Now, HDMI, on the other hand... yeesh
Lightning females are basically eternal for all intents and purposes even if they do feel a bit looser at the end of the terminal's lifetime by eg letting water into the connector part itself.
I don't know that it is any worse with USB-C as all usb-C devices I own are far more sheltered from everything.
USB-C is still welcome though because all other types are barely pluggable into a compatible device.
But to be fair I've also had many issues with Lightning. A few shorted out and became unusable and burnt on one side. And those were 100% original bought in the Apple store, as were the 5W chargers and iPhone this happened with.
Knockoffs were generally terrible and might stop working. A "genuine" cable bought from big retailer turned out to be a knockoff once after a software update, resulting in annoying popups from Apple. And some knockoffs were so bad they didn't stay in.
Even certified Mfi ones from Belkin somehow felt different, like the tolerances were slightly off. Those worked though.
Overall, I think it's had a good run and was underrated as a connector physically, but on the whole I like USB-C and it's more open ecosystem more.
50% failure is an admirable and lofty bar that all electrical connectors should strive to meet.
Lightning is so awesome and universal that Apple has never even bothered fitting it to a pedestrian device like a computer, and has reserved it for only their most very-exclusive, high-tech devices (like the portable telephones and mice that were once available at astutely prestigious retail locations such as Wal-Mart).
Seriously, this Lightning connector is like the best Kool Aid ever. It's a shame that they stopped making it; it could have been everywhere, if only it had more time in a truly free market.
12 glorious years was clearly not enough time. It deserved so much more.
And by the time you revise the pinout, you effectively have a different connector. Lightning was nice-ish to plug in, but the wear-component was on the expensive device, not the cheap cable, and pairing it with the shit data transfer rate makes it a terrible connector
Apart from that though it was proprietary, which is awful for lots of reasons; that’s the main reason I’m happy to see it gone.
I'm stuck putting wire labels on every USB c cable I own. I can't tell the difference between a 3A and 5A cable otherwise, same for usb2.0 only cables vs 3.1 vs 3.2 4x,whatever the fuck.
USB-C has allowed me to grab one decent two-port charging brick, two solid 6ft cables, and charge just about everything I own just by keeping those in my backpack. If I think I'll need to move any data fast, etc., I just throw my one good USB4 cable in my bag, too.
I will admit, though, that I've had some crappy situations at work where it turned out my flaky monitor setup was due to the stupid work-provided docks coming with cables that only supported 10Gbps. Better labeling would've solved those ones.
The steam deck forced me to finally pay attention to the usb-c ecosystem and I can only imagine how some non tech people might get with mysteriously bad or slow charging.
I find it crazy that Apple went back to magsafe in the m4 (maybe earlier but that's the machine I have at work). But at least you can still charge over usb-c.
I did have the same feeling about flashlights for camping/hiking with lithium batteries, though, until someone walked me through just how much better they are than lugging around AAs.
There are some weird active cables but the vast majority of USB cables you'd buy today just need a speed rating and a note of whether they're 60 or 240 watts.
- Intended maximum safe Power Delivery\*
- Intended maximum link speed
Apple made Lightning when the rest of the world was still mucking about with Micro-USB, which I would argue is just about the worst connector ever in common use. The only type of cable where I routinely kept a half dozen on hand because they failed so damn often.
I do like USB-C, but despite being superior (physically) on paper, it's not as robust as Lightning, definitely more finicky. But it has more capability, which is important.
Not sure if it's the connector or the build quality, but want to throw in the opposite experience.
- Pulling on the cable to unplug it, instead ensure you pull on the solid connector on the end.
- Bending at the point of the cable connector, resting the phone upright on the cable + connector when plugged in (e.g. in cup holder in a car) or stretching the cable too long that it causes a bend in the cable at the connector when plugged in.
There was a recent HN post about cable abuse and it said coiling too tight doesn’t itself damage cables (I will add I don’t like how it makes the cable get a memory and wants to kind of recoil itself all the time), but I think the action of too tight coiling incidentally puts more stress on where it joins the connector.
The connectors are great.
I struggle to understand why an Apple lightning cable would be more robust than an Apple thunderbolt cable...
But as soon as you get to the chip housing and the rest of the cable, it’s anyone’s game I suppose.
I settled on buying packs of 3rd party braided cables for myself and parents so we could switch them out more easily.
With MagSafe, I rarely use a cable at all anymore!
Had every Apple device that used Lightning and consequently have had a veritable smorgasbord of cables from official to Poundland to weird keyring ones; never had a single one fail.
Then again, I've not had a MicroUSB or USB-C cable fail on me either (without obvious physical damage like the one I half-melted by injudicious aiming of a blowtorch.)
My third party cables are lasting 3-5 years. Absolutely would have preferred lightning cables, but it is what it is.
That said, Apples lightning cables were/are indeed quite low quality.
I have a compulsion for fixing things, so I've seen a lot of gadgets where a connector has been broken away from a circuit board due to repetitive stress on a plug. The most common have been audio plugs -- headphone jacks in cellphones, and some connectors in musical instrument gear. I'd much prefer to replace a $5 cable than an expensive phone or gadget.
But of course it's arguable that they made it too delicate.
Now that I'm on my soap box... I've also seen a lot of damaged cables where the breakage is in the wire just as it exits one of the plugs. And a common cause is the habit of coiling your cables neatly by wrapping them as tightly as possible. Since I mentioned musical gear, I'm a working musician, and I cringe when I see how people -- even engineers -- treat cables. I always advise people to watch one or two of the ubiquitous videos where some burly roadie shows the proper way of coiling and handling a cable. I'm a bassist, and I have cables that have lasted 20+ years.
I've had two devices where the MicroUSB socket has broken off the PCB. Not a huge amount considering I've probably had tens of devices with MicroUSB power over the years but a truly inconvenient amount given the impossibility of a home fix (for most people.)
Now I use those magnetic-plug cables and just leave the MicroUSB ends in whatever I might need to charge to avoid the physical stress.
Micro USB's improvement was reversing where the weak bits were. Now it's the cable that wears out, so when it does you just throw it out and buy a new one.
Attachment to the board is another thing entirely, it's all about having some sort of through hole pins to hold it in place (not all devices had that, some were purely surface mount), and good design. I think some devices had a tiny daughter board for the connector, to ensure that part could wiggle around a bit for stress relief.
A standard USB-C socket has four: one in each corner like some later Micro USB sockets. There even exists USB-C sockets with all through-hole pins but there's no space for USB 3 pins so they are all USB 2.0 or charging-only.
I used to buy cables with non-standard reversible Micro USB plugs, but I think there was only one manufacturer of them and now I can't find replacements.
I have accidentally ripped off Micro-B connectors, but ripping off a C one usually requires a nontrivial amount of force.
False! Mini-USB is even worse.
I have no love for Apple and their proprietary nonsense, but even lightning is a strictly better connector than USB-C - easier to insert, less fragile, better wearing. Still too many wires though.
I wish we'd used something like TRRRS, and stuck to 4 wires. Very robust, any orientation, easy to fumble in blind.
Strange comment. My USB C cables have only ever failed around the strain relief after lengthy use, as with any cable that gets handled a lot. I've got a few where I can feel the resistance gradually lessening when plugging and unplugging, but nothing has failed. As someone who wants to keep devices for a while the greatest thing about the USB C power standard sounds a little like faint praise, but: pretty much all my laptops relying on USB C for power will allow me to plug power into a different USB C port if the one I habitually use wears out.
Lightning was more failure prone, not just wearing out the goofy plugs but with failures on the device side. Micro-USB was a nightmare.
Some laptops are picky about what port you use to charge them, unfortunately - I believe my laptop has only one that can charge it fast enough to keep up with full GPU use - the others are around 20W iirc.
Meh.
Anyone who has used audio devices with TRS will tell you how fragile both the female and male connections are.
Anyway, usb-c receptacles could be countersunk to help that fumbling problem. Right angle connectors could help, too.
Surely you understand how USB cables are used in reality? “Don’t wiggle it” is not practical advice.
> There’s nothing magical about the contacts in a USB connector.
Of course not. What’s special is the connector that holds it securely in place, and allows all 24 pins to make contact without shorting.
There is no perfect connector. But a common, standardized connector across applications and manufacturers, which is available now, and has most of the useful features is the next best thing.
Of course that doesn't work all that well for laptops where it would stick out and easily break when you put it in a bag, but for that one pair of headphones you like that is no longer being manufactured it's great!
USB-C gets rid of all the stupid previous decisions on the physical connectors (orientation required but not obvious, fragile clips, too large, too small), the physical side of things is now set and hopefully all devices, chargers and outlets will now converge on usb-c.
Yes getting the right cable can make a difference but the situation is so much better than before, partly because phone manufacturers were forced by the EU to adopt one connector early one. I’m so glad Apple’s proprietary connector is gone.