Apple forced to ditch iPhone lightning charger::Apple confirms new iPhone 15 will have a common USB-C charging port after EU forces it into the change.

  • Rootiest@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    28
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    as every accessory with a lightning port just became e-waste. I guess Mother Nature didn’t see that.

    I think it’s interesting that you see this as USB-C’s fault.

    If Apple had stuck to a standard connector they would have been on usb-c in a year or two anyway and none of that e-waste would exist.

    Or if they went back on their word and switched to usb-c from lightning after a couple years, there would also be way less Lightning e-waste. What do you think happens to all those Lightning accessories when someone switches from iPhone to a different device?

    Apple’s proprietary Lightning connector is responsible for the e-waste, not USB-C or regulators.

    These regulations will stop companies like Apple making proprietary connectors purely for profit that generate all the e-waste in the first place.

    • Petter1@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      19
      ·
      1 year ago

      Lol, a cable is barely e waste. The power Adapter is where the e waste is, and those usb A blocks can easily still be used, even if you only have usb-C cables lying around. For very little money, you can buy an Adapter from usb-A to C and you can still use them. I don’t get the eWaste argument on copper cables…

    • bob_wiley@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      26
      ·
      1 year ago

      There were no good standards when Lightning was released. There were several different USB options… mini, micro, etc, all of which only worked one way and sucked to use. If I remember correctly there was also something related to audio that USB at the time wasn’t good at, which lightning could handle. Hence the removal of the headphone jack.

      • Rootiest@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        1 year ago

        USB-C was finalized 2 years later so the decade of Lighting e-waste is still on Apple for holding out as long as they did.

        Maybe instead of designing a whole new Lightning connector they should have been pioneers and been one of the first to make a USB-C phone.

        • Zoolander@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          No it wasn’t. The very first version of USB-C was standardized 2 years later. It didn’t get to feature parity with lightning until Thunderbolt support was added at the 5 year mark.

        • bob_wiley@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          19
          ·
          1 year ago

          No one wants a new connector every 2 years. When Lightning was announced the 30-pin connector was in service for almost a decade and they said Lightning was designed for the next decade. So now it’s been a decade and they changed again. I guess we’ll see another new connector sometime around 2033, if USB can keep itself together long enough. It’s fragmentation is a bit of a joke.

          • Rootiest@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            13
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            If they kept the 30-pin for another year or two they could have been one of the first with USB-C and it would have been good for two decades or more and we wouldn’t be having this discussion

            • Zoolander@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              Are you seriously complaining that they didn’t wait for a tech that hadn’t even been announced or released yet? Do they have a time machine or crystal balls now in Cupertino?

                • Zoolander@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Again, this was after Lightning was already designed, released, and had millions of accessories made for it. It doesn’t change the point at all.

              • Rootiest@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                12
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                If only they had the foresight to predict the needs of their customers a year or two in the future.

                Or maybe they just went with Lightning because they could take a cut of every product using their proprietary connector.

                • bob_wiley@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  11
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  They did have the foresight, it’s why they started working on Lightning and has it ready for production release in 2012. From what I could find, the initial press release around USB-C was in 2013, with initial submission in 2012.

                  I’m not going to spend days reaching this, but it seems possible that USB-C was a response to Lightning based on that timeline, so since where playing the “if” and “maybe” game, which I’m pretty much done with now. Neither of us have inside information and this is all hypothetical nonsense.

                  • Rootiest@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    5
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    1 year ago

                    Apple literally contributed to the design of USB-C, it’s not as if they had no idea it existed or it was some sort of reactionary design in response to Lightning

          • wavebeam@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            Your downvote count is insane, because you’re right. People on lemmy, just like on reddit, use android and like to feel superior for hating on Apple. That’s basically all it comes down to. Apple introduced a new connector a decade ago, called their shot, and usb-c caught up during that time. Now that Apple is fulfilling their plans everyone who was never going to buy an iPhone anyway is shouting “what took you so long?”

            • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              This isn’t about IOS being superior to Android. This is about Apple doing anti-consumer practices and getting called out for it.

              The downvote count is insane because they are talking out of their arse and drinking the Apple propaganda.

              USB-C “caught up” with lightning a decade ago.

              If it was such an awesome connector, they would still also use it in their MacBooks.

              If Apple really cared about their customers getting the better connector, they would have changed it on the Iphone at the same time they did on the MacBooks.

              But they didn’t, because Iphone is their cash cow, so they wanted to scrape as much money from their users as possible, until the EU forced them to change.

            • bob_wiley@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              Yeah, I don’t know why people are getting so upset. It’s not like Lightning has been a major hardship, and when it came out there were many years of bliss while everyone else was in USB hell. Lightning was never meant to last forever, but it was meant to last a decade. They were very up front about that.

      • Elektrotechnik@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        1 year ago

        “Hence the removal of the headphone jack.”

        What does that have to do with USB vs Lightning? Besides, Lightning to Headphone Jack adapters as well as lightning airpods use a DAC inside the cable.

        Boy, some of you are really drinking the Apple koolaid.