It can be, but I don't think i've connected my phone to anything since about 2013
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Here's Why Apple Hasn't Made a Portless iPhone
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It can be, but I don't think i've connected my phone to anything since about 2013
How about attaching external dongles to your phone without a physical port? I can attach my phone to a beamer right now, or to an external memory card/usb stick. There is no way anymore when they ditch the port
Much bigger problem than when they got rid of the floppy disk
Much bigger problem than when they got rid of the floppy disk
What innovations, they kept their lighting port for ten years with almost no innovation as the rest of the world moved to high speed USB.
Apple did more than anyone to create and establish USB-C as a standard. Just because they didn’t switch their phone over as fast as you would like (after promising consumers they’d use lightening for a decade) doesn’t mean they weren’t innovating.
Also, we've already seen a phone that says the limiting factor in the size is the USB-C port. Less than a year after the regulation went into effect! Again, I think USB-C is the correct option right now. However mandating it is an incredibly bad idea because it’s going to massively chill innovation. For all you know we’d be seeing a micro-USB-C port that is just as good but significantly smaller.
This would be in line with their ideals on privacy. Though maybe someone will hack Magsafe next; it's not supposed to be a data port, but it does communicate an attached Apple case's color to the phone's UI, so a 2-bit hack
The EU is not mandating that devices must be portless.🤷🏽
The EU is not saying devices can’t be charged wirelessly.🤷🏽
In this instance I not see how EU can be painted as the devil?
Folks here identify so closely with apple, that anything perceived as an attack on apples pristine goodness is obviously taken personally.
Lots of us don't think that the government should be designing smartphones and the software that run on it. And the EU has already been shown to not be playing fairly when it comes to Apple - for example applying the DMA to iPadOS "just because" despite the fact that iPadOS doesn't meet the quantitative thresholds written into the law.
So I think it is entirely reasonable to think that Apple might be concerned that "the spirit of the law" is that phones have to have USB-C ports and the exemption for wireless devices was for things like Apple Watches and not phones. Or that while technically allowed, it will be used as evidence that Apple is "maliciously complying" with EU directives.
Let’s not do more proprietary stuff please.
Some EU decisions are maybe questionable, but I think this one does help protect the consumer.
Imagine a case where a family has multiple devices. The smartphone manufacturer creates a new standard "improved" connector for their devices, so far not a problem.
But the next year they create an even better connector, but its not compatible with the previous. Now some family members need one cable/charger and some need another.
The a family member goes to another manufacturer and they have a different connector, now the cable situation is getting a bit silly.
Personally I think having a common connector is a good idea, it has made my home and travel experience much easier. Now obviously this needs to then allow for future innovation and there may come a tiem when the USB-XYZ connector needs adopting and there is a changeover period, not an issue I am sure and will be handled.
Making companies like Apple, Samsung and others use an industry standard at least makes the consumer experience for most people a little easier. And it is then upto tech industry to ensure the industry standards are worked on to benefit consumer, not sell proprietary cables.
Great way to alienate the sizeable head-fi community who use their iphone as an audio-streaming device connected to an outboard DAC, either at home, as a portable, or both. Please don't tell me they should exchange their $5000 reference-quality headphones for a pair of bluetooth sh#te.
I’m in bed, holding my phone that’s connected to a a MagSafe charger right now responding to this message
The free market should be taking care of that problem, not the government. And now the government has chilled innovation in developing smaller, better ports. Because who is going to invest the tens to hundreds of millions to do so if they can’t sell a product that uses it in the EU?
We’ve already seen a phone that’s manufacturer says was limited by the thickness of the USB-C port, and the regulation hasn’t been in effect for a year. Imagine how limiting that’s going to be in 10 years.
So in a well-intentioned attempt to help today’s consumer, they’ve hurt billions of future consumers.
It's like your outlook is so narrow that you can't actually see why for certain uses, we still need to connect stuff together with a physical cable. And that will always be the case. Forever. I gave a very common example in #166.Of course Apple will go to portless / totally wireless eventually. As soon as they think it's feasible. That has been Apple's trajectory over the decades. Always first to abandon something that's on its way out but has an adequate modern substitute. And almost always, after a lot of whining and mocking, the entire industry quickly follows.
My guess is that Apple has engineers working furiously on getting data transfer to be wicked fast and reliable, even if it means building a new chip or architecture to assist. Because as several here pointed out, that's a remaining weakness and barrier to going fully wireless / portless.
Wireless is the future. Look how far it has come, to where we are wirelessly handling individual 4K movie streams without even thinking about it. Wirelessly charging batteries, even gigantic car batteries. Wireless extreme fidelity for live music and Hollywood film production. When they figure out wireless energy transmission at rates powerful enough to run lightbulbs at a distance, the world will be a whole different place.
But of course one thing will never change: there will always be a cadre of grumpy geezers complaining about whatever it is.
Oh btw, the wireless streamed 4K movies you're talking about are absolute junk compared to a UHD BluRay. No streaming service on the planet has the bandwidth capacity to stream movies in UHD BluRay quality, which can be 100GB per movie. So that's an awful example considering we lost so much quality compared to what we had, just for the sake of convenience.
Oh and even more btw, wireless charging is horrendously inefficient.
While I agree there will always be use cases for ports, my guess is the market of people who care about those use cases is (relatively speaking) tiny.
But those who do have those use cases should be up in arms about mandating USB-C. Because that absolutely will result in portless phones rather than phones with smaller ports.
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I think the audio fidelity query is valid, but dispute the comment on Bluetooth.
For the vast majority of users Bluetooth connected headphones or earbuds are ideal and give a great audio experience.
I really like my AirPod Max headphones and the audio quality and noise cancellation is excellent. Having used Bose and Bowers & Wilkins the Apple ones are much better for me and my use at home or when travelling on business.
Both use cases are valid, wired and Bluetooth are both good but have different use cases.
They kept their lightning port for 10 years because they said they’d keep it 10 years. That’s how long a decade is.
I don't want it. For charging, wireless 25W is not the same as wired 25W, let alone for file transfer. USB 3 > AirDrop, period. Anyone with basic physics education from high school would agree.
Oh wow, really?!
I moved to the Google Pixel phones 2 years ago, and can use NearDrop between my Mac and phone, and it works 100% smooth and fast.