Apple Still Sells These Devices With Lightning After Discontinuing iPad 9

[needsomecoffee]

In January, I started developing repetitive stress injury in my right hand and forearm that I assumed - correctly it turns out - was related to mouse usage. Being extremely right-handed, mousing with my left hand seemed ill advised, so I thought of getting a Magic (jeesh, do I hate that descriptor) Trackpad but balked when I saw it was still a Lightning device.

Having finally achieved "one cable to rule them all" status (well, except for the micro USB cable for powering my e-reader until I get a new one), I'm not about to go back and so opted instead for a small ambidextrous mouse that I've learned to use - clumsily but less and less so - with my left hand. Doubt I'll be opting for a MT now.

I developed RSI in right wrist mousing. My experience: 1) Took a few days to learn to mouse left-handed. It comes pretty quick. 2) Magic Mouse lightly cradled at an angle roughly following the angle of the thumb (index finger is primary touch others rest on desktop). 3) Keep your hand aligned with forearm -- there is almost no angle in my wrist when mousing. 4) Get BetterTouchTool and program your mouse beyond what Apple provides. Hope this might work for you. Do not mess around with RSI -- fix it. I almost got to the point where physical damage might have occurred (stupidly stubborn). With the setup above I have spent many long hours without issues. YMMV of course. For me the key thing is having my hand/forearm aligned (virtually no wrist bend.) Never seen anyone else do this, so perhaps it is unicornish for me.

 

[sdf]

The magic accessories continuing to use lightning -- especially when they should have always been USB -- is just brutal.

The upside is they continue to work with older hardware. I used the Touch ID keyboard on an older Mac for a year before upgrading.

Now, OK, the use of lightning on these accessories doesn't keep me awake at night (they come with the required cable, and it's only the Magic Trackpad I've got any respect for anyhow) - but it is perplexing why these accessories ever had Lightning when Apple was already rolling out USB-C to the Mac.

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is selling 25% of their replacement keyboards (for example) to users with older Macs. They do last a few years, after all, and only the Mini, Studio and Pro require separate a keyboard as a separate purchase.

 

[Plutonius]

I may be in the minority but I always liked the lightning connector.

 

[kerr]

Given the amount of lightning port devices that people use irregardless of the recent devices that are USB-C. I wouldn't want to tick off older owners looking for worn out cable replacements.

I don’t think anyone needs to worry about Apple discontinuing non-USB type-C accessories such as cables and dongles.

Personally, I would really like a USB type-C MagSafe battery pack. Not sure if there are similar products that use MagSafe rather than requiring a cable to connect the battery and the iPhone.

 

[JapanApple]

I don’t think anyone needs to worry about Apple discontinuing non-USB type-C accessories such as cables and dongles.

Personally, I would really like a USB type-C MagSafe battery pack. Not sure if there are similar products that use MagSafe rather than requiring a cable to connect the battery and the iPhone.

frankly, speaking, it doesn’t really matter these days. I don’t even use lightning cable to charge my iPhone. I use the MagSafe charger. Period I’m not a fan of USB-C. I rather go to portless.

 

[viachicago22]

USB C is great. lightning was great. who cares!

But the transition is a little irritating bc I still need to keep cords and chargers for both right now.

 

[AppliedMicro]

I may be in the minority but I always liked the lightning connector.

I did too. Great physical connector (as long as you don’t require more than USB 2 transfer rates).
That said, it has run its course - and given that charging ports on MacBooks, iPads, iPhones and Homepods are now USB-C, it’s time to follow suit on devices.

The upside is they continue to work with older hardware. I used the Touch ID keyboard on an older Mac for a year before upgrading.

Though that’s not a function of their charging port - thry’d work just as well if Apple updated thrm to USB-C.

Lightning was a superior connector IMO and I wish Apple had open-sourced it so that it could have been the standard. It potentially had all the benefits of USB-C, but with a smaller and stronger connector.

Well, USB-C connectors are supporting 40GBps data transfers and 100W charging nowadays.

I'm surprised they haven't updated the mouse, keyboard, and trackpad to USB C. That would be not only more convenient for the user, but a good way for Apple to make some quick easy revenue.

I was at my local IKEA the other day and they carried quite a number of USB charging cables - and the Lightning version was the most expensive cable among the. - like double the price of the (length) USB-C to USB-C cable.

 

[applefan8254]

this post (bc the lightning cables) reminds me that i feel kinda stupid for not taking advantage of the pixel tablet trade in deal. i have an ipad 6th gen (with lightning connector). have not really used it much in the last 2 years. mainly sat in a drawer. i do sometimes use my samsung tablet, because it has multiple user profiles, so i could load up the "kitchen tablet mode" which the pixel tablet also supports, but the ipad does not. please apple, please bring multiple user profiles to the ipad. i hesitated about the deal, because i kinda thought, my ipad6 has a glass screen protector, its in a case (albeit the floppy open book kind as opposed to a nice thick rubberized "shockproof" type case) and i have some knockoff apple pencil thingy that charges via usbc. whatever. i should have bought that pixel tablet for 400 and then sent google the ipad and gotten the 400 back. what the heck made me hesitate. sorry to type this on here, but i need to vent it if that's ok.

since i can't go back in time, i guess i can just think in the future, if google offers a deal like this again, to basically get a free device by sending in a 6 year old device, i should in the future, take the deal.

 

[Hails09]

Apple may have warehouses full of Lightning devices they want to clear out before launching the USB-C models.

Or it’s maybe to do with helping older customers still being able to buy what they need

 

[svish]

Waiting to see the refresh to the upgraded Magic keyboard and mouse. Wonder whether Apple will just change the port or whether there will be any change to the devices.

 

[freedomlinux]

They have to keep all apple pencils because they don’t all work with every device.

This particular case, I wonder if Apple could have avoided it. Yes, providing accessories for previous products is good, but reducing the number of accessories also reduces the complexity of stocking many products.

If the iPad teams and the Pencil teams have an internal roadmap looking forward 2-3 years, they might have anticipated the compatibility issues and perhaps found a solution to prevent needing so many Pencil versions.

 

[gumbyhw]

Slow news day? I hate to break it to you but lightning cables are going to be around for a long while even after Apple stops selling lightning devices. Most people aren't going to go and buy new products just for the port change and most would rather replace cables as needed to keep a device they like as long as they can.

I was really excited to replace my phone last year because of USB C but by the time september rolled around I had lost my enthusias: “wait, am I really going to spend $1000 just to replace a connector?” Nope.

 

[Pianoplayah]

They are phasing it out gradually, as they should. It would be absolutely idiotic of them to SUDDENLY switch all their devices at once. They would have a lot of angry customers on their hands. See: The backlash from removing the headphone jack from iPhones, and for those of us old enough to remember, removing the floppy drive from the Mac and replacing SCSI with USB. Gradually phasing things out is not news and people need to chill tf out.

 

[theluggage]

wait, am I really going to spend $1000 just to replace a connector?

That's not really surprising, or even a real problem. The only real technical reasons for USB-C on an iPhone are (on higher models) USB 3 transfer speeds and better external display support, which are probably irrelevant to the majority of iPhone users who aren't using their phones for serious photography or video work. It's probably only the iPhone "pro max" models, and the iPad Pro (which adds Thunderbolt/USB4) that need USB-C.

There's even less technical need for USB-C on the Magic peripherals. All most people will want is to charge & pair the device using the included cable and won't give a wet slap about what plug is on the peripheral end. The good news is that Apple have now moved almost (*cough* iMac - what were they thinking? *cough*) entirely away from power bricks with captive cables.

The reason for rolling out USB-C to all iDevices and Apple peripherals is just that it simply make sense to have different charging/sync connectors on different models, and the longer Apple keep making Lightning devices, the longer we'll have to hang on to lightning cables and the longer people will keep buying new Lightning cables.

 

[theluggage]

They are phasing it out gradually, as they should.

Trouble is, they've been "gradually" phasing in USB-C for 9 years now - the 12" USB-C-only MacBook came out in 2015 (which was before the Magic accessories). In 2024, USB-C is even - finally - making more sense on Macs than it did in 2016. It's always made more more sense on phones and tablets - with the majority of users just needing a new charge cable, and where you already needed dongles to do anything other than basic charge & sync.

I guess there were all those Lightning-based bedside clock stands which, frankly, always had "future landfill" written all over them after the same thing happened to all the 30-pin bedside clock stands...

Personally, I think the best (for consumers) time to have gone all-USB-C on the iPhone would have been when they dropped the headphone jack and lots of people were forced to buy new headphones (whether they were wired Lightning headphones or Airpods that charged via Lightning). The 2nd Gen Magic peripherals were released in late 2015 after Apple had committed to USB-C on the Mac and should never have had Lightning - least of all the 2021 Magic Keyboard w/ Touch ID launched with the M1 iMac...

 

[turbineseaplane]

See: The backlash from removing the headphone jack from iPhones

That's still a mistake on iPads (IMO) and questionable on iPhones

 

[ignatius345]

Articles like this are just a way to get the forum-dwellers riled up about their favorite little topics. My charging setup consists of USB-C cables where I need them, with a couple of these little dudes kicking around if I have to charge my AirPods or my keyboard. Problem solved.

 

[HashPipeK]

Yes!! Lightning forever. USB is such a downgrade 🤢

 

[Umacga]

I may be in the minority but I always liked the lightning connector.

I think most everybody likes the Lightning connector. That's not the point at all. The point is it's unfortunately outdated (even if I tend to agree the physical design surpasses USB-C, on a technological level it can't compete) and is annoying to keep around for new devices when everything's moving to USB-C.

 

[LawJolla]

The upside is they continue to work with older hardware. I used the Touch ID keyboard on an older Mac for a year before upgrading.

Charging via a USB-C port or lightning port has nothing to do with the compatibility of old hardware. The other end of the cable can always be USB-A

 

[Burnincoco]

lightning is the "one random pin with oxide" connector

 

[CarAnalogy]

SURELY Apple will upgrade these this autumn...hopefully with a way to finally charge the mouse while using it??

Magic MousePad with Wireless Charging (USB-C): $299

 

[CarAnalogy]

lightning is the "one random pin with oxide" connector

Apparently they fixed that several years ago.

 

[Burnincoco]

Apparently they fixed that several years ago.

Ah, so I was right all along, lightning cables were pieces of ****. They still are, but they used to be too.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Ah, so I was right all along, lightning cables were pieces of ****. They still are, but they used to be too.

I guess that's one way to describe it. Apparently the way the earlier ones were designed, there was always voltage on one pin so it oxidized way too fast, but it still worked. They apparently put a resistor in there or something so it doesn't do that anymore.

It wasn't so bad for its time but they should have gone to USB-C a lot sooner.