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Other USB-C iPhone: The Ugly Truth
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For most people, it seems, "new" is better. Age and experience will whip that notion out of them, especially when it comes to technology, where "advances" are done mostly in the name of profit. They have to pay all of those cubicle bobble-heads, after all, not to mention support the multi-million dollar overhead of management. So on behalf of them, I will say thank you for being ever eager to adopt new stuff and hand over your money. Keep working, now: you'll need to. Forever.
The USB-C connector is poorly designed. I have a notebook here that has difficulty keeping the USB-C cable in place, and the connector itself on all of my USB-C devices is hit-or-miss on providing a satisfying click upon insertion and actually withstanding some tug on the cord. I'm no fan of proprietary, but the Apple lightning connector is FAR better than USB-C.
Whoever came up with this USB-C design is an idiot--or a genius, depending upon where you are in the food chain.
But if you get angry at USB-C, don't worry. USB-D will be here to correct its ills, right about the time when you've finally switched over to USB-C.
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I don't think USB-C as such is bad, but there's a LOT of different quality of cords/contacts.
Well believe it or not, but Apple played a decent size role in the development of USB-CFor most people, it seems, "new" is better. Age and experience will whip that notion out of them, especially when it comes to technology, where "advances" are done mostly in the name of profit. They have to pay all of those cubicle bobble-heads, after all, not to mention support the multi-million dollar overhead of management. So on behalf of them, I will say thank you for being ever eager to adopt new stuff and hand over your money. Keep working, now: you'll need to. Forever.
The USB-C connector is poorly designed. I have a notebook here that has difficulty keeping the USB-C cable in place, and the connector itself on all of my USB-C devices is hit-or-miss on providing a satisfying click upon insertion and actually withstanding some tug on the cord. I'm no fan of proprietary, but the Apple lightning connector is FAR better than USB-C.
Whoever came up with this USB-C design is an idiot--or a genius, depending upon where you are in the food chain.
But if you get angry at USB-C, don't worry. USB-D will be here to correct its ills, right about the time when you've finally switched over to USB-C.
Yes!! I feel this is a highly overlooked statement. A lot of people focus on having just one type of cord, but I don't think they realize that this is going to add to what is already IMO a USB-C nightmare. There are so many cord rated for this and that and then you have to worry about the bricks and their charging capability (which is easy since it is printed on the block what it can handle), but cords NOPE!
USB-C is already as bad as HDMI right now since there are so many variants of HDMI and there are already different USB-C types for capabilities. So sure you may only have to worry about bringing one cord, but oh no you left your cord that can handle faster data transfer at home or the one that can support the faster charging so now you are stuck with slower charging or low data transfer speeds because these things are not labeled or colored or anything. At least with the charging now the only thing I need to worry about for my iPhone is getting the brick that I need for whatever situation, and I have already have enough fast charge support bricks.
3rd Party in general though too proposes a dangerous problems if not careful with the quality:
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/wo...harging-iphone-electrocutes-article-1.1886994
My backup is automatic and offsite.
But you need to connect your phone to the device for backup.
So you don't do backup?
Streaming comes with a lot of problems, from roaming charges over insufficient bandwidth/no reception to music/audiobooks not being available with the streaming service.
In addition, it usually costs money or there is advertisement involved.
AirDrop works pretty bad. It uses wlan which is slow and it can only be used between a very limited set of devices.
I almost never use it.
This is entirely dependent on individuals and their requirements. For example I travel a lot amongst countries within Europe and the USA and the charges from my service provider is super minimal for the flexibility of me travelling anywhere. So streaming is definitely the path forward for me to not have to fumble around with transferring data and using up space on the device.
I often stream music as well, but then mostly on youtube.
However, I'm an outdoors person and often happy if there is enough reception to get a text or e-mail through. That's already the case if you venture into a forest in Germany.
In exotic destinations, the rates can be horrendous and it's often not possible to get a local sim card. Chatham Islands had no cell service for example. On Galapagos, it was 12 USD per Megabyte with my carrier. During a cruise, I think it was 100 USD for 50 Megabytes via Inmarsat and Wlan. Smaller boats/ships often don't have a satellite uplink.
Transferring data goes automatically with apple (that's why I like it) - I just connect the iphone in the same way to the itunes than I would with my ipod classic (that's why I'm looking forward to USB-C). And a few minutes later, I have it on the go, in my car etc. It's a big selling point for apple in my opinion. If I just use spotify, I can buy a cheap android phone.
Ah I see. In such situations I just download the songs I’d like on my phone while I’m home. I use Apple Music as well.
I prefer Lightning to USB-C. To me this USB-C stuff always seemed like one of those bandwagons in the Youtube tech community, something to complain about because you have to be part of the crowd and the crowd is desperate for USB-C. I have one iPad charger that is plugged in all the time, cable is sitting next to the TV and that is the charging spot for me, so all of my devices rotate on that charger and it works great, no problems. Lightning is robust, the click when connecting the device feels nice, solid and smooth, unlike USB-C, and I am happy with the charging speeds. No complaints about Lightning from me and I like to have as many devices as possible charging through one cable. The 2017 MBA and 2020 M1 MBP are the devices I have to charge outside of that Lightning cable and that's it, never been impressed with USB-C and don't care about it.
With that said, electronics are no longer a want, they are a need because we all have to use them in today's world, and standardizing this will decrease cost for people, eliminate clutter and generally make it easier to use products. So in that sense I support mandating one standard port because I feel technological development has gone far enough that we dont need to have a different technological solution for charging in every manufacturer, it's fine to mandate one that is ubiquitous and the only downside that I see is some companies losing money from proprietary ports.
This isn't a move against Apple specifically, it's just that Apple is the one sticking out of the crowd with the Lightning port and their pockets will lose the most on this, but it's just a logical move that will in the end make a difference long-term. Since we've reached this level of development (the number and importance of electronic devices combined with the quality and speed of a standardized port), I think the interest of the population to get rid of this "box of cables" nonsense and reduce waste outweighs the interests of tech companies to continue milking proprietary technology. The companies have had a good run, plenty of time to research, develop and sell whatever they wanted and it's been enough now, other matters have become more important.
Besides, let's be honest, this doesn't stiffle innovation because there is not much innovation happening with ports anyway. If anything, this will motivate Apple to improve Magsafe wireless and continue making money off of that, which will bring more revenue if that charging method is improved and more widely used.
With that said, electronics are no longer a want, they are a need because we all have to use them in today's world, and standardizing this will decrease cost for people, eliminate clutter and generally make it easier to use products. So in that sense I support mandating one standard port because I feel technological development has gone far enough that we dont need to have a different technological solution for charging in every manufacturer, it's fine to mandate one that is ubiquitous and the only downside that I see is some companies losing money from proprietary ports.
This isn't a move against Apple specifically, it's just that Apple is the one sticking out of the crowd with the Lightning port and their pockets will lose the most on this, but it's just a logical move that will in the end make a difference long-term. Since we've reached this level of development (the number and importance of electronic devices combined with the quality and speed of a standardized port), I think the interest of the population to get rid of this "box of cables" nonsense and reduce waste outweighs the interests of tech companies to continue milking proprietary technology. The companies have had a good run, plenty of time to research, develop and sell whatever they wanted and it's been enough now, other matters have become more important.
Besides, let's be honest, this doesn't stiffle innovation because there is not much innovation happening with ports anyway. If anything, this will motivate Apple to improve Magsafe wireless and continue making money off of that, which will bring more revenue if that charging method is improved and more widely used.
One thing I don’t understand is the e-waste argument all around the board. Apple says switching to USB-C will create more e-waste. The gov says them switching to USB-C will reduce e-waste.
A cable is a cable is a cable is a cable. There are enough devices out there with Lightning out there that those cables will find their home. There’s going to be e-waste regardless! As long as new phones are produced and new ports/cables are standardized, there’s always going to be waste laying around in some form.
I think a better move would have been to ban MicroUSB and then leave the innovation up to the tech companies who know how to make tech products better than a government. I can’t believe that I have products purchased within the past 3 years that have a MicroUSB port. That port should have been shot and killed years ago. But then again, there are probably billions of MicroUSB cables laying around that won’t see any use.
But yeah, I like Lightning and I use two cables to charge two different devices at the same time anyway so it doesn’t matter to me which way they go. I just hope they stick with a port because I am not a fan of puck charging.
A cable is a cable is a cable is a cable. There are enough devices out there with Lightning out there that those cables will find their home. There’s going to be e-waste regardless! As long as new phones are produced and new ports/cables are standardized, there’s always going to be waste laying around in some form.
I think a better move would have been to ban MicroUSB and then leave the innovation up to the tech companies who know how to make tech products better than a government. I can’t believe that I have products purchased within the past 3 years that have a MicroUSB port. That port should have been shot and killed years ago. But then again, there are probably billions of MicroUSB cables laying around that won’t see any use.
But yeah, I like Lightning and I use two cables to charge two different devices at the same time anyway so it doesn’t matter to me which way they go. I just hope they stick with a port because I am not a fan of puck charging.
I agree with that, well said. The only thing I’ll say is that the market has basically already decided that USB-C is the way without government intervention. Only reason Lightning still exists is because it’s still an excellent design and technically predates USB-C.
Apple already admitted USB-C was a good port by putting it on their laptops and iPads. They’re being stubborn about putting it on the iPhone for no reason. But, at the end of the day, it’s all much ado about nothing. Both ports are fine.
They’re still selling devices and accessories that are powered by the lightning cable. A sudden switch like that would piss off a lot of loyal Apple customers who joined the ecosystem from an iPhone and then chose to buy extra accessories.
They won’t stop working suddenly. Nothing to get annoyed about. Everything will continue to work.
They’ll just slowly phase out naturally, resulting in a more simple single port connector solution for mobile devices, resulting eventually in less e-waste.
If apple had made lightning non-proprietary, then perhaps they could have had a more of a say in which connector became the standardised one. But they didn’t. So as is normal with this type of thing, the more common, but worse quality wins out.
I bought plenty of devices with Micro/Mini USB in the past three years. From Gamepads over a USB nightlight and wireless pressure transmitters to power banks. And yes, I would be happy to see it go as well.
The problem with lightning is, that apple is the only company selling iOS phones and does not allow the consumer to choose between USB-C and lightning for their phones, to the detriment of the users who are stuck with low data transfer speeds. So it's more of an antitrust thingy rather than government meddling with innovation.
I use it all the time and it's quite fast. Something's wrong on your end. It works across all Macs, iPhones, and iPads.
It's long term thinking. The ewaste argument doesn't work for today necessarily, but for the many years to come any electronic device having the same cable and power adapter will help keep old cables and power bricks in use, and the old devices can more easily have replaceable cables. Eventually, electronics won't include any cable or brick in the box, it won't be needed if the bricks and cables last longer than devices, that saves ewaste.
"quite fast" is measurably slower than a standard 1 Gbit/s Ethernet link, that has been commonplace since over 15 years.
It's especially slow compared to a simple USB 3 cable between two devices.
If you really doubt that, we can setup a test environment and do some measurements.
It also doesn't work across all macs. The mac has to run a current version of OSX and have a wifi adapter. Simply connecting two apple devices by a network is not sufficient to make it work. That especially includes virtualization.
And even though I have a macbook and an iphone, the iphone doesn't sync with the macbook, but rather the windows machine, because it has more storage space and is integrated into my home backup environment. The Macbook isn't, because it has company data.
So in addition to the above, there has also to be a use case for airdrop.
Hence in the wild, I rarely see anyone using it. Even between mac users, most stuff gets exchanged via cloud storage, cifs, rsync, nfs or other industry standard methods.
Yep. Comparatively slow. Still perfectly fast enough to send large video and multi gigabyte photo albums (as I do daily). Convenience wins out, over cable to cable.
I don't care if there's something else is faster as long as it's fast enough for an average user like me, which is most certainly is. And most people have Macs with fairly recent versions of macOS and wi-fi. It's 2022 after all. I see people use AirDrop all the time, so maybe venture a little further out into the wild 😂. I've never even heard of cifs, rsync, or nfs (unless I know them by another name/acronym) and I'm a pretty tech oriented guy, so I doubt the average Apple user has heard of nor uses those methods either.
That's because Airdrop is neither fast ... nor reliable for everyone. Maybe some use cases differ and others are having better experiences. Maybe if sending smaller files it's fine, but when 3 people including you and myself in this thread alone have had issues with it with larger files? Plus add that to what other forum members have experienced, and some have given up on it altogether.
As I had mentioned, I used it to try to move virtual grand pianos (mainly 2-4 GB in size) and had issues. I've only used it once and a Month ago to a new machine. I had to restart transfers multiple times. I was only moving a few of them too. My WiFI connection is both fast and reliable. A friend of mine has constant issues with it as well, and he does video and photo work. Very tech savvy as well. Austin Mann who I cited has issues with it as well.
Simple Google searches can solve this for people. Even this one from 6 mos ago:
EDIT: not sure why this is coming up as a photo or photo preview, I've tried inserting it as a URL link and just a general link and it keeps defaulting to that preview.
So you have a lot of time that you are willing to spend waiting around. And troubleshooting, when your 500GB airdrop transfer with hundreds of files eventually gives up the middle of it.
Many other people don't. Yes, I too mourn the obsolescence of the RS232 port, which was "fast enough" for a long time, but I'm happy when I can transfer stuff within minutes and not hours. I'm also happy that my phone uses flash instead of an HDD like the ipod Classic, as it is faster.
And I will be happy when my next iphone will use contemporary technology, that has been in mainstream for almost a decade, to make file transfer faster - even if Apple needed to be forced by the EU.
I actually know of very few iphone users who also have a mac and use it to sync their iphone. It's just not something that happens a lot in the wild. There are even plenty of mac users who don't have a use case for iOS phones and buy android instead.
Apparantly, you've been living under a rock then for decades.
Convenience is also something why I don't use it. I have to notice that two devices are airdrop capable, activate wifi and bt on both devices and then remember how it works. Easier to just connect the cable and let it sync automatically or handle it like I handle all other data transfers.
Btw, one reason wifi is slow and unreliable on mobile devices is because they got the cheaper antennas / wifi adapters. I often have great reception and good speeds (for wifi) on my laptops when the iphone or ipad already complains that it can't connect to the wifi. Which can be even the case just a few meters from the AP, as our houses are not made out of american cardboard.
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