning connector gets The Chopping Block anytime soon
Don't forget that Apple also participated in the design of Type C, which followed development of lightning.
The big wins for lightning are that it's tsuper thin and that the part more likely to break is on the cable rather than the socket, while the type c socket on my MacBook and the one on my Anker charger (somewhat) rapidly became loose. I'd hoped that it would be the ground shroud on the cable but sadly it was the sockets that failed.
The newer phones are getting thicker again so it's possible there will be room for Type C. The 6/7/8 designs were too thin to admit a type C cable, especially given the camber.
This is going to be a moot point soon as I anticipate we'll switchover to a completely wireless charging and data system. There might still be a physical debug port or something hidden away, but Qi charging plus a 5Ghz connector technology (like that in the Essential phone) is the future of mobile I/O
We've had well-implemented inductive charging starting with the Palm Pre in 2009, but very few devices since then. It was on the Nexus 5 but not the 6 or the Pixels, I think. It adds very little hardware and enormous value. I dreamed of inductive charging everywhere, incorporated into desks, tables, and cars. But no.
So, what happened to prevent its wide adoption long ago?
It's a harder problem than it looks: since it's typically pretty inefficient, how do you manage the signalling to get the right amount of power into the target device (you have 1/r2 issues, alignment issues, and insulation issues) without heating everything up and wasting power. I think that's why Apple's Airpower pad has quietly been put down -- heat. The current Qi protocol is pretty low power.
>The big wins for lightning are that it's tsuper thin and that the part more likely to break is on the cable rather than the socket, while the type c socket on my MacBook and the one on my Anker charger (somewhat) rapidly became loose. I'd hoped that it would be the ground shroud on the cable but sadly it was the sockets that failed.
That's kind of weird. USB-C was specifically designed to keep the material fatigue on the side of the cable and also increase durability over micro and mini USB A.
The only USB-C port I had fail was the google charger I had my nexus shipped with, which broke after 3 years of heavy abuse (lots of ripping and tugging and in one case even ripping the cable out of the socket so the plug on the cable broke).
Apple won't switch. They pissed of many people with the switch to lightning and were aware of that.
They will probably do the same thing as with the headphone jack:
Getting rid of any kind of connector.
They already have the basics for that in place. It's just a matter of tooling now.
Apple did sign on to the EU's "Common external power supply" standardisation process. They didn't however implement it.
In fact, Apple signed on in 2008 or 2009 to help develop the standard, which was completed + published in late 2010. Then in 2013, and again in 2014, they signed a agreement to extend to standard through to the end of 2014.
But... in 2011 or 2012 they introduced the lightning connector? And meanwhile, the the European Commission confirmed that all the agreements signatories, including Apple, are in compliance. There are some vague references to adaptors being available, and thus allowing them to be compliant with the (voluntary..) standard..
I think lightning will be replaced by USB-C - Some of Apples own products are moving to USB-C. But I find the history of the whole thing interesting. Had Apple taken a difference approach, one of cross-company standardisation, maybe lightning would have been delayed a little, but it could have also been THE standard. Just like USB-C is becoming today.
It's all a little reminiscent of Firewire, and Firewire's slow + painful, and ultimately - costly for consumers - demise.
Apple did sign on to the EU's "Common external power supply" standardisation process. They didn't however implement it.
I wonder if going with wireless charging brings Apple into compliance. After all, you can get any number of wireless chargers with whatever connector the EU likes this time around.
Drop the headphone jack... Drop the charging port... Make a completely wireless iPhone and tell the regulatory bodies to go stick their heads in a pig.
Maybe? My (layman's) understanding is that Micro USB is part of the "standard", and that any compliant Micro USB charger must be able to charge you phone. With some caveat around adaptors.. Hence how Lightning got the +1 - adaptors exist, so a Micro USB wall wart can be used to charge an iPhone.. I guess there is no reason a Micro USB -> Wireless charging adaptor can't be considered the same as a Micro USB -> Lightning adaptor - even if the whole "adaptor" thing is kinda skirting the entire point of the standard...
The point of the standard was to avoid power supplies becoming useless and going into the trash once the device they came with is no longer being used.
Yes, that's obvious considering the PR they used about the weight and number of chargers hitting landfill welhen advocating for the spec. But the inclusion of the Micro USB plug in the standard, as well as the name, suggested they wanted a single plug.
(I should add, I think a single plug, mandated by any kind of law - voulentary or not - is an overreach of government, as the best plug will change... Micro USB was the best (Standard) at the time. USB-C, despite its issues, is that today. Hence - I'd like a standard for chargers, but one that moves with reality..
I don't think the EU ever mandated any particular kind of plug, to my knowledge all they demanded was that the vendors find a common standard and use that and micro USB A was the compromise reached, which atm is being updated to USB C and expected to last a bit longer than µUSB-A.
Apple still hasn't been convinced. The only way to enforce things from happening in society, is by law and by following up on that law if it isn't being adhered. That you don't like specific laws is a given; we all have that problem. A burglar doesn't like anti burglar law. A squatter doesn't like anti squatting law. A heroin user doesn't like anti heroin law. And Apple doesn't like laws demanding them to use certain connectors for chargers.
That's a reading of the standard I've not considered. That the wall wart accepts a USB A plug, with a micro USB on the other end.
I don't get why they would specify the micro USB in that case, but they do. I still think the spec was intended to be USB A on one end, and Micro USB on the other. But that's entirely plausible without actually going back and reading it again..
Or Micro-USB -> USB-C for that matter. Lightning and USB-C stand on equal ground relative to the Micro-USB "standard-ness" regarding charging, as in, in spite of USB-C being a standard, both represent a departure from the previous port.
I think this debate is quite theoretical though: the goal of the EU regulation was to prevent the 1:1 mapping between phone and charger, which produced enormous waste. Whether it's µUSB, USB-C, or Lightning, all of them separate cables from bricks, and make cables and chargers reusable across whole ranges of past, existing, and future phones. At the end of it, there's no practical need for one port to rule them all, waste is already greatly reduced and convenience is vastly increased, further gains would be quite marginal.
You mean like when they removed the headphone jack? What are those pissed off iOS users going to do? Switch to Android and still have to buy new cables?
Edit: The exclamation point was a typo. I didn’t mean to have the tone that might imply.
> What are those pissed off iOS users going to do?
Firstly, the number of those users is from Apple's perspective anyway insignificant. The fact that they stopped shipping the Lightning->3.5mm dongle indicates this.
Secondly, there are many workarounds. Including buying the dongle, switching to headphones with Lighting connectors or using Bluetooth.
It seems with their current customer base, there is so much variety in what people want that they have more leeway to ignore what any specific group cares about.
I’d guess for instance the number of people pissed off by a change of cable could be balanced by the people happy to use USB-C.
The balance between the two is unknowable beforehand, so I’d imagine Apple managers just not care that much as long as a move makes some sense.
But for how long? If they follow thier usual pattern, they will drop the iPhone 7 in 2019 and the iPhone 8 in 2020. It’s rumored that they are releasing new iPad Pros with FaceID this year. I suspect that the low end iPad
will be the only thing that stays on TouchId for new products for the next few years.
There isn't much need these days to plug a phone into a Mac.
If you need or want to, there are lightning to USB-C cables.
I would be surprised to see them switch anytime in the next few years. I would be less surprised if they removed lightning altogether from a new phone than if they switched from lightning to usb.
But if you want to quick charge your iPhone X (or 8) you need USB-C. The included USB-A to Lightning cable won't do it (neither will the 5W power brick included with the iPhone X).
You'd need a lightning to USB-C cables and a USB-C PD power brick, neither are very cheap. Apple's USB-C cables start at $19 and the charger at $49!
The good thing is that the USB-C ecosystem is open and a wide variety of known, vetted OEMs have stepped up to serve it.
USB-C to Lightning cables are still expensive because Apple hasn't opened the connector up for MFi certification yet, but Monoprice will happily sell you a USB-C brick with upto 40W output for $15:
I expect high powered chargers and battery packs to become more common as recently full system chips for handling USB-C PD have been released which support up to the 100W via various means. That makes it much easier to build them rather than having to rely on your own fab or reusing USB2.0 chips with some hacks.
A critical morsel of information missing here is that iPhones charge pretty quick using 12W/2.1A USB-A chargers, to the point where I’m not inclined to move to USB-C for only a few % gain in speed. Yes, it’s super slow using the included 5W charger, so I haven’t used one of those since 2013 or thereabouts, it stays in the box until resale time.
Totally agree, iPad charger ftw. My favorite (if such a thing can be said about usb charging bricks) is that it uses the same detachable power prongs as a Mac charger. So I’ve got a Mac extension cable plugged into an iPad charger and voila, extended charging cable without a usb extension killing charging speeds due to voltage drops.
I've purchased a large number of USB-C cables, and the Apple one is the only one that seems to charge a macbook pro at full-speed (87watts). All the others (Anker, Amazon Basics, a few others) only charge at 30w or 60w which can leave your computer out of battery after a full day of use even when plugged in if you're doing compute-heavy things. Not saying the $19 price-tag is "fair," but at least it's a high-quality cable.
"High quality" in this case probably means that the microcontroller embedded it spits out the right sequence of bytes to make the laptop enable full-speed charging.
Aren’t we talking about the cables here ?
I’d be curious to know what in the Apple cable is so high quality that it allows it faster speed than the other decent brands.
Otherwise my Google-fu is failing me on the USB-C charger teardown, do you remember where you saw one ?
Sufficiently low resistance wire; in particular, USB power over 60W needs >3A current, so a high-gauge high-resistance wire can cause voltage to drop below the minimum specs.
Since everything 60W and below uses a max of 3A, that’s the common maximum design target.
The USB-PD spec requires active cables in order to support over 3A, which is 60W @ 20V. Any cable supporting over 60W will most likely specifically advertise itself as either a 5A or 100W cable.
It's nearly as fast to just use a higher wattage charger like they ship with iPads or any number of third parties. I haven't used an iPhone charger in years.
> There isn't much need these days to plug a phone into a Mac.
Actually, I plug my phone into my MacBook for two reasons: (1) to charge it when there’s no outlet nearby and (2) to have less interference when I use it as a hotspot and to charge it at the same time.
But if you also have a ton of photos and videos in your camera roll and want to preserve those, a local iTunes backup is the only way to do that without paying for extra iCloud storage. Some people are also reluctant to store backups in the cloud in general for valid security concerns. WiFi iTunes backup has never worked properly for me even on 802.11ac, timing out and failing to complete more often than it works.
Unless you're an iOS/macOS dev -- and nearly all iOS/Mac apps are developed on Macs -- a small minority come from hackintoshes. The simulator just doesn't cut it for many apps. e.g. the camera function can't really be tested in the simulator.
Wireless app deployment/debugging's an option now-- sometime in the last Xcode version or two (not sure exactly when, I haven't been paying as close attention to that as I used to).
For iPhone and iPad, you still have to connect with a cable at least once to establish the connection, but the infrastructure's there to go completely wireless-- the app development workflow for Apple TV and for the watch is fully wireless (no ports to connect to on either).
File transfers are outstandingly simple and fast with Airdrop, everything is synced on the cloud, there's screen recording on the phone itself and there's wireless charging.
I wonder why they even keep around that port. Couldn't they create a wireless USB dongle that simulates a wired connection for the situations that "must-have-USB-connection", like Carplay over the USB only or legacy accessories?
Then make a wireless charging cable with magnets(like with the Watch) so that you can charge when using the phone.
I am sure that there would be engineering challenges but Is there a valid reason to have to keep that port around any longer?
> File transfers are outstandingly simple and fast with Airdrop
I've run into constant problems with AirDrop. On my older MacBook Pro running 10.9 it's often visibility related. On the newer equipment problems manifest themselves as transfers that refuse to start or refuse to prompt the recipient to allow the download. Debugging it often requires rebooting the machine. And, yes, it's slower than GigE.
I find AirDrop reliability to vary wildly from machine to machine. Some devices I have it's rock solid. Others — even a brand new MacBook Pro that came in last week — can't use it at all.
I love AirDrop when it works. But it's a real disappointment when you get used to using it and suddenly it's not there.
My 2018 Toyota Sienna requires the phone to be plugged in to the USB port on the vehicle while using Bluetooth in order to provide moving map functionality through the Scout GPS app.
Not sure if this is something Toyota could fix with Bluetooth or if they'd need to move to WiFi or something else... just tossing this out as one of the ways I use the port daily on my phone in my car.
That's why I suggested a USB dongle that you plug into your car and that dongle connects to the iPhone wirelessly but your car thinks that it's a regular USB connection.
That's actually something that I always dreamed of :) Wireless USB.
True, but modern Bluetooth is just a hacked together transfer solution that was originally intended to replace IR for office gear. I personally can’t wait until it dies. To be fair, for a lot of things, yes it’s kinda like wireless USB, for when you really look at the protocol and transfer capabilities they’re nothing alike.
This is what I've been saying. I don't want 4 USB-C ports and a headphone jack. I want none.
I get that they might be needed for external displays or maybe for spectrum cramped offices, but what I need more than anything is more battery. I want a MBP that can actually last a 10 hour work day.
Laptops are nearly at the limit for what can be brought on a plane, capacity-wise. I don’t think you’ll see that take a leap forward until laws change or batteries get much safer/more energy dense.
I might be wrong about this but last I checked new MBPs don't even have half of the maximum capacity that can be brought on a plane, because thinness curse.
Edit: checked, and this was true for the 2016/17 models. The 2018 models have 58Wh (13") and 83Wh (15") in the most expensive configuration. 2016/17 models have 49Wh and 76Wh respectively. The non-touchbar ones have 54Wh, even in the 2018 models. You can take up to 100Wh on an airplane, not counting spares. So every MBP model currently available has significantly less than the maximum allowed capacity.
So per your own data the capacities have increased year on year and are within 15% of max... pleaSe show me a laptop with a 100Wh battery that isn’t strictly because it’s a power-guzzling beast.
Serious question, what’s your proposed alternative for a local secure data transfer/accessory connection, and how is requiring a physical connection less secure than wireless?
Because Apple recently stopped selling iPhones with 3.5mm jacks; today, the only way to get wired audio out of one is by using a first-party accessory. Now, third-party dongles and headphones fail to work and are met with a "No longer supported" message. If you want something to plug into "i" device, it either needs to be made by Apple or have their special approval.
Third-party developers would cry fowl if they implemented USB-C and tried something similar. Because losing it would function to hinder their control over their accessory ecosystem, I don't see it on the "chopping block" any time soon -- despite how much we all would like to see it replaced by something more consumer-friendly.
If you look at the issues with USB-C based phones without headphone jacks it's much more fragmented. Finding a device that functions correctly is very difficult. I think the verge did a story on it recently.
For pro audio lightening just works far better than any alternative. My ipad 2018 gets around 5ms of round trip latency with cubasis 2 and keep in mind this is Apple's entry level device for the education market, not an ipad pro.
They sort of tried to let FireWire be a standard, and it never caught on. So for lightning, they didn't bother. Sounds like the learned their lesson about making standards.
USB-C is kind of a big mess. Reversable connector is nice, but power is wonky, alternative nodes are wonky, everybody wants to add more alternative modes to the point where the only thing universal about it is the conbector (and usb 2 compatibility)
I'm reasonably sure they'll switch either to USB-C or something they find even better (which could very well be inductive charging only, no connector), but there were plenty of rumours about adopting all flavors of usb before they switched to lightning too.
What do you mean? FireWire wasn’t widely adopted in the consumer market, but who cares? Most digital video cameras at the time supported FireWire as well as laptops from Sony and the higher end laptops from Dell.
There wasn’t any dirth of hardware for people who needed it and where it made sense.
And cable boxes used to be required, by law, to have firewire connections. I used that little loophole to request a different cable box from Comcast, then shoved the Firewire plug into a MacBook so I could record TV on it.
(The firewire port was required because many early large projection HDTV sets had Firewire video ports and the FCC didn't want to suddenly obsolete millions of early adopters.)
Learn what? They've gone from near bankruptcy in 1997 to the the most valuable company on the planet in 2017, so it's not like firewire hurt them (or anybody cared much about it except some video and audio pros).
It was significantly faster than USB2 in practice. I sold my external FW drives not that long ago, was using them with a FW-Thunderbolt adapter for quite a few years ago.
In talking about a switch to USB-C, one point seems to be missing - Lightning gives Apple absolute control over which devices can connect. If you don't pay up your MFI fees, and get your device blessed, then there's a chance it can be blocked in a later firmware update, at Apple's discretion. This extends all the way down to charging cables, (tho I'm not sure how well it's enforced / easily sidestepped for charging cables).
Maintaining that level of control, and maintaining the licencing revenue stream, over USB-C, might prove difficult?
Either that, or they change the connector, and leave all the handshake protocol / custom chipset at both ends in place, in which case we will end up with devices that are USB-C in connector only.
USB-C standard has a stload of DRM built-in with quite a bit of crypto protecting it. You can even ask the country code where the power is from! I've yet to hear about Lighting possibly being region-locked D:
You're the second person in this thread to mention this problem on the MBP. I work with tons of phones with USB-C and my laptop charges with USB-C and I don't see this "degrade over time" issue the MBP seems to have.
So what you're saying is that Apple's implementation of the USB-C connector is terrible? I don't see how that's a legitimate criticism of the standard.
It's really too bad Apple didn't turn lightning into a standard connector. It could serve the same purpose as USB-C alt-mode (3.1 / DP / HDMI / Thunderbolt) without the legacy USB 2 wires.
Especially if they made it double-sided (16 pin) but kept the form-factor the same.
I have no wish to see a usb3 on my iThings anytime soon. The lighting connector just works. There are 5 iPads and 3 iPhones in my house and I have never had any issue with the lightning connector. On the other hand everything that I have that has usb3 type C ends up becoming loose. USB is great, I just wish they made it with a good connector for once.
> The European Commissioner for Competition ... is considering clamping down on tech companies who have made “unsatisfactory progress” towards common charging standards ... Apple is now the biggest player to have not adopted the USB Type-C standard for its flagship phones ... This is no idle threat ... the European Commission were recently behind the record €4.3 billion fine levied on Google
https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/circuitbreaker/2018/9/...
> Apple’s upcoming iPad Pro rumored to switch from Lightning to USB-C ... Ming-Chi Kuo says that the next high-end version of the tablet will switch over to USB Type-C