417
Nothing Phone builds a blue bubble iMessage bridge while Google and Apple fight over RCS
(www.androidcentral.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
417 points (91.6% liked)
Technology
59679 readers
3219 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They wanted a new, compact, durable, reversible plug for their mobile devices. There was no industry-standard option that met their requirements, so they made their own. If USB-C had existed at the time, they would have used it (though as a physical connector, Lightning is still just plain better).
Do you really think that?
Back when that would've been a good argument... but why then when USB-C did become a thing, and became robust and well-supported enough that even Apple used it on every other device they sold, didn't they adopt it onto the IPhone despite lightning being an inferior standard in basically every way?
Why did they literally have to be forced by the EU to adopt the very standard they helped to create, a standard that was de-facto almost everywhere else?
Because they wanted that sweet, sweet proprietary monopoly. Plain and simple, the rest is just excuses.
What's the advantage of using USB-C? Because it's a standard, right? A standard means wide support and it works with what you already have. Except Apple had effectively already established that with Lightning. It was in hundreds of millions of devices before USB-C became mainstream. Sure USB-C was nominally standard, but Lightning maintained the advantages for Apple's customers as a de facto standard. The switch to USB-C meant buying new cables, while Lightning meant using the cables you already had.
Which is literally exactly what Apple did when they moved from the older connector to lightning in the first place lol.
Other than support for superior data transfer speeds, energy carrying ability, and durability? Yeah, it would be that it is an almost universal standard outside of the Iphone.
For well-established standards this is correct, but every standard has to start out somewhere, and you'll find once upon a time lightning was faced this exact same argument.
A defacto standard for more or less only Iphones, as Apple switched almost all of their other products to use USB-C once it reached mass adoption.
You'll find that being locked into Apple's proprietary charging standard maintained a much larger advantage for Apple than it did their customers in allowing Apple to demand royalties/licensing fees from any 3rd parties that wanted to make charging accessories.
You could make this argument against the adoption of any new standard, again baring in mind that once upon a time lightning stood was the new standard that faced this exact criticism.
Also, had Apple just allowed other manufacturers to make use of lightning as a standard, you wouldn't even need to worry about this right now - thus this is a rod for Apple's own back, which they won't mind since they already got off with the money.
I specifically said the physical design of Lightning is superior
The iPhone and all of Apple's accessories (such as AirPods) used Lightning up until a couple of months ago. The keyboards and mice still use Lightning. A connector used on well over a billion devices has all of the practical advantages for consumers of being a standard even if it's nominally proprietary.
Yes, which is why companies should always be reluctant to change unless the new option is significantly better. Lightning was way better than anything else available and was worth the inconvenience of the change. The benefits were real and obvious to all users. The transition to USB-C is ... less compelling for users.
In your first post you said that. What you asked was "what is the advantage of using USB-C?".
If you're going to be so blatant as to ignore the advantages of the USB-C standard purely to focus on its one disadvantage over lightning, being durability (due to the exterior facing pins) then I might as well not even be talking here.
I'll concede part of my point as it was not all of their products that made the switch, but some of their products made the switch as far back as 2018, like the IPad, so far more than just a couple of months ago.
USB-C is also a standard used on well over a billion devices - should Apple get special treatment when it comes to having to play nicely with everybody else?
It is significantly better in almost every way, but you won't acknowledge that because you want to focus on the one disadvantage of the USB-C standard.
If Apple takes advantage of the higher technical capabilities of USB-C, then the benefits will be obvious to users as well.
I mean if Samsung can use USB-C to allow their phones to become mini-PCs, then Apple can surely figure out a good use for the extra horsepower of USB-C
I don't buy this argument at all, they could have contributed towards a combined connector with the usb-if, but instead they made their own proprietary connector.
They did contribute towards usb c. And lightning came out years before c did. They had promised to only switch connectors once a decade because people got so mad about the switch from the thirty pin to the lightning.
Source for them contributing towards USBC prior to implementing lightning port?
Weird request when USB-C was released 2 years after lightning.
That's not a weird request at all, they could have contributed to the USBC protocol before it released, that's... How it works you know.
You’re asking for proof they contributed before an arbitrary date. Can you provide a list of everyone other than Apple who contributed before 2012?
We can look at the press release announcing USBC from 2013 where Apple isn't mentioned at all... https://studylib.net/doc/18619173/usb-type-c-press-release-from-2013
It looks like they were mentioned in a 2014 list however https://www.docdroid.net/uf3z/typec-pdf
Those are two completely different lists. One is “the promoter group” and the other is “everyone involved” which are in no way equivalent. It’s like the opening credits on a movie, vs the closing credits. One of the two is inherently going to be more detailed.
That's true, but if Apple was heavily invested at the time, you'd think they'd show up in the "opening credits" :p
Apple has been a member of the USB-IF (the group that creates USB specs) since at least 2009. https://www.loopinsight.com/2009/07/24/palm-reports-apple-to-the-usb-implementers-forum/
https://www.engadget.com/2009-07-24-palm-complains-about-apple-to-usb-governing-body-while-pre-it.html
https://www.macrumors.com/2009/07/24/palm-reports-apple-to-usb-compliance-organization-over-itunes-syncing-issues/
Really my point was just that Apple designed the lightning connector instead of working collaboratively toward a USBc-like standard
They did work collaboratively towards a standard. They just also in parallel worked on their own project, because they know standards can take an indefinite amount of time, so it could have been a decade to get USB C fleshed out, while they had already been working on Lightning in the background.
There was already one in the works but it was still years ago. They wanted to ditch the dock connector and didn't want to wait forever.
Lightning came out in 2012, USB-C came out in 2014, not exactly "forever"
This is just cope man come on
Yes, that's two years, and we're also needing to look at hardware engineering decisions made in 2011 (since major components are finalized long in advance). Even if they knew then that USB-C would be ready in three years, that doesn't mean it necessarily justifies keeping the dock connector that much longer, but there was also no guarantee it would be a viable option in 2014. How long do you stick with inferior options when you can just to it better yourself sooner? We have to keep in mind the reason we like industry standards in the first place. Ideally they lead to a better customer experience; they are not a goal in and of themselves, just because they are a standard.
My point is that there were very real, entirely legitimate reasons why it was good for Apple's customers that Apple introduced Lightning.
Lmao, how is Lightning better than a USB-C? They’re both practically the same thing, even in durability. Apple might’ve made Lightning first, yes, but then USB-C came out like 2 years later.
Be real here: Apple only stuck with Lightning because it’s stupid easy money for them. Cables are hella cheap to make, and if you make them in-house, you basically spend like $2 at most to manufacture 1 cable. Lightning has the upside of both that and forcing people into the Apple ecosystem because their old phone cables can charge the new phones.
It's physically smaller, doesn't require the thin little piece inside the port on the device, and the rounded corners make it easier to insert without lining up perfectly. To clarify, I'm not saying this makes USB-C bad, but the physical design just isn't as good.
Third parties sell Lightning cables and Apple sells USB-C cables (really nice ones, actually). There's no significant monetary impact to Apple regardless of which connector they have.
I thought the whole argument in favor of USB-C was that because it's a standard, people already have cables for it or can buy them for dirt cheap. If that's the case, the fact that people also have Lightning cables wouldn't be a major reason to stick with an iPhone when upgrading.
Man you're just proving you have no idea what you're talking about with every response.
With lightning, Apple essentially added DRM to the connector, requiring cable manufacturers to pay Apple for each sold cable.
"Lightning also introduced additional protocols that could only be officially supported through the MFi program."
"The Apple MFi Program has no fee to join, but there are two costs associated with membership; a company wanting to join has to pay for a third-party identity verification and pay royalties to Apple once approved, and neither cost is mentioned in Apple’s MFi FAQ documentation. Royalty fees in particular are covered by an NDA, making finding actual pricing difficult.
According to an Apple Insider article from 2014 (which is the newest pricing source available), MFi royalties run $4 USD per connector (e.g., a lightning port) on a device. It is unknown if this information is still correct. I contacted Apple and received this response:
All publicly-available information about the MFi Program is available on our FAQ page: http://mfi.apple.com/faqs. Unfortunately, we are not able to provide further details about the MFi Program beyond those provided in the FAQ."
Additionally, the point of standards in general is to reduce waste and make interoperable devices much easier across manufacturers, something Apple consistently has proven they have to be forced to do. For example... iMessage and the lightning connector. They can provide excuses all they want but the truth is plain to see, they frequently hoard technology for themselves and intentionally make products that don't function with existing products in the name of profit.
Don't get me wrong, it's smart of them to do from a monetary standpoint, but that doesn't make it right and consumers should be smarter.