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.
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.
Thank fuck, the lightning charger is hot dogshit, IMO. Th lack of compatibility of iphone is annoying, particularly around how 3rd party charging cords won’t work with their products sometimes.
I had an iphone for over a decade, and finally switched to android. It suits me better. I spend a lot less time thinking ‘i should be able to do this’ and looking for a workaround
Only good thing about Lightning was the connector itself, but USB-C is a much needed improvement. The speed thing though, that gets me, especially when non-flagship devices aren’t limited to 2.x speeds.
Charger compatibility is a big thing. Back in the ancient days, sales men used to tell me to buy a Nokia phone because everyone had a Nokia charger at home. If you bought an Ericsson or Siemens, nobody could help you if you ran out of battery.
Well that didn’t last forever, since Nokia eventually decided to switch to a slim connection, but before that the compatibility was really good.
Yeah the lightning charger in my experience immediately breaks when I put it in any position it just doesn’t like.
Edit: should clarify I use an Android now
You’ll feel right at home with usb-c then. I use both every day and, honestly, they both suck.
But with Usb-c you get Power Delivery which kicks the shit out of old 5v 2a nonsense
I find usb-c generally better. faster charging, as you’ve pointed out. I find the connections usually a lot more secure too. I have one cord in my car for android auto that’s a finicky little bitch, though, and I’m about to yeet that thing, if I ever remember to replace it. All of my other cords have held up well, and it’s really nice to have the ability to charge all of my devices with one cord.
Just curious why you think USB C sucks? I think it’s gotten to a mature point now with PD 3.0 or 3.1. I have 1 cable next to my bed that will charge my phone, headphones, laptop, tablet etc. No worrying at all.
Part of the issue is exactly what you just mentioned: There are a lot of different standards with varying degrees of compatibility, and none of them are visibly different from one another. There isn’t a good way to immediately identify which cables are “good” and which will just outright refuse to charge your devices. So some of my USB-C cables will charge low power devices, but not bigger things like a laptop or iPad.
Meanwhile, the lightning charger was really really good at enforcing uniformity across different cables. Because you knew you could plug any lighting cable into any lightning port, and it would charge just fine. Yes, this inevitably caused issues with speed as tech progressed and Apple refused to upgrade to new standards. But that refusal also helped them maintain uniformity. Apple also shifted away from hardline data transfers years ago; 99.9% of iPhone users will have iCloud backups happen automatically via wifi, and iCloud means you’re not doing full phone backups every time. You only do the initial backup, then it simply pushes daily changes as you go whenever you connect to wifi. So the actual amount of data that gets transferred is relatively low with day-to-day usage, and it doesn’t eat into your limited call phone data plan. The regular user rarely (if ever) needs to transfer anything via the lightning port, because wireless sync takes care of things as long as they’re on wifi.
The rapid development of USB-C has been great for the tech. But it also means that (as someone who has an iPhone and has very little need for USB-C cables) I’ve bought more USB-C cables in the past two or three years than I have lightning cables. Because my five year old lightning cables are still working fine, while all of my USB-C cables from before the pandemic had to be replaced; Not because they were broken, but simply because newer devices would refuse to charge with them.
Yeah I get that there are some teething issues but for an iphone geezer now it should be pretty ubiquitous. USB C to USB C cables will do 60w. Then if they have the special chip they can do 100W + (5A).
It’s even less of an issue for an iphone 15 that will likely top out at 25w.
A gorilla wrote this post
You can charge faster than 10W using Lightning to USB-C
I’ve only ever had one lightning charger break. Been using iPhones for a decade.
…I do electrical tape and heat shrink the ends, though. So they probably helps a little.