Great news for students and those that don’t want to spend more for Apple cables. I never lose them or damage them so I always just buy the official ones. I picked up all the ones I needed back in 2016 when I bought my MBP. They were all on sale for months. While they may be overpriced, they just feel rock solid.
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Apple Will Soon Let Hardware Developers Make MFi-Certified USB-C to Lightning Cables
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Except that Lightning is a superior connector over USB-C, while also being smaller to boot.
Apple shoulld just skip the wired connection all together for the iphone. Straight to wireless, focus on making wireless charging really a thing. Too late for USB c now.
Same... Even if not MFi-certified, they are pretty reliable so far (and made of sturdier material).
I bought a cheaper MFi Lightning cable, one of those flat cables, which I thought was awesome. It was longer than the Apple one and seemed very resilient. Yet, one day it just stopped working. Pulled the cable out, and the Lightning nip stayed in the device. Seemed that it just disconnected from inside the cable housing, with only a bit of glue holding it. No reinforcement. Very disappointed! I hope that Apple's review process checks for design issues like this!
How did you draw that conclusion? Lol if anything it means they are switching to USB-C power adapters for iPhones instead of traditional USB 2.0 / 3.0.
Well that thought did cross my mind as well. The rationale being: If they're ditching Lightning, they don't have to worry about competition for cables, and can now just throw it to 3rd party for folks with older iPhones. But I do admit that ditching Lightning is unlikely at this point.
But no one on MacRumors has upgraded to a machine with USB-C because that would mean adapters and we all know how much crying the folks here did about that. They should have no reason to need a USB-C cable.
Apple came out with Lighting before USB Type-C existed. That fact matters. Should they eventually drop Lightning in favour of USB Type-C? Only Apple will make that decision.
Except it’s not. There are more peripherals, and better ones, for lightning than for USB C. Unless you’re saying Apple would magically fix that?
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You know what’s more anti consumer? Changing a cable for a benefit that won’t help most people at the expense of knowing it will work when you plug it in.
Lol, this comment is RIDICULOUS!
So... they should be allowed to certify themselves??
Those $2 Apple cables, available at convenience stores should be allowed to say “certified by Apple”, even though they’re only going to last about 4 uses, & are so far off spec they trigger the “this accessory is not supported” dialogue??
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Hey... I have another idea: maybe Apple shouldn’t have to “let” apps into the App Store, then we can have an insane amount of iOS malware! Or maybe Apple shouldn’t have to “let” companies sell/service their products & we could all go to knock-off Apple stores like the ones in China and get complete garbage parts & accessories w/ no warranty, though the Apple logo is on the storefront!
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The fact that this comment got upvotes is baffling to me. =/
Are people out there genuinely clamoring for knock-off parts, susceptible to fire hazard w/ no way whatsoever to tell the difference between quality 3rd party (like Anker...), & just straight garbage?
Why? The USB Consortium and USB-IF come out with a new standard every other year. At least Apple provides some stability and long-term viability to their proprietary standards.
In the time period that Apple has had two mobile cable standards (Dock, Lightning), USB has had seven (Mini-A, Mini-B, Mini-AB, Micro-A, Micro-B, Micro-B SuperSpeed, and now Type C). So in approx 2003 to present, 15 years, USB averages a new plug type every other year. No thanks.
And adding to the confusion, not all devices and not all cables support all the features of USB-C, such as PowerDelivery and AlternateMode. Thus, pairing USB-C cables to devices is actually quite confusing - there is no good way to know if a particular cable was made and tested to work with "gen 2" of USB-C.
Not actually a bad idea. The only time I plug in now is when my iPad or Mac peripherals need charging, or when I need to top up ASAP and the 'fast' wireless charger won't cut it. Daily use though? Wireless is all I use now.
The downside of this is restoring your phone. My iTunes backups are more complete than my wireless ones.
I can bet they don't deliver the full 29watts to an iPad Pro with a 29w or 30w USB-C power brick.
Maybe it’s not the ‘full’ power but my non-MFi-certified USB-C to Lightning cable charges my 8+ from zero to 50 percent in about half an hour when using the MBP’s power brick - which seems to be in line with Apples claims for fast charging.
I wish the USB-C connector was an option for the iPad/iPhone. I do not like Micro-USB connectors I seem to have a lot of issues with bad ports and/or bad connectors/cables but so far the USB-C connectors/ports I have used(so far) seem a little more physically robust.
Apple does not perform quality verification of MFi products, it is all done through self-certification. Apple merely sells them the connectors, provides the specs and collects royalties. Apple doesn't test or approve the product before it is released.
See https://mfi.apple.com/MFiWeb/getFAQ.action#5-2
That's how its done today.
First off: USB-C is the physical connector. USB 2.0 / 3.0 are USB chipset standards, not physical plugs.
Secondly: Yes they would switch to USB-C chargers for iPhones. That's exactly what I and others want. This means that both ends of the cable are USB-C. Meaning you can plug it into any USB-C device to charge it up or exchange data.
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The technology isn't there yet. Charging is way too slow with any current wireless charging solution. Besides, having to charge your phone with a wireless charger in public would be a nightmare. In addition you would not be able to use it without having it on a wireless charging pad.
I think the only time they should go fully wireless is once a technology exists that truly charges the phone wirelessly, as in, I can sit in a room, using my phone and having it charge wirelessly and of course the speed at which it charges should be as fast as a fast charger can do it in the present day with a cable.
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What? It's smaller that's about its only advantage. The chipset that handles the lightning connections actually differs among Apple devices. Some iOS devices were found to only support USB 2.0 speeds over lightning (480mbps) whereas the iPad Pro in 2015 showed that it can handle 5Gbps speeds (USB 3.0).
The USB-C connector is more versatile and is able to support Thunderbolt 3 which has a max bandwidth of 40Gbps. Lightning on the other hand is arguable. Apple doesn't release details about it so we cannot be sure.
I'm no electrical/hardware engineer so I don't know what the implications or prerequisites would be to implement a Thunderbolt 3 card into an iPhone but it is a possibility with the USB-C standard.
Anyways, I think Apple's thinness obsession has slowed down and will take some time to regain traction considering they have reached a limit. So USB-C is no problem in terms of size.
Besides anything I've said, what makes it so much more superior to USB-C if I may ask?
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Now if only Apple would make an Apple Watch to USB-C cable, life would be grand. Nobody, not even Apple, sells an Apple Watch charge cable with a USB-C connector.
Maybe they'll surprise us at the upcoming media event?
Maybe they'll surprise us at the upcoming media event?
Well, actually this is a hint they might. They expect not enough money for themselves with this cow so they will allow 3rd-parties to saturate the market while gradually lowering their own production of these cables at the same time. When the market is saturated enough and their production is low enough for discontinuing it at once not to hurt their cashflow - they will. Thus the only loses will be on 3rd parties in exchange for them to be able to eat crumbs from Apple table for some time. On one hand it's economics 101, on the other - it's kinda genius.
That is quite the stretch. USB-C is nearly twice as thick as the Lightning port. Phil Schiller said one of the reasons they moved away from the 30-pin was because it wasn't thin enough for their sleek new devices. USB-C is also more prone to damage with the center piece. This is another reason why they moved away from 30-pin connectors. Nothing about it makes sense. I'm not saying Apple will never use USB-C, but it might be a future version that is USB-C Micro. For instance, USB-A is the standard rectangle plug, USB-B is the standard square-ish plug that a lot of printers use, and mini USB as well as micro USB were variants of USB-B. So we could see USB-C Micro in the coming years that looks more like a lightning connector being a lot thinner and tougher—however Apple may have a patent on that preventing a similarly designed connector. The best solution for everyone (but Apple, probably) is to open source the connector to the USB group as they have basically designed one of the ultimate physical connectors: thin, rigid, flexible in various applications, and reversible. However, another issue to consider is that Apple wants to maintain MFi over the Lightning connector because of safety reasons. There are a lot of crap non-MFi Lightning knockoffs on Amazon and many people have reported issues with them causing sparks or starting fires. By having an official program Apple helps keep that crap to a minimum as best they can.
Well… Have you taken any physics classes? It could work, however, it is incredibly inefficient method of charging with current technology, not mentioning the effects it would have on the RF environment. Not having any connector on a device would make it much harder for developers as well, too.
I do agree that Lightning is superior, but only marginally. The number of USB-C devices I own is growing (MacBook, Switch, Pro Controllers etc). Being able to plug any device into the same cable is just beautiful. Lightning is not superior when I need to carry multiple cables with me and go under the desk and unplug the USB-C cable so I can plug in the USB-C to Lightning cable.
I know 2.0 and 3.0 are chipsets that’s why I used the word “traditional”. I wasn’t sure if the current USB Apple uses is USB-A or what.
I want them to go to USB-C as well, but don’t really mind Lightning to USB-C for now as long as they include those cables and adapters with products going forward. I assume next year’s iPhones will utilize USB-C... Maybe?
