[HN Gopher] Apple Lightning (2020)
___________________________________________________________________
Apple Lightning (2020)
Author : aix1
Score : 266 points
Date : 2022-12-28 07:02 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nyansatan.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (nyansatan.github.io)
| cainxinth wrote:
| I was disappointed the article didn't include details about the
| physical connector. Lighting's performance specs might be
| outdated, but I've always liked it's physical interface. It's
| rugged, reliable, simple, and pops in with satisfying but subtle
| tactile feedback.
| t3rabytes wrote:
| Agree, I do enjoy the feeling of plugging in a Lightning cable
| more than a USB C cable, but the spring-loaded mechanism wears
| over time and eventually there's no snap at all.
| xvaier wrote:
| From my experience, when there is no more snap it tends to be
| an accumulation of dust and grime in the port preventing the
| cable from fully seating. I usually clear it out _carefully_
| with a sim card ejection tool.
| KingLancelot wrote:
| [dead]
| plasticchris wrote:
| I use a sharpened wooden toothpick to prevent any
| possibility of shorting the pins
| jmkb wrote:
| I've had good luck with poster-tack goo... just have to
| make sure not to leave any behind.
| RKearney wrote:
| Look closely at a lightning cable. The edge is metal.
| When you plug in a lightning cable, you briefly short
| every single pin together. There's probably a greater
| risk of bending a pin inside the port than there is
| shorting pins out.
| brookst wrote:
| Yes, it's a similar design to RJ45, where angled pins are
| lifted by the leading edge of the connector. Lightning
| doesn't have the grooves to guide pins, but the tight
| tolerance and setback of pins means you really can't land
| a pin on the wrong connector, let along short across
| them.
| somehnguy wrote:
| Probably a good precaution to take - but I've always
| recklessly used a paperclip. Been doing it since the
| first Lightning connector devices came out and have never
| had any negative effects from doing so. Seems pretty
| robust.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Yup, have done this many times; my phone is definitely due
| for it.
| stared wrote:
| Reliable? I find these cables broken over, and over. Many last
| only 2 months or so.
|
| At the samy time, my USB-C cables just work.
| dangus wrote:
| I agree. I still use the iPhone dock that supports the whole
| weight of the phone with the lightning port. I've had no
| issues.
|
| It was totally designed to enable a minimalist Apple retail
| store aesthetic. I'm convinced that's the only reason for the
| design. Totally unnecessary design constraint, but very
| cool...talk about a company with a holistic view of their
| products, thinking about how details of the design will aid
| retail display.
|
| I'm still looking forward to a USB-C iPhone, if Apple doesn't
| go portless (fingers crossed on that).
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| The male part of the connector isn't the issue. It's the
| spring inside the device that keeps it plugged in (obviously
| doesn't matter with the dock because gravity does that) that
| wears down.
| osigurdson wrote:
| >> It's rugged, reliable
|
| In my experience it works well for 2-3 years then wears out and
| charging becomes very difficult after that. The connector also
| breaks easily as it is essentially a totally exposed fragment
| of a circuit board.
|
| The design was light years ahead of everything else for a long
| time but these days, everything should be USB-C.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| I didn't find lightning to fail so much as have the female
| end fill up with lint. Go digging with a wooden toothpick,
| pull out some bellybutton lint and it worked good as new.
| brookst wrote:
| I've never found Lightning connectors to fail, but the cable
| to connector junction does seem to wear out after a few
| years, especially on Apple cables with that terrible vinyl-
| like stress relief material.
|
| But USB-C is pretty young. It remains to be seen if cables
| and connectors are really durable forever.
|
| I am still suspicious of the complexity of the nested
| male/female design with the inner male blade being part of
| the device and hard/impossible to fix if broken. . . but have
| not seen any problems on my increasing number of USB-C
| devices yet.
| theodric wrote:
| I've broken one USB-C port since 2017, and it was in a
| power bank. The arcing was brief, and the smoke release
| moderate. Once I teased the remaining wire fragments inside
| the socket apart, I filled the socket with hot glue, and
| continue to use the power bank today.
| 0x457 wrote:
| I've always had more issues with USB-C connector than
| lightning, it's very sensitive and lint/dust gets both ends
| of it. Absolutely hate latching mechanism of usb-c.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| Charging issues after a couple of years are usually due to
| lint accumulation in the phone opening. A little careful time
| with a toothpick will usually get it sorted.
| osigurdson wrote:
| It isn't just that. It physically wears out as well.
| thedrbrian wrote:
| My first gen iPad Pro and iPhone 6s Plus say otherwise.
| muxamilian wrote:
| One pin on the cable (male part) becomes oxidized (black)
| after time. One can rub the black stuff away using a
| regular rubber and it usually works again.
| falsenapkin wrote:
| I've used contact cleaner and toothpicks to solve this
| problem before. It only works so many times, eventually
| it's just totally shot. I've never had a cable fray but
| I've had 3 or 4 lightning connectors become useless.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Lightning is capable of doing USB 3 speeds. The first gen iPad
| Pro had lightning ports and had usb 3 speeds.
| selectodude wrote:
| Via a weird hack where they used the pins on both sides of
| the port simultaneously. I imagine they had some issues with
| it since, as a feature, it didn't last too long.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Right. And likewise I doubt the USB-C iPhone is going to have
| USB 3 capability - given that Apple's had the opportunity to
| put USB 3 in those phones for a while now. For whatever
| reason it's not a cost they feel like paying, even on the Pro
| phones that shoot in ProRes and presumably could benefit from
| quick offload.
| brookst wrote:
| Rightly or wrongly, Apple is driving to pure wireless and
| portless devices.
|
| Best hope for USB-3 will be an updated MagSafe connector on
| a portless phone, using 60ghz networking from phone to
| MagSafe and usb-C from MagSafe out.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Are they? The only device that is pure wireless is the
| Watch.
|
| The AirPods Pro2 would have been the perfect opportunity
| to go wireless. It already works with both standard Qi
| chargers and the non standard Watch charger
| shagie wrote:
| I'm sure they are.
|
| It reduces the attack surface (you can't break into the
| phone by plugging something into it)... which also means
| that jailbreaking will be a bit more difficult.
|
| It also completely removes them from the debates and
| regulation of connectors. Lightening? micro usb? usb-c?
| All of that goes away.
|
| By removing cords and cables it _also_ removes the "my
| device doesn't work because I was using a flaky 3rd party
| cable" ongoing support questions.
| Teever wrote:
| Why would you think that the EU can't regulate whatever
| wireless standards Apple chooses to use in the future as
| they are doing with current wireless technology?
| shagie wrote:
| Mostly because because Apple is already able to be
| charged with the major technology (it's not something
| they're going off and doing on their own). The Qi
| wireless charging standard is one that a lot of phones
| and accessories are using ( https://makezens.com/phones-
| with-wireless-charging-technolog... )
|
| > The MagSafe Duo Charger conveniently charges your
| compatible iPhone, Apple Watch, Wireless Charging Case
| for AirPods, and other Qi-certified devices. Just place
| your devices on the charger and a steady, efficient
| charge begins on contact. The charger folds together
| neatly so you can easily take it with you wherever you
| go.
|
| They'd need to move the entirety of the wireless power
| transfer devices and accessories to some other standard.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I agree. We already see that in the latest low end iPad
| that has USB C. But only transfers data at USB 2 speeds.
|
| Maybe the Pro models will have the full USB C capabilities
| - video over USB C and full USB 3 speeds like the iPad Pro.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| You must switch devices every year or two... Every old iPhone
| or iPad I've seen, it eventually wears out and becomes loose.
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time:
|
| _Apple Lightning_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23705546 - July 2020 (229
| comments)
| chazeon wrote:
| See also related: The Hitchhacker's Guide to iPhone Lightning and
| JTAG Hacking [1] on DEF CON 30
|
| [1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=8p3Oi4DL0eI
| 7373737373 wrote:
| I upvoted this immediately just because I liked the design of the
| website. In a way, web design is a kind of new rhetorics
| foobarbecue wrote:
| I guess it shouldn't matter... but why does this author omit the
| period at the end of each paragraph? It irks me.
| wizardforhire wrote:
| Only the author knows, but if I'm to infer it's a habit picked
| up from text messaging as to not show aggression?
|
| https://lifehacker.com/dont-use-periods-in-texts-1843744818
| fsckboy wrote:
| or he could be an old Algol programmer, and considers the
| period to be a statement separator, unnecessary/redundant at
| the end of paragraphs
| keepquestioning wrote:
| Apple Lightning was better than micro USB, but surely not better
| than USB-C (a standard which apple itself helped promulgate). The
| king is dead. Long live the king.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| From a practical point of view does USB-C avoid the fluff
| problem with lighting (the yearly clearout with a toothpick!)
| wffurr wrote:
| I have had to clean out my Pixel phone's USB C port multiple
| times. It requires shaving the toothpick down to fit. I
| eventually bought an iFixit cleaning kit with some tiny
| brushes.
| amluto wrote:
| It seems to be less of a dangerous problem. The USB-C
| receptacle doesn't have moving parts (the springs that retain
| the cable and the flexible pins that make electrical
| contact). While it does have the little protrusion that has
| the electrical contacts in the middle, it's less subject to
| wearing out or being destroyed by sideways force.
|
| In general, the USB-C receptacle seems better designed for
| longevity.
| matchbok wrote:
| Huh? USB-C has a tiny, fragile tongue inside that you can
| very easily break off. Lightning is much, much more strong.
| amluto wrote:
| Replying here, but you all got tricked by Apple's
| misleading design.
|
| In any connector of this sort, there are two pieces: the
| plug on the cable and the receptacle on the phone.
| Lightning has a very visually appealing and physically
| durable plug, and that's the part that you see. But this
| hides several aspects of the connector that make a poor
| functionality tradeoff.
|
| On a USB micro B or USB-C cable, the plug is retained in
| the socket by little spring-loaded clips on the plug. On
| micro, they're on the outside and very obvious, and they
| stop working well if the plug gets a bit bent. On USB-C,
| they're in the concealed portion of the plug. In both
| cases, they are components that can wear out, and, when
| they do, you replace the cable and you're in good shape.
| These spring-loaded clips mate with fixed notches in the
| receptacle, and those notches are much longer lasting.
|
| Lightning does this the other way around. The plug has
| notches, and the springs are concealed in the socket. If
| the springs wear out, replacing the cable doesn't help.
|
| Similarly, the electrical contacts are springy in the
| socket. They are _very_ easy to damage with careless
| cleaning.
|
| Lightning has an additional defect involving arcing. If
| you look at a charging cable that's been use for a while,
| you'll see that one electrical pad on each side of the
| plug will be burnt. Presumably this is where the
| connection arcs every time it's unplugged. I'm not sure
| how USB mitigates this, but it seems to be less of a
| problem. Maybe the contacts are simply thicker and more
| durable.
|
| Sure, USB-C receptacles gave a tongue, and it's a weak
| point, but it's much stronger than the 10 fragile moving
| parts inside a lightning receptacle.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Presumably this is where the connection arcs every time
| it's unplugged. I'm not sure how USB mitigates this, but
| it seems to be less of a problem. Maybe the contacts are
| simply thicker and more durable.
|
| My guess is that it's probably just the good old
| "different length pins" trick. A quick web search shows
| me that the VBUS and GND pads (which carry the power) on
| the socket are longer, so the rest of the contacts unplug
| first. And unplugging the CC contact means that the pull-
| down resistor on it disappears, which tells the source to
| stop sending power to the VBUS contacts before they start
| to unplug.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| Thanks for the info about the springy parts and where
| they are!
| arlort wrote:
| > In general, the USB-C receptacle seems better designed
| for longevity.
|
| I swear every other comment on C vs Lightning has a
| completely different view on which is more robust than the
| previous
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > While it does have the little protrusion that has the
| electrical contacts in the middle, it's less subject to
| wearing out or being destroyed by sideways force.
|
| ... which is pretty easy to achieve when trying to clean
| out a socket from pocket lint. It's better than micro and
| mini USB, yes, but a Lightning-style inversion would have
| been way more durable.
| dijit wrote:
| biggest problem i have is: if there is some new better standard
| can we ever move to it?
|
| micro-USB would likely not have improved _much_ without some
| kind of competition. a big part of why USB-C is reversible was
| because Apple (and others) made reversible connectors and
| people showed a lot of preference for that.
| mort96 wrote:
| Do we need something better or is USB-C "good enough"? Micro-
| USB was clearly terrible and had to be replaced that much was
| clear since its very introduction, but USB-C seems pretty
| good. I don't see it as desirable to move to something
| "better" in the coming decades, considering the immense cost
| of switching connector interface on something like this.
| (That cost also applies to micro-USB FWIW, micro-USB is just
| so bad that it's worth it.)
| Nullabillity wrote:
| In retrospect, there's no way that USB-C was worth it!
| Let's look at what it added over B...
|
| - Reversible: Useless gimmick that nobody asked for
|
| - DisplayPort alt mode: Useful in theory, but no phones
| support it in practice
|
| - Symmetric: Host-side USB-C never ended up being
| mainstream anyway (and AB ports already existed anyway)
|
| - USB3: micro-B already had the "3.0 appendage", if
| anything turning it internal made it easier for
| manufacturers to silently revert to USB2
|
| - Power Delivery: Qualcomm QuickCharge already existed and
| could have been standardized without a new connector
| mort96 wrote:
| - Reversible: Important feature everyone asked for. One
| of the main application for a device-side USB connector
| is to plug the device in to a charger at night. That
| usually happens in a dark room, where reversibility is
| incredibly important. It was literally touted as the main
| reason why Apple shouldn't switch to micro-USB. But more
| importantly, micro-USB is a garbage connector even for
| being non-reversible, it's harder than necessary to
| insert without looking, it breaks way too easily and
| seems to take very few connection cycles before it stops
| making a good connection.
|
| - DisplayPort alt mode: Every laptop uses this. It's what
| lets us have docks with display outputs.
|
| - Symmetric: Every laptop has host-side USB-C.
|
| - USB3: The micro-B "3.0 appendage" is ridiculous and
| huge, and no device which uses micro-B ended up
| supporting it in practice (except for I believe a couple
| Samsung phones?)
|
| - Power delivery: Qualcomm QuickCharge is proprietary
| garbage. It could have been standardized yes, but is
| there any reason to believe Qualcomm would have wanted
| that?
|
| - And it turns out it's incredibly useful to have both
| Power Delivery and DisplayPort and data transfer in one
| cable. It allows the world we currently live in where you
| can have one dock connected via one cable which handles
| video, power, USB, networking, audio, etc. (And yes,
| docks are generally too finicky, there's a lot to
| complain about in terms of implementation. But the idea
| is solid.)
| cesarb wrote:
| > USB3: The micro-B "3.0 appendage" is ridiculous and
| huge, and no device which uses micro-B ended up
| supporting it in practice (except for I believe a couple
| Samsung phones?)
|
| Nearly every external portable HDD I've seen has these
| (and comes with a corresponding short USB 3.0 micro-B to
| A cable).
| dijit wrote:
| I can already imagine that USB-C could be superseded by
| something that allows surface mounting the pins (similar to
| magsafe 1&2? like the old pebble watches had: https://www.j
| oom.com/sv/products/1491901009384399338-201-1-2... ).
|
| USB-Cs limitations (that I am already aware of) are: that
| it consumes a lot of internal space on devices (which we're
| feeling less and less as our phones get bigger: but our
| watches are relegated to wireless charging with no data
| pins for example), that it's not clear what cable/device
| can do what (something original USB tried to address with
| "host" and "client" connector classes) and that it handles
| comparatively fewer insertion/removal cycles (than
| lightning, at least).
|
| Regardless: I'm not sure that I am ever happy saying
| something is "good enough" in perpetuity, even if I cant
| see all the potential shortcomings of device requirements
| right now.
|
| You are absolutely right though, the switching cost is
| high: and monopoly makes it higher.
|
| (FWIW I agree with the EU on this decision, I remember
| phones before the common charger mandate and that was a
| _nightmare_ )
| tzs wrote:
| > Do we need something better or is USB-C "good enough"?
|
| USB-C won't be reasonably "good enough" until all I need to
| reasonably use USB-C devices with USB-C computers is USB-C
| cables.
|
| Suppose I have a computer with a USB-C port, and half a
| dozen USB-C peripherals that I want to connect at the same
| time.
|
| Before USB-C it was simple when I had way more devices than
| ports. I'd buy an inexpensive USB hub. The hub connected to
| a computer's type A port using the same kind of cable that
| my peripherals used to connect to the computer's A port.
| The hub had several type A ports that could then by used
| for my peripherals, using that same kind of cable.
|
| If the peripherals needed more total power than my
| computer's type A port could provide, I could buy an
| inexpensive powered hub.
|
| Now, with USB-C, the inexpensive USB-C hubs connect to the
| computer with a C to C cable but usually only have one (or
| zero) fully functional USB-C ports for peripherals. The
| rest are type A ports.
|
| To actually get a hub that adds multiple fully functional
| USB-C ports to a computer it seems the right now you have
| to buy an expensive Thunderbolt 3 or 4 hub.
|
| The best I've seen for inexpensive USB-C port expansion is
| this [1] or this [2]. The first provides 4 downstream USB-C
| ports, but they are data only, with no power or video
| support. The second is the same as the first except it also
| provides a fifth USB-C port that appears to be a power
| input only you can use with a USB charger to provide power
| to allow the hub to power or charge your computer.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Minisopuru-Ports-USB-Hub-
| Chromebook/d...
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/Minisopuru-Ports-USB-Hub-
| Chromebook/d...
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Will we want to move to it? Lightning has lasted this long in
| spite of a better standard, and plenty still don't want to
| change. Even if there was no law, and there was a new port, I
| can't imagine consumers caring enough to change again, or
| manufacturers like Apple caring enough to change seeing as
| their iPhones are still USB 2.0. Like a physical network
| effect. Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy S5 had a microUSB
| 3.0 port. They switched back to microUSB 2.0 in the Note 4.
|
| Still it doesn't prevent devices from having multiple ports.
| Newer tech will be picked up first by bigger devices like
| laptops that will be able to do USB-C and a new port at the
| same time. Or maybe a phone with two charging ports, the same
| way the ASUS ROG phone does.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| Lightning still has better ergonomics and sturdiness
| compared to USB-C.
| audunw wrote:
| > if there is some new better standard can we ever move to
| it?
|
| It seems inevitable that phones and most tables will move to
| all wireless eventually. The only thing holding it back is
| faster charging. The EU standard doesn't prevent Apple from
| moving to a wireless charging method as I've understood. The
| regulation only covers the case where you have cable for
| charging.
|
| So yes, since the new standard will likely be wireless, or
| semi-wireless (like MagSafe), Apple can probably move to it.
|
| My pet theory for why Apple hasn't moved to USB-C already is
| they didn't want to send the signal that USB-C is getting
| long term support on phones from them. Sticking to Lightning
| forces makers of peripherals to use Bluetooth or WiFi if they
| want a solution that works for all phones and is future-
| proof, and I think that's exactly what Apple wants. The
| problem is the transition has been delayed much longer than
| they hoped for, since wireless charging technology hasn't
| developed as fast as they hoped (see the last-minute
| cancellation of the AirPower charging mat for a dramatic
| example of their miscalculation there)
| layer8 wrote:
| Wireless charging is significantly less efficient than
| wired charging. I could rather see it being outlawed for
| that reason at some point.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| I'd like some kind of dumb USB-C which is somewhat compatible
| with USB-C but has two or 4 wires only and simpler connector.
| MicroUSB is used in many devices because it's dirt cheap.
| USB-C is much more complex mechanically and probably will
| never be as dirt cheap.
|
| Of course it should be visually different. Like cable with
| two contacts on each side so you would understand that this
| cable is not going to provide full speed, but still will work
| and charge.
| matwood wrote:
| > but surely not better than USB-C
|
| For data transfer speeds (assuming you picked the right cable),
| yes. For everything else, no. IMO, Lighting is the better
| physical connector. The device side connector tends to be what
| fails with USB-C, Lighting tends to have the cable fail which
| is what you want in a failure. USB-C cable capability is a
| mess, though at least we're past USB-C cables frying devices.
|
| As far as ubiquity is concerned, depending on location,
| Lighting can sometimes be easier to find than USB-C. They are
| least equal in the US.
| userbinator wrote:
| There's a lot more information on this stuff in the Chinese and
| Vietnamese part of the internet, the part that Apple's lawyers
| can't easily reach (nor Google and most other mainstream search
| engines these days, for better or worse.) Repair/thirdparty
| accessory industries are also increasingly keeping what they've
| RE'd to themselves because they know they're fighting a war
| against Apple with what they've found, and no one is going to
| dare pop the golden goose.
|
| If the references to authentication and certificates weren't
| enough, there is definitely some DRM crypto going on in there.
| Yet the Chinese were able to clone the 1-wire authentication chip
| within a week or so of the official products' release.
| gaucheries wrote:
| > There's a lot more information on this stuff in the Chinese
| and Vietnamese part of the internet, the part that Apple's
| lawyers can't easily reach
|
| Where? Will you post some links?
| tinus_hn wrote:
| As far as I know often it's just a late night run of exactly
| the same factory that makes the legitimate products.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| This makes me hopeful that VIN spoofing on Tesla superchargers
| with a cloned adapter will work at some point for other
| vehicles. If a proprietary cable auth chip can get reversed
| that hard - why not an "open spec" ev charging
| protocol/cable/adapter?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > This makes me hopeful that VIN spoofing on Tesla
| superchargers with a cloned adapter will work at some point
| for other vehicles.
|
| Some jurisdictions take stealing energy as a crime. Germany,
| for example, has up to five years of prison on the books [1].
|
| Kids, don't mess around with energy if you don't exactly know
| what the f..k you are doing and know the legal and technical
| risks involved.
|
| [1] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__248c.html
| gsich wrote:
| That law doesn't seem to apply.
| brookst wrote:
| I think the point was that stealing energy is _likely_ to
| be seen as a crime in general, not that this specific law
| applies to this specific hypothetical.
|
| In general stealing anything is frowned upon and is at
| best a temporary imbalance in technical ability to steal
| versus economic incentives to stop theft.
| smilekzs wrote:
| On a related tangent: I'm really puzzled by these PWM-based
| _digital_ signaling protocols --- more so (apparently in this
| case) where the period isn't even fixed. The most prominent
| example is probably the WS2812 RGB LED, a.k.a. NeoPixel. I can
| get it when a PWM line carries an analog-ish duty cycle signal,
| but using positive and negative _widths_ to signal bit-for-bit
| when you control both sides of the link doesn't make sense to me
| engineering-wise --- if not for speed (think USB3+), not for
| robustness (think something like Ethernet), and not for impl
| simplicity (think I2C/SPI/SDIO), then for what? Maximum pain when
| implemented by a third party? (/s but not really)
| jrmg wrote:
| The WS2812 protocol is simpler than it first appears. Here's a
| great blog post about it:
|
| https://wp.josh.com/2014/05/13/ws2812-neopixels-are-not-so-f...
| [deleted]
| gswdh wrote:
| I think others have covered it in other posts but I'd just like
| to add that this protocol is only for negotiation, everything
| continues in the native protocol afterwards.
| sterlind wrote:
| good catch, vouched. you're shadowbanned for some reason,
| fyi.
| aix1 wrote:
| Is it this protocol we're talking about? https://cdn-
| shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/WS2812.pdf (Your comment piqued my
| curiosity and I looked it up.)
|
| I think the desire to only use a single wire for signalling is
| understandable, at least in setups where there are physical
| wires, rather than tracks on a flex PCB, running from LED to
| LED.
|
| Since every rising edge is the start of a new bit, encoding
| each bit with an H followed by an L makes the signal self-
| clocking. With this, the two sides don't need very accurate --
| or shared -- clocks.
|
| With the tolerances specified in the datasheet, to tell a zero
| from one the receiver only needs to tell whether a pulse is
| shorter (T0H) or longer (T1H) that 0.5us.
|
| T0L and T1L are indistinguishable (their allowed durations
| overlap) and don't need to be measured by the receiver. That
| said, I do agree that it's weird that they weren't chosen such
| that T0H+T0L=T1H+T1L at the centre of the tolerance range.
| userbinator wrote:
| _That said, I do agree that it 's weird that they weren't
| chosen such that T0H+T0L=T1H+T1L at the centre of the
| tolerance range._
|
| It's likely they intended them to be the same, but for
| whatever reason the design characterisation discovered the
| distribution of periods are actually slightly different from
| the ideal design, so instead of trying to do a potentially
| very expensive redesign, they just documented the reality and
| left it at that.
| NobodyNada wrote:
| The article mentions the protocol is very similar to the 1-Wire
| protocol, and links to the Wikipedia article, which provides
| some helpful clues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Wire
|
| > To send a binary number "1", the bus master sends a very
| brief (1-15 ms) low pulse. To send a binary number "0", the
| master sends a 60 ms low pulse. The falling (negative) edge of
| the pulse is used to start a monostable multivibrator in the
| slave device. The multivibrator in the slave reads the data
| line about 30 ms after the falling edge. The slave's internal
| timer is an inexpensive analog timer. It has analog tolerances
| that affect its timing accuracy. Therefore, the pulses are
| calculated to be within margins. Therefore, the "0" pulses have
| to be 60 ms long, and the "1" pulses can't be longer than 15
| ms.
|
| The other "simple" protocols you mention all require a clock
| line, whereas 1-Wire/IDBUS do not. UART comes closer, except it
| requires both devices maintain their own independent,
| reasonably accurate clocks. (How do you tell whether that long
| high pulse was 4 or 5 1-bits in a row if your clock is
| terrible?) If you're trying to design a very simple system that
| needs to work with wildly inaccurate clocks, you need some kind
| of self-clocking protocol, like this, where the difference
| between a 1 and a 0 bit is an order-of-magnitude difference in
| pulse width.
|
| When I was a teen, me and a friend built a device (for a
| competition) that could encode and decode messages onto a roll
| of receipt paper by moving the paper across a reader/writer
| head (a sharpie attached to a servo, and a photosensor) to draw
| and read lines. Clocking turned out to be by far the hardest
| problem, because the speed at which the paper moved was too
| unpredictable and inconsistent (it depended on battery level,
| inconsistencies in the motor, how heavy the roll was, how hard
| the marker was making contact with the paper, etc), We spent
| many hours designing, testing, and tweaking the software and
| hardware until we arrived at basically this exact encoding
| scheme -- plus a Hamming code based on letter frequency since
| we were encoding English messages. We felt very proud of this
| elaborate way to encode text -- until we realized we had just
| reinvented Morse code.
| murderfs wrote:
| This looks very similar to 1-Wire, which is for ultra-low power
| devices that communicate on and are powered by the same wire.
| The reason the pulse widths are different is that the falling
| edge of the pulse kicks off an oscillator-based timer that
| triggers a read of the value of the line at some point between
| the two durations.
| turbobooster wrote:
| Really cool. Will this new? info be able to help Apple fans in
| any way? Still wondering when they will go USB-C.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I have a usb-c iPad. I do prefer the lightning connector but
| usb-c is a close second and leaps and bounds better than the
| previous usb phone interfaces.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| > Still wondering when they will go USB-C.
|
| The EU is forcing them to do so by mid-2024, so it is widely
| believed that the iPhone 15 will be USB-C.
|
| The Siri Remote and AirPods charging cases already are.
| ehhthing wrote:
| iPad Pros also use USB C, so they already have the requite
| support on the portable electronics side. Right now it seems
| mostly a transition for the phone accessories.
|
| Personally, I think apple has wanted to switch to USB-C for a
| while on iPhone. They waited until the EU actually passed
| legislation so they could find a person to point fingers at
| when their customers complained about accessories breaking
| compatibility.
| [deleted]
| masklinn wrote:
| > iPad Pros also use USB C, so they already have the
| requite support on the portable electronics side.
|
| It's always been there, lightning is just a connector, the
| physical protocol is USB.
|
| > Personally, I think apple has wanted to switch to USB-C
| for a while on iPhone.
|
| Yes, but also after the DC -> Lightning transition they
| kinda promised there would be no new transition for a
| while, which was pretty safe at the time, but USB-C landed
| a few years later.
|
| I actually expected the iPhone 14 to switch, as 2022 is the
| 10 years anniversary of Lightning, and about how long the
| Dock Connector lasted (although technically it survived
| until this year and the discontinuation of the iPod Touch).
| realityking wrote:
| > although technically it survived until this year and
| the discontinuation of the iPod Touch
|
| The iPod Touch has been using Lightning since the 5th
| generation released in 2012.
| diroussel wrote:
| When it was announced by apple they said the 30-pin
| connector has lasted a decade, and lightning was the
| connector for the next decade. That was September 2012.
|
| The decade is up.
|
| Personally I would be happy to keep lightning. It's
| simple, it works. I have many lightning cables. If I see
| I lightning cable I know exactly what it's for. With
| USB-C you can't know the capability of the cable by
| looking at it.
|
| But I suppose lightning has had it's term in office and
| it's time to move on.
| Hamuko wrote:
| All iPad models use USB-C now. The only caveat to that is
| that when they introduced the new iPad model with USB-C,
| they kept the old model as part of the line-up and that old
| model still has Lightning.
| youngtaff wrote:
| There's some variation between them when it comes to
| software though - with custom USB drivers only being
| available for the M1 based iPads that are supported via
| USBDriverKit
|
| I've got an iPad mini and what I really want is a USB
| oscilloscope that works with it
| dymk wrote:
| They'll just go wireless and remove the port entirely
| youngtaff wrote:
| How would that work with CarPlay, or how would someone
| charge on the go?
| krzyk wrote:
| I don't understand.
|
| Just place a phone/charging case on a Qi charger? Doesn't
| CarPlay support wireless communication? Android Auto
| does.
| Unklejoe wrote:
| Cars didn't really start getting wireless CarPlay until
| around 2021. It would take a while for those cars to age
| out. My guess is that if Apple makes a portless iPhone,
| they will also make a wireless to wired CarPlay bridge.
| gorbypark wrote:
| There are already third party wireless to wired CarPlay
| dongles.
| diroussel wrote:
| There is wireless CarPlay now. But it does have higher
| latency.
| nolok wrote:
| If Apple answer to that regulation is to go wireless and
| use a system that's compatible with other brands, that is a
| massive victory for the EU and the planet in terms of
| reduced waste.
|
| The goal was to reduce waste and they already included in
| the same regulation that if companies don't agree on a
| common tech for wireless (like it is now) but go their own
| way to sell exclusive ones that can't be used with other
| brands then they would regulate that too.
| dymk wrote:
| Charging cables contribute such a minuscule amount to
| landfills it's laughable. It's feel good legislation that
| distracts from real environmentally conscious efforts.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Meanwhile, the power loss associated with mandatory
| wireless charging over the typical phone's lifetime will
| impose a carbon cost of its own.
| simion314 wrote:
| >Charging cables contribute such a minuscule amount to
| landfills it's laughable.
|
| Do you also include that actual charger and not only the
| cable part? Can you show me your numbers, do you mean by
| weight/volume , CO2 wasted in creating and shipping the
| chargers ?
|
| But there are more benefits by using a standard port, I
| can use a Samsung charger for a table in my Asus phone, I
| can share a charger for 2 products and not buy a new one
| if the old one is gone.
| tzs wrote:
| Apple chargers are USB chargers. To charge a Lightning
| device you use a USB to Lightning cable.
| simion314 wrote:
| So can you use your Apple cable with the charger from a
| Samsung ?
| tzs wrote:
| Yes. And you can use your Samsung cable with a charger
| from Apple.
| joeblubaugh wrote:
| Yes
| simion314 wrote:
| So why are some Apple fans complaining? They keep their
| chargers and will need a new cable when buying a new
| phone, is Apple exploiting this and selling cables at
| giant prices ? Also if iPad and the laptops already use
| USB then you might share same cables now if you are out
| of battery and you do not have a phone charger with you.
| matwood wrote:
| IDK why people are complaining. For me the biggest issue
| is shared chargers which were solved with
| USB-C->Lighting. USB-C is a mess of what cable to does
| what. The biggest problem with lightening isn't the
| connector, but slow data speeds. That's why it made sense
| to move the iPads. Though now with iPhones taking 4k+
| video, they need to move them also.
|
| But, IMO, from a cable and connector standpoint, USB-C is
| worse than Lighting.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Yes
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Oh, sure, they will allow standard Qi charging - but they
| will also offer an Apple-branded charger that is
| incompatible with other devices and will charge a lot
| faster. Never underestimate the capacity for malicious
| compliance, especially when it comes to laws that are
| considered unfair.
|
| Also, my arguably 20 year old high school-level knowledge
| tells me that charging by induction will by necessity
| waste more electric energy than a cable would.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| you are right. Phones get pretty warm when using wireless
| charging.
|
| On the iPhone X it was so bad that you couldn't use
| Facetime while on a wireless charger, because the phone
| would throttle the CPU after 10 minutes or so because the
| phone got too hot.
|
| Not sure if they fixed it on later models, but I guess
| this is why they are limiting charging power. Glass and
| stainless steel aren't particularly good heat conductors.
|
| Maybe Magsafe support more power because the exact
| alignment reduces waste heat.
| [deleted]
| threeseed wrote:
| iPhones are compatible with the Qi standard which is
| limited to 7.5 watts.
|
| MagSafe however can charge up to 15 watts.
|
| So in some respects it is still a proprietary connector.
| krzyk wrote:
| Qi supports at least Baseline Power Profile (which is 5
| W) and the Extended Power Profile (which is 15W). I'm not
| sure what and why Apple did to introduce 7.5W which is
| proprietary Apple extension.
| sofixa wrote:
| The Qi 1.2 standard is up to 15 watts.
| threeseed wrote:
| Which was released in 2015 and Apple still does not
| support.
|
| I doubt they will let anything compete with MagSafe short
| of more EU regulation.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Removing the connector entirely has the downside of
| creating a ton of dead or difficult-to-recover devices in
| the case there's a bug in the later steps of the boot rom
| that provide some basic flashing interface - Samsung
| learned that the hard way recently with their faulty GVI3
| update for the Watch 4 series. It bricked the watch so
| hard it couldn't boot up to WiFi-capable Odin mode any
| more, and lower-level interfaces on the SoC were not
| accessible any more because there were no ports.
|
| [1] https://www.sammobile.com/news/new-galaxy-
| watch-4-update-sol...
| astrange wrote:
| "Going wireless" doesn't implement "must charge over USBC".
| dymk wrote:
| That's not what the regulation says. It says if there is
| a port, it must be usbc.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| > The Siri Remote and AirPods charging cases already are.
|
| that's patently not true, bought latest airpods pro last week
| to my wife and it _still_ has that obsolete lightning port
| terramex wrote:
| > AirPods charging cases already are
|
| They are not. Even latest models from September still use
| Lightning and wireless only.
| gorbypark wrote:
| Sadly true. I was planning on buying the new AirPods Pro's
| as the rumor mill was saying they'd be USB-C, but alas they
| are still lightning. Weirdly enough the new AppleTV 4K
| remote is USB-C (both were released at the same time). I
| guess it makes sense to keep the AirPods on lightning as
| long as the iPhone is. Hopefully if the iPhone 15 is USB-C
| they will release a new version of the AirPods with USB-C,
| too.
|
| Until then I'm sticking with my 8 euro Xiaomi Bluetooth
| earbuds.
| SSLy wrote:
| The usb-c apple TV remote was shown about a month later
| than the stoll lighting airpods pro 2.
| gorbypark wrote:
| Ah yes, you are correct. I'm not sure why I thought that
| as I clearly remember them being two events now that
| you've made me think about it!
| addaon wrote:
| The Beats Fit Pro are USB-C, use the same chipset as the
| AirPods Pro, and are (for my particular ears) much more
| comfortable.
| aix1 wrote:
| Reverse engineering of Apple Lightning
| amelius wrote:
| Who cares about proprietary standards? Build and sell something
| for this connector and you'll be sued into oblivion by Apple's
| lawyers.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Yes because USB C is an open source standard that anyone can
| freely implement...
| explodingwaffle wrote:
| ...uh, yeah, it is:
|
| https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb-type-cr-cable-
| and-c...
| scarface74 wrote:
| > All implementation examples and reference designs
| contained within this Specification are included as part of
| the limited _patent license_ for those companies that
| execute the USB 3.0
| explodingwaffle wrote:
| True, though I imagine the agreement you're thinking of
| isn't the one they're talking about here.
|
| https://www.usb.org/document-library/usb-30-adopters-
| agreeme... is the agreement- it's royalty free, basically
| "sign here, don't patent our stuff". Not "open source",
| but it's pretty reasonable for what you get IMO- we live
| in a world all about IP. Many international standards are
| worse. Plus, it's not like they're gonna sue you if you
| don't sign it, unless you attempt patent shenanigans.
|
| The $$$$ agreements for VIDs and trademark rights on the
| other hand... can't say I'm too fond of those ones.
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