As someone whose most devices are USB-C 3.0+ for the past few years and never need to think about speed, I have to say this comment is hilarious.
I get it, android phones have a better cost/benefit for you. Some people prefer the tradeoffs that Apple makes, like privacy, quality materials, a different OS, battery life, etc.
Yes because they had no choice! Apple literally gave them no choice to select to use a 10 year old technology. Something that has been standard in Samsung Galaxy phones since 2017.
Unless they were willing to give up an entire ecosystem they had invested thousands of dollars in have purchased apps, have their data stored everything.
It's Stockholm syndrome.
It's almost as bad as the comment above saying "yah it's reasonable to need to pay for the Pro version for USB 3.0"!
And we all know if Apple had launched with USB 3.0 6 years before the competition and called it lightning 2.0, users old never stop talking about how necessary it is, and how Apple so incredibly caters to the needs of their users and how big a difference is it.
I don't know how they do it, but that company gets people to blindly believe whatever they're told. And rationalize away any terrible decision.
There is only one other consumer company that I've seen get away with that.
Drunk on kool aid.
I know more seniors that know their way around AirDrop (or things “magically” appearing on their desktop device via iCloud, unbeknownst to them) than people that even realize that the cable they use to charge their iPhone could also transfer data.
Next you’re gonna tell me that they don’t care about Cat5 because they’re brainwashed to think WiFi is necessary to get internet.
I use SyncThing and it works fantastically, with no fees and no spying.
Keep your strawmen to yourself, I never stated iCloud is the only way to transfer data.
> I use SyncThing and it works fantastically, with no fees and no spying.
Good for you. I don’t recall asking.
Grow up and accept that other people have preferences that differ from yours and maybe in the process you’ll also learn that using FOSS doesn’t make you as edgy and cool as you think.
As an aside, I can only surmise you don’t even know what iCloud entails because not only does SyncThing not officially support iOS (you know, the topic at hand), but even using the only available *paid* option, Möbius, doesn’t even come close to the iCloud experience.
You do realize that this comment only further shows how brainwashed Apple victims are, which was precisely what my initial comment was about?
That they have internalized and accept that their artificially crippled devices won't allow you to transfer data privately to your own PC without using their cloud, which comes with the associated costs and privacy implications? They are artificially crippling devices to monetize your data.
Apple is ruining computing, and Apple victims are too shortsighted to be concerned about it.
I don't understand why people accept that it's necessary to send that data to Apple and back in order to perform such a basic function.
It doesn't matter if it's encrypted or not, that's still an artificial limitation that Apple has put on the devices you "own", so they can monetize your data.
Namely that there are other factors that justify the cost of iPhones v. the cost of low to midrange Androids.
The proper counter to that would be for you to give examples of a low to midrange Android, at that low to midrange Android price, that is able to match the specs and build quality of an iPhone, besides USB speeds.
Alternatively you could also concede that they have a point of course.
Who said anything about cost? The profit accrues to Apple.
But how often do you really need to never think about speed?
Apple is an enormous company with the best engineers in the business. So I trust they are delivering exactly what we never need in this case.
I've read this a few times and I can't figure out what this is supposed to mean. What are you trying to ask here?
Suppose I've already sunk my money into a "special" thing and find out it lacks some bog standard goodness. Perhaps it was even designed to lack this goodness. I might reflexively ask, "Does anyone actually need that goodness?" in a desperate attempt to save face and prevent myself from feeling like a goober.
Above, my face-saving sentence was written to seem so reflexive and thoughtless that the query ends up sounding absurd. I mean, technically, it is at least coherent to ask whether the time saved by not having to deal with a particular class of problems is ever necessary, in any sense from remaining employed to the survival of the human species. In any case, it's also a red herring.
Above, someone called this face-saving tactic a "cope" which I've never heard but now love. :)
If this was any other company they would be lambasted. Budget Android phones do USB-C 3.0 and have for years.
They were right. I haven't missed the headphone jack once. Bluetooth earphones are cheap and easy to come by, if you want premium sound you can buy an expensive set. The headphone jack was outdated and not needed. If you REALLY want a wired set, a dongle is <£10 from apple or <£5 from amazon. This is a stupid complaint.
By you. People with existing setups and sometimes expensive headphones would disagree. And the whole donglemania is ridiculous - especially models with only Thunderbolt ports are practically unusable without a hub.
"come on now, USB-C is the future, why won't apple implement it!?"
"no, not like that"
I actually wonder if they wanted to get rid of the headphone jack not because of the space it took up (which is significant for the number of connections) but for help with 'water-proofing'.
I also feel like one of the main reasons for at least the design of the lightning connector was multi-faceted. At the time their obvious other choice would have been micro usb B, which is a terrible connector that fails often, especially in cases where it is heavily used. It would have been a support nightmare for them. The design of lightning being a thicker 'core' type connector rather than the flimsy core of a micro usb B or even usb C probably made it easier to make water resistant and cut down on hardware support concerning the connector. I know that on the few occasions when I was having problems with cable connections to an ipad or iphone i'd grab a pair of tweezers and find some lint in the female side of the connetor.
There is no way in hell my next phone won't have a headphone jack either.
Bluetooth is a low audio quality latency filled shitshow, not to mention two more things to charge, and dongles are crap.
I like Samsung hardware but I can't go without the headphone jack.
I like large phones, so I'll probably end up with an Asus ROG phone, but they're slightly chunkier than I'd like, and I'm not really a fan of the "gaming" aesthetic.
Some do. Not every one, certainly, if that was your implication.
I’m sorry, are we still talking about Apple here?
The very same Apple that gets lambasted no matter what they do because it makes for great clickbait and fuel for fandroids?
They very same Apple that got lambasted for being the first to fully embrace USB-C on their 12” MacBook back in 2015 and now is being lambasted for being the last to adopt USB-C on their phone lineup.
I shudder to think what other companies go through if your definition’s threshold for being “lambasted” is so high.
If the EU wanted to outlaw USB2 phones it should have done that. But there would have been pushback from other vendors too - and rightly so.
And the other commenter that pointed out "who exactly uses USB for data transfer anyway?" is spot on. I'm not even an iPhone user and about the only time I do data transfer by USB is when I'm moving stuff to a new phone.
Point being, 99.9% of people who buy an iPhone are never going to notice the speed differential. I feel like all the people complaining are either people in that .1%, or people who just like to complain.
People just like to complain. If you were to ask someone on the street with an iphone when is the last time they manually transfered files to their iphone using a USB cable the overwhelming majority would have no idea what you are talking about.
I actually think this is a little bit Apple being spiteful for being forced to move to USB-C and honestly I'm a little bit on their side on this one.
Honestly it’s probably not even that. It’s probably a SoC limitation that the base models reuse. On the Pro line they bumped it up to 3.0.
It becomes clear when you see that first party cables that enable hight transfer speeds are sold at 79, 149, and 179 bucks for the 1m, 1.8m, and 3m respectively [1]. So, in essence, they purposely did just enough to comply with EU regulations while still aiming at milking customers' wallets with crazy expensive accessories that you would take for granted from top or premium tier smartphones.
[1] https://www.apple.com/ie/shop/product/MU883ZM/A/thunderbolt-...
Also, Apple's 3m cable is actually not unreasonable when you consider that that's actually beyond what the thunderbolt spec theoretically allows, even with an active cable with a repeater chip the limit is supposed to be 2 meters.
but lol @ people objecting to apple rolling out usb-c now, that's gotta be a conspiracy too for some people. every damn apple thread.
if you want to buy a normal cable, just buy a normal cable.
Active Thunderbolt Cables run at speeds of 40Gbp at 1.8m/3m.
All of Apple's Thunderbolt 4 cables are 40Gbp, the same cannot be said about all of the cables you buy from Amazon.
If you feel the need to blame someone? I guess you can blame Intel for the design.
Super odd attitude to have—consumers should be a lot angrier about a mediocre offering sold at sky-high prices.
Can someone make a case that a large group of mainstream iPhone users are plugging in their phones and need better charging speeds? More than 480mbps? And if that were true, where was the upheaval during the Lightning port area? I look around and I just don’t see this group of people, but maybe I’m missing something.
Being different is really important to some people I guess.
Liking and owning Apple isn't being different. It's being part of the herd.
I imagine cabled data transfer is even more niche than cabled charging, especially amongst the non-pro crowd.
But, 14 Pro has these over the 15:
- ProMotion (120hz)
- Always-On Display
- TelePhoto lens
- 3x zoom
- 3 hours more video playback on battery
- 35 grams more weight
- always on display (alongside the 120Hz and variable refresh rate)
- telephoto lens
- 3x optical zoom (versus 2x)
- macro photo
- night mode portraits
- macro video
- proraw / prores
And the macro photo could be using the telephoto lens, I’ve no idea (photography does not even remotely interest me).
(Of course I may just give in and get a personal 14" MBP, in which case they win...)
Am I the only one who feels that 128GB is a huge amount of storage for a phone? Or is it because I still remember when even desktop computers had storage sizes best measured in megabytes?
I'm sorry to say but if you download things offline you are a power user.
Photos, unless chosen to be shot in RAW and the highest resolution at all times, are comparatively not as big a deal on space used with the HEIC format (choose High Efficiency as the format in the camera settings).
Since most people tend to keep all or most of the photos they ever shot over the years on their phones, it just adds up.
Size/cost/quality wise, that’s so much better than old school VHS/camcorders it makes my head hurt.
Pretty awesome for sure. Still no free lunch though.
What do iPhone users do to get all that data off their phones and onto their macbooks?
Hell, nowadays it does the same for photos and videos taken by my SO if they took the photo/video while I was with them.
Now that I think about it, I’ve got “Optimize Storage” enabled on my devices, so if storage is running low it should keep a lower resolution instead of the original stored locally. But I suppose they must use a FIFO logic, because my most recent stuff is always available locally in full resolution.
If I need the older stuff for a project I click export on it and it’ll download the full resolution, which doesn’t take more than a few seconds because I’ve got 1Gbit fiber connection.
I guess the closest thing that comes to a manual transfer would be AirDrop where it would transfer it via a 5Ghz ad-hoc WiFi connection (or via LAN if the extra hop via the router would be faster with an ethernet connected Mac in the olden days).
In practice it reaches about 1Gbps, but I rarely to use it because by the time I need it it’s already synced. I only use it a few times a year when I’ve shot B-roll with the iPhone at my desk and immediately jump into editing.
I haven’t used a cable to transfer data to/from my iPhone in probably more than a decade with the sole exception being when I push out builds from Xcode to the iPhone.
Modern customers stray further from God every day.
It’s cheaper to pay for the 2TB iCloud for 2 years than it would be to upgrade to larger storage on the phone. It’s actually even less because my whole family uses the same quota together.
Then it's easy decision to throw in a few more dollars for streaming service and you are nice recurring revenue instead one-time sell.
Also it's probably cheaper only if you consider only Apple ecosystem. Other mid-range device comparable to base iPhone with bigger storage is probably cheaper.
I want to upload it all to the cloud as fast as possible so it won't get lost if the device is stolen/breaks/gets lost.
The idea that all of my media would be stuck on one device and at risk or that I would have to go through the laborious process of manually syncing it all regularly by hooking up my devices is a nightmare.
Everything automatically syncs to all my devices, including photos and videos me and my SO take in each other’s presence, all recent media is immediately available at the highest native resolutions and I never have to worry about anything.
I’ve got terabytes full of stuff going back years and for good measure I’ve got an automated backup running to a NAS.
Out of an old fashioned mindset I’ve got a moderately upgraded iPhone with 256GB, but 200GB of it is apps because I tend to download apps from fellow developers.
A fraction of that is spend on photos and videos because of automatic storage optimization and a fraction is used for music and podcasts that’s also automatically managed for when I’m traveling.
I’ve got professional cameras and by far the most annoying part is transferring media despite having access to the highest theoretical transfer speeds available on the market today.
Like, there is a value in what Apple is offering. It means someone like my mum never ever has to think about storage or backing up anything, when she lost her phone she got a new one out of a box, signed in and all of her stuff was there without having to do anything. As a power user, could you achieve the same for less? Sure, but for average user the value is there.
Do you think your feelings might vary depending on how you use the device?
I mean, you're going to put to market a $700 phone and cant upgrade one chip on it to do USB3?
Really!
- the 4th gen ipad air supports 5Gb USB, the 10th gen iPad only supports 0.5Gb, both use an A14
- the 5th gen ipad pro supports 40Gb USB, the 5th gen ipad air only supports 10Gb, both use an M1
But I've been told these ports are not symmetrical, the highest speeds are only in host mode and come from a separate USB3 controller, and the soc integrated device mode has much lower specs (10G for the Pro, 0.5Gb on the A15-using 6th gen mini — 5Gb capable in host mode).
The 40 Gb/s speed on the iPad Pro comes from the Thunderbolt controller, which is completely unrelated to USB and disabled in software on the 5th gen iPad Air for market segmentation.
The 4th gen iPad Air and 6th gen iPad Mini use a USB 2.0 dual-role device controller integrated into the SoC, which is limited to 480 Mb/s, and a USB 3.0 controller connected over PCIe, which supports up to 5 Gb/s.
The PCIe USB controller isn't included on the 10th gen iPad. It doesn't support device mode, which explains the USB 2.0 speeds when connected to a computer.
Because the only think I plug my phone into is my car, and I'm pretty sure that's still running at USB 1.x speeds.
To whom?
> there's no reason to be obstinate about it.
Strange comment. You're projecting or something.
You’ve obviously discovered step #1 of a plan for which step #3 is Profit! There must be a lot of excitement that goes along with something like that.
If the OP is correct, this is exactly not what Apple has done. They've equipped the lesser models with last year's SoC. The question of whether this is the kind of feature that ought to be gimped, ever, in 2023 remains.
> it's clear that some people just have issues with retail and companies making things they don't agree with and just come to the internet to argue, and here i am falling for it.
Perhaps you would have had a happier time if you hadn't attributed intentions to me which I did not possess, a couple of times. But if you enjoy doing that, well... enjoy!
It would be different if they wrote it in a way that suggested no personal belief.
It can only bring you down, there's no way it could make anyone like you more.
> like you more
This is all incredibly sad. You should look for affirmation in other, more meaningful places.
Huh? If you don't think this HN post or comment chain is meaningful, why are you spending your time commenting here in the first place?
Unless you're filming a 4k full-hd movie with your phone and download time is critical
Apple's brand is generally pro-consumer and pro-experience. How is such dated technology (i.e., USB 2.0) anywhere close to Apple's brand (read: market expectations)? If any other company said, "Here's a brand new 2023 $800 device with USB 2.0..." there would be blood in the social media streets.
There were plenty of other ways to differentiate the pro and non-pro models. Using USB 2.0 is lazy and shortsighted. Obviously, not on-brand either.
I personally have not used a cable to transfer anything since icloud backups came online.
It should be noted that usb-c on the non-pro models is no slower than lightning on any previous model.
I would bet against this, because I would bet 99% of people will never use a wire to transfer data from the phone.
The 1% who care will spend an extra $200 on a Pro model.
This is price segmentation / microeconomics 101, you can earn more money by asking for more money from people who want to pay more, and asking less money from people who want to pay less.
In theory, the USB C port should allow us to connect a docking station / monitor to a iPhone 15 but I'm not so sure Apple has that in mind. afaik, you need at least USB 3.0 to do that.
I also don’t want to have the photos on “my computer”. I’m really bad at hosting large amounts of data, I let professionals do it for me for a few.
I’m sitting on my couch and my phone is syncing data to multiple cloud services.
I specifically updated my camera too so I could get photos off it via Wi-Fi instead of having to faff about with memory cards or cables.
If you’re on Linux, install Jotta or Dropbox or Onedrive and the same thing happens.
I've had an iPhone since 2008 or so, and yeah, back in the day there were lots of cases where you'd want to plug it in. I'm not sure I've _ever_ plugged my current (4 year old) phone into a computer except purely to charge, though.
Yes, it is. I said that :) And it's a lazy and shite way for a brand like Apple's to go about it.
There were plenty of ways to segment the models, using a fax machine-esque technology to do is silly at best.
Remember, the hacker news crowd as a group does not represent the masses of iPhone users.
"Let's go with the fax machine-y technology..." and the rest of the meeting attendees signed off? Perhaps the brand manager was on holiday? :)
p.s Put another way, I was waiting for the 15 and the USB-C. I'm not going to spend $800 on a device w/ USB 2.0, and I'm not going to spend $1000 just to get what is also a relatively dated technology (i.e., USB 3.0). Which is kinda funny...we're debating the value of USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 isn't exactly the current standard either.
Yeah, I get it. I'm an edge case. Most people don't care. I simply find it hard to believe that Apple so willing cut corners - for no reason - on the flagship devices.
Is this purely kind of on general principles, or do you have a specific use-case for USB 3.0? Because if you do, well, yeah, fair enough, you're an edge-case, but it's worth remembering that most users do not; most people never plug their phone into a computer these days, except perhaps to charge it.
Instead of assuming the millions of customers are deluding themselves into a worse experience, consider that they don't care for this particular feature, and the median user does not need it or think about it at all.
For most people, the cable is a means to keep their battery full. That's it.
The percentage of Apple customers who know you can transfer data over Lightning is minuscule, and of that minuscule number, a further minuscule percentage will care about USB 2.0 vs USB 3.0. A vanishingly small number of people care about this.
There is exactly nothing forcing anyone to purchase an iPhone 15, and it very clear in all of the materials from Apple what the different between the Pro and non-Pro models is. The iPhone 14 Pro was discontinued (at a higher price) to make way for the non-Pro iPhone 15, since they are roughly equivalent in capabilities... including in their USB speeds.
USB speed was a non-issue 30 days ago, and now it's an emergency that is worthy of histrionics, hand-wringing, and FUD, including calling anyone pointing out how ridiculous this is a "corporate sycophant".
Please.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35014499
Son was bullied in school, then father was bullied and flagged by HN.
Do you flag other submissions where companies are called out for minor fuckups? :-)
There's a ~1000 comment thread about the new iPhone models, yet this article was posted specifically to spark a flamewar and the article itself is FUD clickbait that adds nothing new to the conversation that's not explicitly stated in the press release. During every iPhone release for the last few years, they have used the previous-generation SoC for the non-Pro models, and that is the core reason the non-Pro iPhone 15 has USB 2 speeds, because that's the controller in the SoC.
This is neither surprising, nor worth litigating. It's something Apple themselves socialized over a year ago.
iPhone 14 (last year) was AFAIK the first time they did this (non-pro iPhone 14 didn’t get a new SoC and kept the one used in ALL iPhone 13 models) and there was quite an uproar.
That they only switched when forced by the EU is sadly typical of them.
That they then used this to market segment, so $800 phones still have USB speeds I expect from $15 junk I’d buy on Amazon?
That’s just irritating.
I own an iPhone dude. I’ve used Mac’s for decades (alongside Linux and Windows machines).
Calling a spade a spade isn’t anti-zealotry. Refusing to see the obvious is…. Something though.
The lightning plug design on the other hand is as close to bulletproof as you can get for the size and number of connections. The only time someone has ever come to me with a problem with a lightning connector it's been quickly resolved by taking out some very fine tweezers and pulling a bit of lint or dirt out of the female connector.
Same with if they had modern speeds on their non-Pro models.
They’re just being dicks now though.
The other part is that when they went through the design work to put USB-C in (per the legal mandate), they didn’t spend the extra 2c to put a USB3.x or whatever host controller in. Because it would likely have cost them less than 2c to do it.
They didn’t just swap a plug and call it good in a rush, they made multiple new models, that they are selling as improvements and they segmented it so that the $800 model has speeds from prior ancient tech.
That’s being a dick. On top of the ‘being a dick’ of continuing to use their proprietary connector 5+ generations after it stopped being relevant.
Apple promised 10 years of support for Lighting. They gave it that.
I think Apple made the obviously sensible decision here.
The pro model is $999
Out the door... Minimum $900 bucks where I live. That feels close enough to a grand that trying to explain away usb 2 speeds with "But it's a budget phone!" is pretty disingenuous.
Soooo absolutely not free?
The fact you and others seem not to understand this should be an indication you aren’t informed enough to have a valid opinion on the topic.