Politicians threaten these kinds of things so the company will "lobby" them with money.
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India Considering New Rules That Could Force Apple to Adopt USB-C on iPhone
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Except iPhone is the rule. Every bar, airport, sporting venue and hotel you walk into has lightning cables to charge your iPhone.
But Tesla is the exception to the rule. While Tesla has more chargers in fewer private parking lots, CCS has more charging locations including public colleges, public libraries, and public parking garages.
People don't use it because AirDrop is convenient. Speed is relative. It's either fast or slow.
No one is splitting hairs between a 800Mbps and 1200Mbps wifi connection when transferring a few Gigs. And WiFi 6 is going to make that even faster. For us? No. But for the people who care, they'll get it.
And who's transfering that data? Not regular people. Not mom who's sending a photo of her kid to her coworker over iMessage.
Only Prosumers who are using iPhones to shoot video are moving tons of data. They don't care if file transfers take a little longer because they need the phone to cool and charge anyway.
These days, I still have 2 devices that use lightning... 9th gen iPad (which used to be my 1st gen IPad Air from 2013), and my iPod Touch 5 (still on ios7 no less). When I travel, that does make taking the lightning cable "more worthwhile". Ironically enough, the IpT5 I barely even use, but I carry with me anyways since it's so slim and light (fits in my front pocket nicely). However, it is a glorified flashlight/calculator/reference device. The charger for my Palm OS device is the biggest culprit, but that's among the more useful trinkets I have!
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Because unfortunately, USB C charging isn't all the same.
A USB A - USB C charging cable uses different pins to charge. Some smaller devices don't internally connect the USB PD pins because they don't need that much power. But this makes them incompatible with your MacBook charger because they're essentially a USB A device where someone swapped the port.
So even though it would look like it could work, if a car had a USB C port, it would charge your phone, maybe your iPad and definitely not your Mac. But how would the consumer know? They wouldn't
With USB A it's obvious. The spec doesn't support more than 2.4A and even though consumers don't know that, they do know that it's designed for certain things. They look for a different port, like AC, for larger devices and bring those chargers with them.
Yes if C comes the Lightning will be discarded and those without C already will need to buy them, causing more to be created which hurts the environment too.
Yes everything USB A or B (micro) need to be eliminated. At least C and lightning can be inserted without looking
And if the 15 or 16 has no ports (including as rumored no SIM slot either) that's going to be an extremely tough sell for me. I thought when Jony left they'd get their ports sorted out but their decisions are still baffling.
That said the 14 would probably have been called an S any other year. Of course the same was said about the 13.
This is the most short sighted regulatory intervention ever. Ports change often. Will we need permission to get a new port? Will I need that permission from the govt for each device? This stifles long term intervention for the most trivial of goals…
Understand lightning port have been stuck on usb 2 since iPhone 4 in 2012.
USB 3 came in 2008!!
And usb 3.1 came in 2013!!!
Everyone is using to transfer the entire content of their phone as they make backups or transfer all the vacation pictures and videos
And the most common Wi-Fi standard is still Wi-Fi version 4(n) with trailblazing speed of usb 2.0 at optimum situations. The next standard is trailblazing 1/5 of usb 3 standard.
So an iPhone with 500gb storage can take all from:
3h to sync once over cable and wifi to 1h to the most common standard (Wi-Fi 4/5)
But with usb 3.0/3.1 we could expect the Tim to be 5-15min
This isn’t a “lite fast. But literal hours as a difference
Comparably aside from the cheapest iPad, all other IPads are using USB-C now. India is its own marketplace, if you need to sell your product it’s manufactured in India, so this article is very localized. While lightning is a tad smaller and useful for accessories, we all see the writing on the wall. You can do faster charging and data transfer to many devices. A iPhone with a USB-C connection could reverse charge a like accessory. Even use an external display. So debate about durability is more like becoming accustomed to the larger connector and cables. Is Apple likely to offer faster connectivity, they could because USB-C is same form as TB3/4. Alternatively there are always wireless chargers.
They will just ask you to negotiate with I’m the industry. The law is just pointing to the USB consortium. So if they update their standard to usb D then it changes in he law.
At this time no one knows specifically if do or don’t. It would be a selling point if they go that route for the iPhone 14. Stalling a another year only complicates India marketplace against Apple vs Samsung, Oppo, and other smartphone vendors with large Indian manufacturing. Knowing this tidbit now only seems to make the update more important for Apple to incorporate.
Most manufacturers use off-the USB-C ports which use plastic each side to support the pins.
To be fair to Apple the put alot of effort into designing theirs to be standalone with the cutout on the device chassis itself which makes up the (normally flimsy) sleeve and the the board is held in place by reasonably strong metal on the base and each side, making it more robust than many other manufacturers ports.
Not as solid as lightning perhaps, but about as strong as USB-C can get.
Just be thankful these laws didn't come into place when Micro USB was a thing 🤮🤢🤮🤢🤮🤢🤮🤢🤮
Can’t believe Apple apologists are defending Lightning port’s USB 2.0 speeds. Every day it’s a new low for them. Well you guys apologise as much as you want for Tim Apple, lightning iTurdy port is on it’s way out and Apple needs to be bullied by governments worldwide to drop the port as fast as 2023 actually.
Revolutionized...yes...with their courage...
It's because no one cares. People don't transfer anything over the cable. They just use it to charge and plug in iPhone specific accessories.
Funny how Apple thinks USB-C is good enough for most of their devices, but not their money maker iPhones.
People care a lot. They are just forced to use Wi-Fi instead.
USB 3(2008) 3.1(2013) could transfer the entire iPhone 500gb from 5-15min.
But apple just had to be greedy and stay with a USB protocol taking 3h to do the same thing. Not everyone have an updated router or computer for that matter with the latest Wi-Fi version, that are still way slower than the cable.
Restore the iPhone? Can take hours to transfer things. Backup? Hours instead of literal minutes
USB 2.0 can in 2000! Soon 23 years ago. Freaking floppy disk was still popular at this time.
Here's another way to think of it.
Not all USB C is USB 3 or 4. Some, like what you get with DJI products and your Apple Charger, are USB2.
Apple could easily change the charging port on the iPhone to USB C without changing the chipset that drives it.
I could assume they'd atleast include the same spec as on the iPad mini (USB 3.1 Gen 1), but it's possible those highspeed chipsets don't fit within the power or heat envelope of a phone if used for sustained transfer.
MFI is not a "cash cow"
Apple's filings show that less than one half of one percent of their revenue comes from the entirety of the MFi program, which includes not just the first-party cables they make, but every single licensed iPhone-compatible accessory of any kind anywhere in the world.
If lightning ports were a lock-in for revenue, Apple would have never removed them from the iPads. Apple probably spends more on custom lighting ports for their hardware over using commodity USB-C ports than they make in revenue from the MFI program and first-party accessories / cables.
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