[HN Gopher] USB-C for Lightning iPhones
___________________________________________________________________
USB-C for Lightning iPhones
Author : colinprince
Score : 215 points
Date : 2025-07-27 01:03 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (obsoless.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (obsoless.com)
| colinprince wrote:
| His video is great
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUXQzVD1TdI
| bacon_waffle wrote:
| Thanks for the link - PCBWay recently offered me sponsorship,
| and this video has provided some good inspiration to make use
| of it :)
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| How does he have so much equipment? That's way beyond a hobbyist!
| Retr0id wrote:
| There's your answer, it's beyond his hobby.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| I've worked in a few hardware tech startups (early phases
| underling) and his pick'n'place is nicer than many multimillion
| dollar companies'.
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| Is that an open source opulo? You could get one for 2k
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| Oops, saw he upgraded to a big boy unit at end of video
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| >big boy unit
|
| Yeah, it was way above my paygrade. But I'd speculate the
| video's p'n'p was in the low-$xx,xxx range.
|
| I remember when a different startup (that began inside a
| barn) moved from its first few h.sqft location into a
| proper industrial-zoned k.sqft facility. I remember when
| that place got its first short-schoolbus-sized Haas
| CnC... then got its second!
|
| Now its had hundreds of employees (I was employee #2,
| non-co-founder, in this memory). I have wired in several
| p'n'place machines there and even the current model isn't
| as nice as in the video's =D
| Aurornis wrote:
| Where are you seeing that? The link currently takes me to a
| purchase page that only has product photos.
| mog_dev wrote:
| Probably from his yt channel:
| https://youtu.be/KUXQzVD1TdI?si=0TBoFhb9BUlPxZZ-&t=744
| LeonM wrote:
| Either he had some money available, or he just financed. It's
| not that hard to get a small business loan/financing for this
| kind of equipment.
|
| I don't know how many he sold, what his production capacity is,
| and what margin he makes, but I recon he could definitely make
| his investments work from the sales of the cases alone. And
| even if it does not, then there are also future products that
| this equipment enables. So a good investment if you ask me.
| p_ing wrote:
| This only gives you USB 2.0 speeds. If that's not a concern, then
| this is a good upgrade.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Lightning only ever supported USB 2.0. Theoretically, the free
| serial pins could've been used for the SuperSpeed 3.0 pins, but
| Apple never did.
| brigade wrote:
| They supported superspeed for the lightning iPad pros by
| doubling the number of pins (top and bottom rows)
|
| Only the lightning to usb3 camera adapter used them
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| I stand corrected.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| I think it's also notable that the iPad Pro never supported
| usb 3 client either. The iPad Pro had a separate USB3 host
| controller, and so only supported that camera adapter.
| There was never a USB-A (or C) 3.0 to Lightning cable.
| delfinom wrote:
| I would assume the vast majority of people aren't doing
| anything serious with their USB ports on a phone....
| xp84 wrote:
| It did take 8 hours to do a migration of data from my wife's
| 256GB iPhone 14 (lightning) to her iPhone 15 Pro this year,
| so that's at least one "serious" thing. I am so glad to be
| rid of that cursed Lightning port. Now I just have to come up
| with a good excuse to replace the younger child's tablet,
| despite it working fine. It is so frustrating to have to
| maintain special charging cables just for certain devices
| especially when you know it was a deliberate and cynical
| choice by the vendor. Thank goodness for the EU forcing this
| matter.
| tamimio wrote:
| Use landrop, been some times since I used wires to transfer
| data.
|
| https://landrop.app
| sgarland wrote:
| IMO, Lightning was a better physical connector. But a near-
| universal standard is better.
| brookst wrote:
| Lightning puts the main failure modes device-side.
| Apple's learnings, which they contributed to USBIF as
| part of the USB-C effort, were to put the mechanical
| failure points in the cable, not the device.
| Uvix wrote:
| USB-C may have _added_ a mechanical failure point in the
| cable, but the port is still fragile. Possibly more so
| than Lightning, with the delicate little tab inside.
| Shekelphile wrote:
| I have no clue how you're drawing that conclusion. The
| lightning connector is indisputably more durable than
| USB-C and failures of lightning ports outside of extreme
| abuse is pretty much unheard of.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I think people argue this because the little pins for
| lightning are in your device. If these break there's no
| fix. The flexible pins on USBC is in the cable. Do if the
| pins break, you get a new cable. Thought arguably, you
| now have this thin plastic flappy bit. But none of the
| parts that are meant to flex are in your device.
| ggreer wrote:
| Taking eight hours to migrate the data is almost certainly
| a software issue. Assuming the phone is completely full,
| transferring 256GB over USB 2.0 (480Mbit/sec, or 60MB/sec)
| should take about an hour and 15 minutes.
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| I suspect the flash storage can't sustain 60MB/sec writes
| indefinitely...
| ggreer wrote:
| The iPhone line has used NVMe drives for a decade. Even
| the iPhone X can do sustained writes of over 100MB/sec.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The amazonbasics 256GB microsd is faster than that. I
| really doubt the flash in an iPhone is worse.
|
| And the speed you should actually expect from USB 2.0 is
| more like 35MB/s so that's even easier for flash to
| handle.
| frollogaston wrote:
| USB 2.0 doesn't realistically do 480mbit/s I thought
| delfinom wrote:
| It absolutely can. Many years ago the limitation was PC
| mobos sucked and the likewise flash drives sucked. They
| marketed it but it was often just a peak.
|
| Nowadays I can fully saturate the 480 mbit.
| userbinator wrote:
| No, real-world throughput is closer to 40MB/s (320Mbps)
| due to protocol overhead, which is relatively high.
| userbinator wrote:
| USB 2.0 mass storage bulkonly protocol maxes out around
| 40MB/s due to protocol overhead and hardware limitations,
| and in practice it's closer to ~35MB/s.
|
| https://superuser.com/questions/317217/whats-the-maximum-
| spe...
|
| ...which still gives ~2h as the amount of time taken to
| transfer 256GB. My suspicion for the slowdown (to around
| 8MB/s?) is the flash controller is doing read retries and
| applying ECC to compensate for retention failures.
| brookst wrote:
| The EU did not force the matter. They trotted out in front
| of the parade and pretended to lead it.
|
| Apple switched a year before required, and not
| coincidentally, ten years after promising that Lightning
| would be the connector "for the next decade" so as to
| reduce fears from those who were angry about being "forced"
| to replace their 30-pin peripherals.
|
| I don't know why tech enthusiasts tend toward
| conspiratorial thinking, but certainly if Apple had
| obsoleted Lightning after only 8 years, many of these same
| people would be professing outrage and demanding class
| action lawsuits over such a greedy deceit.
| dangus wrote:
| I think you need a pretty good amount of willful naivety
| to think that Apple didn't make the switch with such
| coincidental timing to EU law changes purely out of the
| love of their customers.
|
| Let's not forget the very same year they stopped
| including the charging brick they started including USB-C
| to lightning cables in the box, so that their supposedly
| environmentally friendly practice forced their users to
| buy a new brick unless they saved previous cables. Why
| didn't they switch to USB-C back then? To make users do
| another transition a few short years later?
|
| They're aren't exactly a company with a track record of
| maintaining standards for the convenience and backward
| compatibility for their customers. This idea that they
| kept lightning around to maintain legacy standards
| doesn't really track with the rest of their behavior.
|
| They have a 20+ year old reputation for abruptly dropping
| and replacing ports.
| Shekelphile wrote:
| > I think you need a pretty good amount of willful
| naivety to think that Apple didn't make the switch with
| such coincidental timing to EU law changes purely out of
| the love of their customers.
|
| The designs are finalized years in advance. Apple would
| have made the choice to ship USB-C before the EU mandate
| was even proposed.
| dwaite wrote:
| > Let's not forget the very same year they stopped
| including the charging brick they started including USB-C
| to lightning cables in the box, so that their supposedly
| environmentally friendly practice forced their users to
| buy a new brick unless they saved previous cable
|
| There are countries which put pressure on removing both
| the charger and the cable with regulations related to
| e-waste. France I believe requires a product to be
| available for purchase without a charger. Ironically,
| Apple at least used to bundle EarPods with the iPhone in
| France due to some electromagnetic radiation regulation.
| storgaard wrote:
| > Let's not forget the very same year they stopped
| including the charging brick they started including USB-C
| to lightning cables in the box, so that their supposedly
| environmentally friendly practice forced their users to
| buy a new brick unless they saved previous cables. Why
| didn't they switch to USB-C back then? To make users do
| another transition a few short years later?
|
| Maybe I'm missing something here but how does a
| transition from having a charging brick to not having one
| relate to the transition on the other end of the cable
| going from one port to another?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| haven't seen this kind of Apple glazing in a long time
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Apple would have eventually moved the iPhone to USB C. It
| had already started moving the iPads to USB years before
| the mandate. The EU hastened it.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I have a portable external monitor with two USB C ports. It
| can get power and video from one USB port.
|
| I can plug it up to my iPhone 16 Pro Max using the same
| standard USB cord. With a phone, it can only power the
| display up to 50% brightness by itself. If I plug power into
| the second USB C port, it will show the display up to 100%
| and charge my phone.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/6g1QOkT
|
| Having USB C also means I can use a standard USB C to HDMI
| cord for TVs and use the same cord for my computer. Not to
| mention all of the other standard USB protocols like audio,
| mass storage, Ethernet, etc. that just work.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| It's also funny that the Lightning to HDMI adapters had to
| add hardware to decode a compressed video stream from the
| Lightning port.
|
| It's basically a wired AirPlay adapter. That's why they
| cost so much.
| dwaite wrote:
| Lightning was meant to be a software-defined serial data
| interface, I suspect because of the confusing breaking
| mess that was the 30 pin adapter over its lifetime. The
| digital logic to work with hardware was pushed outside
| the phone into the cable.
| frollogaston wrote:
| I'm not doing anything serious with it, but photo/video
| transfer takes annoyingly long
| makeitdouble wrote:
| IMHO it is a learned habit that will change as limitations
| are lifted.
|
| Plugging a SD card reader to one's phone instead of pulling
| out the laptop to push the images to the cloud for instance.
| You do it once, and will be immediately convince of the
| advantages.
| chromatin wrote:
| I actually want lightning for my USB-C phone :/
| K7PJP wrote:
| For what purpose? There are USB-C to Lightning adapters if you
| were using some specialized Lightning device you couldn't or
| didn't want to replace.
| bigyikes wrote:
| I love my USB-C iPhone but Lightning was smaller and easier
| to plug in.
| floxy wrote:
| Does anyone have reliability data for USB-C ports? It seems
| to me like Lightning is more robust to repeated plug/unplug
| cycles. But this is only on my limited sample size of one
| laptop with a failed USB-C port and some vague hand waving.
| xp84 wrote:
| It shouldn't be, my understanding is that the springy
| bits (the most likely wear part) in Lightning are in the
| port, whereas in USB-C they're intentionally in the cable
| so you can replace it. I'm surprised you have a failed
| USB port, but I've never experienced one fortunately.
|
| I see Lightning as fragile on both sides of the
| connection, since the port has springy bits that can
| wear, and the cables also die, either due to the DRM
| chips Apple involves in the mix for profit reasons, or
| due to the pins becoming damaged (perhaps this?
| https://ioshacker.com/iphone/why-the-fourth-pin-on-your-
| ligh... ).
| ggreer wrote:
| USB-C has an unsupported tab in the middle of the port.
| It's pretty easy for that tab to bend or break,
| especially if the plug is inserted at an angle.
|
| Lightning doesn't have that failure mode. Also Lightning
| ports only use 8 pins (except on the early iPad Pros), so
| reversing the cable can often overcome issues with
| corroded contacts. That workaround isn't possible with
| USB-C.
| toast0 wrote:
| Reversing works around _some_ broken conditions for
| usb-c, power and usb 2.0 data are on both sides.
| Depending on how bad the corrosion is, reversing may
| help.
|
| Usb 3 might be trickier, but then iPhone lightning
| doesn't have that anyway.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Baseline USB 3 is also single sided. Only some of the
| extra fast modes use both sides.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| I've never seen a device with a broken tab. One thing
| people seem to misunderstand grossly to keep
| regurgitating these claims is that there are thousands of
| USB-C ports from different manufacturers and price
| points. The Lightning connector is strictly quality
| controlled by Apple. The USB-C in your juul isn't the
| same as the one in a high-end device.
|
| The tab in the USB-C port makes the port more durable
| since it moves the sensitive springy parts to the
| cable(s) which are easily replaced.
|
| Quality control matters, Apple is arguably quite good at
| it. USB-C is more wild-west so if you're prone to buying
| cheap crap you'll be worse off.
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| The springy bits never wear out anyway. I've never once
| seen an iphone that couldn't grip the cable unless the
| port was full of pocket lint. Main problem I see is USB-C
| has both a cable and port which are hard to clean.
| brookst wrote:
| The springy bits get torqued weirdly by debris and can be
| bent out of alignment and/or into contact with each
| other. It's rare, but it happens. And the whole port
| needs to be replaced, which usually means the whole
| device.
| tjmc wrote:
| The white plastic toothpick found on most Swiss Army
| knives is perfect for cleaning USB-C ports.
| frollogaston wrote:
| The Lightning port itself might be more reliable, problem
| is Apple Lightning cables always break, and all third-
| party ones (even MFi) are prone to randomly not working
| after a while. I'd be perfectly fine with Lightning if it
| were an open spec, instead it singlehandedly created the
| meme of iPhones always being on 1% battery.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| From my experience using various (work provided) devices in
| outdoors agriculture use, I consider the lightning
| connector/port less prone to failure as well. If something
| was to break (from torque), it seems like the tab on the
| cable should snap or the cable just pull out before
| catastrophic damage to the port can occur.
|
| Though I still had to replace cables because the cable
| itself developed a break somewhere, even with one that had
| proper stress relief at the ends.
|
| Meanwhile most of the USB C ports on my Lenovo laptop from
| 2022 are barely working because somewhere along the line
| either the soldering broke or the port got too loose.
| Possibly from too much torque but I'm not sure. So the
| cable has to be at just the right angle. I've also done
| some android phone battery/screen replacement for friends,
| and had to do a few USB-C ports when it was possible due to
| the same sort of thing.
|
| However all that is pretty much moot now, thanks to
| wireless charging and magnetic attachment docks. As such
| the only time I connect a cable anymore is monthly for
| cleaning out photos and other data. Previously I'd be
| connecting cables several times a day to charge in between
| fields as the battery went to shit. Honestly the "MagSafe"
| concept is the only change I've seen to smart phones in the
| past decade that I actually really like.
| brookst wrote:
| Lightning had small pins inside the port that could be
| caught by debris and pulled out of alignment (or in worst
| cases, broken off altogether). USB-C has no moving parts
| on the device side. Apple was reportedly behind that
| design since Lightning was nearing release when design
| for USB-C started (and Apple is/was a member of USBIF)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Lightning had small pins inside the port that could be
| caught by debris and pulled out of alignment (or in worst
| cases, broken off altogether).
|
| Lightning has 1.5mm of height in the slot, debris has to
| be pretty large to get stuck and usually it's enough to
| just blow some compressed air into the slot to get dirt
| to release.
|
| In contrast, USB-C has only 0.7mm between the tab and the
| respective "other" side, so debris can get trapped much
| much more easily, and the tab is often very flimsy, in
| addition to virtually everyone sans Apple not supporting
| the connector housing properly with the main device
| housing.
| dylan604 wrote:
| because you still need a cable with a lightning end in your
| spaghetti of cables in a drawer somewhere. if all of your
| devices had USBC on both ends, then you don't need the one
| cable with the special adapter. you just need USBC cables.
| this isn't rocket science, and it's not a hard position to be
| sympathetic with either.
| toast0 wrote:
| Having everything be usbc makes sense.
|
| Having everything be lightning makes sense too, but is
| infeasible. Lightning was never going to be good for almost
| all devices, like usb mini-b, micro-b, and now usb-c have
| managed to get to.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| It is more satisfying to plug in a lightning cable. I know it
| sounds crazy. I can't explain it.
|
| I don't care about charging speeds or data transfer speeds.
| When it is done, it's done. Until then I will find something
| else to do or use it while charging.
| esseph wrote:
| You just want what, magnetic connectorized charging?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Actually if they'd put a little magnet at the back of a
| USB (whatever type) port, that would be satisfying as
| heck. Like the computer is actively grabbing whatever you
| plugged in.
| avhon1 wrote:
| I fear magnets inside the connector would draw ferrous
| debris into the connector. I'd _really_ rather that not
| happen!
| bee_rider wrote:
| Oh, that is a good point. Springs it is, then.
| __mharrison__ wrote:
| I have magnetized adapters for most of my USB C devices.
| I've had a USB C port fail on a phone in the past.
|
| They are very easy to use and have a satisfying snap when
| the cord connects.
|
| My only issue with them is that we were recently at Great
| Sand Dunes National Park and my phone fell into the sand.
| The magnetic adapter was covered with sand (which wasn't
| too hard to clean) and very smart metallic bits that
| stick to the magnet. They were difficult and annoying to
| remove and prevented the adapter from connecting.
|
| I guess on the plus side they protected the original
| port. I was able to remove the magnetic adapters and
| charge the phone with classic USB C.
|
| I guess I do have two issues. The adapter on my MBP is
| very particular about the cable I use. And the adapter,
| that supports high speed data transfer and charging,
| appears to be directional. Although the plug seems to be
| symmetric, in practice it doesn't work on both sides.
| zevon wrote:
| That's not crazy at all. If you look at a male lightning
| connector, you can see detents at the sides that snap into
| a (spring-loaded) retaining mechanism on the female side.
| USB-C doesn't have anything like that which results in less
| tactile satisfaction.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| USB-C uses an identical spring mechanism, actually,
| except the cord is the female side, and the port is male.
| brookst wrote:
| I don't think this is correct? GP is talking about the
| indentations on the side of the male lightning connector,
| which get gripped from the side by the device. I don't
| think the center tab on USB-C has those same features,
| nor do the cables have the grippy things.
|
| I'd welcome correction. Certainly if those features are
| there they don't feel the same. Lightning has a very
| satisfying _snick_.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| If you look closely, you can see the springy retention
| clips in the plug. Below is a Stack Overflow answer with
| more details, it includes a link to the USB-C spec where
| you can also see the corresponding notches in the male
| part of the receptacle.
|
| https://superuser.com/questions/1577898/how-does-the-
| retaini...
|
| Also, some good USB-C cables have a very similar click to
| Lightning, including Apple's own USB-C cables. Lightning
| and USB-C are essentially the same design, except USB-C
| adds an automotive-style shroud around the male side.
| zevon wrote:
| Interesting. I stand corrected and thanks for the links!
| Seems I didn't look hard enough at my USB-C cables. Now
| I'm curious - like the person I responded to, I always
| felt that Lightning is more tactile and more consistent
| than USB-C (including Apple's own USB-C cables) and I
| wonder why that is. Maybe the Lightning spring is beefier
| or something?
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| Lightning plugs in with a pretty hefty thunk. While USB-C
| is a light click.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| That depends on the cable. Apple's USB-C cables in
| particular have a very tactile non-squidgy click.
| frollogaston wrote:
| Adapter might not fit, or is annoying even if it does
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The Lightning connector is superior for everyday use. It's
| exeptionally reliable, tolerant of debris, and difficult to
| damage. It was designed to last, unlike every single USB
| device port ever made, which was designed to fail so you'd
| need to replace the cable and device eventually. MiniUSB,
| MicroUSB, and USB-C. It's all trash.
|
| Lightning has a perfect mechanical design. The pins phone-
| side are nearly possible to damage because they're well
| supported and only poke out in a bump shape that can't hook
| on anything. The cable side is the same way - no pins to
| catch on anything. The port is easy to clean out. The cable
| end is trivial to clean. The retention mechanism doesn't rely
| on anything that can wear out or break.
|
| Meanwhile the USB-C connector puts a fucking thin wedge of
| plastic in the middle of the connector and even worse, there
| are pins around that center thin wedge and they're easily
| broken/damaged because they have no protection whatsoever and
| poor mechanical support. Oh, and the retention mechanism
| sucks just like it has in every
|
| The USB-C port on my airpods is contactly getting fucked up
| while once in a blue moon I need to tick a toothpick in and
| rummage around a little to get some lint out of my phone's
| Lightning plug, and it's good for a couple more months...and
| that thing lives in my pocket, whereas the Airpod case spends
| most of its life sitting around on tables.
|
| It's also a substantial plus that Apple tightly controls the
| cable spec. Just go look at the pages where people document
| USB-C cables that are so shitty they'll destroy the
| electronics in one or both devices.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| This guy needs to make more of them so he can TAKE MY MONEY!
| tamimio wrote:
| I would take fast speed like USB 3 in lightning form than USB-C,
| it's solid design, just needs some speed boost.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| Ugh, this just needed a headphone jack to be perfect.
|
| (Relatedly, back in 2017 eric migicovsky of pebble tried to make
| a usb-c iPhone case that also charged airpods:
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/581404323/podcase-batte... )
| frollogaston wrote:
| If this case had a jack that worked reliably, I'd totally buy
| it. It's just that every other adapter I've used has somehow
| had occasional hiccups where the phone plays via speakers
| instead.
| crenwick wrote:
| This is also the case with Apple wired usbc headphones.
| Probably the phone software and not the adapter.
|
| Reminds me of when Android phones used to do the same with
| analog audio jacks.
| nabwodahs wrote:
| The best Lightning audio adapter is Apple's Lightning-
| to-30-pin-iPod adapter. It provides line-level audio out, as
| the 30-pin port always did. So you don't have to dick around
| with two volume levels; it's fixed coming out of the phone,
| and you only adjust your amp.
|
| I built one into a dock in my car that charged the phone and
| delivered audio to my car radio.
| dcrazy wrote:
| There's no analogue audio over Lightning, so if the 30-pin
| adapter is disabling volume level on the phone, it's just
| picking a fixed gain for its internal DAC--perhaps because
| the DAC is only good within a certain gain range. The Apple
| USB-C to 3.5mm adapters are widely regarded as having
| excellent DACs irrespective of their size and price. I'm
| not as familiar with the reputation of the Lightning to
| 3.5mm adapters, but I would consider the ability to
| configure the DAC volume an indicator of superior quality
| DAC compared to the 30-pin adapter.
| glitchc wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it's the same DAC since the signal is
| digital whether over Lightning or over USB-C until it
| hits the DAC.
|
| They earned their reputation when new phones came
| packaged with the adapter for the first few generations
| (circa iPhone 7/8?) after the 3.5 mm jack was removed.
| piva00 wrote:
| The Lightning-3.5mm adapter has a quite good DAC for its
| size, I remember seeing a teardown article from when it
| was first launched, quite impressive engineering going on
| in a such a small piece of electronics.
| atoav wrote:
| This is how any generic 5 Euro USB-C-to-TRS 3.5mm jack
| adapter works on Android. Didn't know this was a big issue
| in Apple-land.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| So this comment made me go looking, and there _is_ a case that
| adds headphone jacks back to iphones, but literally not a
| single one for any model of android phone. I guess they figure
| that the people who care enough to buy such a case will go out
| and buy one of the dwindling number of android phones that
| still have such a jack.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| The divide generally is that android phones with headphone
| jacks as of 2025 generally dont have 5G ultrawideband
| support* . And there are some split-out dangles which offer a
| jack and usb-c, but they've sorta had annoying quirks in my
| experience (the CableCreation one is less terrible in my
| experience). One could design a case around one of these
| dangles, though it's add some bulk and the dangle quirks mean
| you sometimes need to disconnect it from the phone.
|
| * - supposedly the Sony xperia pro (2020) might be the rare
| exception to this rule.
| alias_neo wrote:
| The don't always seem to work either. My wife asked for one
| of the little USB-C to 3.5mm adapters of which I had a few
| from various Android phones over the years, and one from an
| iPhone and she couldn't get them to work on her Samsung
| Galaxy S21, I ended up buying hear some bluetooth earbuds
| (yes, she could have done it herself but she trusts my
| judgement on selecting these sorts of things).
| pydry wrote:
| This is probably as much of a reflection of the market size
| and lack of device fragmentation for the apple ecosystem than
| demand.
|
| It's similarly easier to buy a wide range of different case
| designs for apple.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Apple devices have a much smaller variance in shape. It's a
| lot easier for case designers to develop for Apple. Android
| devices have a _lot_ of variety.
|
| That said, I have seen some fairly cool cases for Android
| devices, so I assume that some case companies support just
| the big sellers.
| mvdwoord wrote:
| I was disappointed to find out that my girlfriend's iphone
| (albeit a few years old) is not able to charge my wireless
| earbuds. A feature I've enjoyed on my Samsung phones for as
| long as I can remember.
| justusthane wrote:
| Reverse charging is still not a feature on iPhone
| bodge5000 wrote:
| There used to be cases that added USB-C to iPhones (prior to
| Apple doing it themselves), and there used to be cases that
| added the headphone jack to iPhones (not updated since the
| iPhone X), but for some reason never both which has held me
| back from getting one
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I don't miss headphone jacks AT ALL.
|
| I mean, I thought I would. I really did. I was VERY salty about
| their loss. But then I tried the OG Airpods, and then the Pros
| with ANC, and they were honestly better than any "casual" buds
| I'd used before that depended on wires.
|
| Still, I harrumphed, wireless can't possibly compete with Real
| Proper Headphones, or so I thought.
|
| Then I tried the AirPods Max a friend had. I was honestly
| stunned. I bought a pair, and then compared them directly to a
| similarly priced set of Sennheisers that I have that require a
| headphone amp to really shine.
|
| The fancy wired rig probably does sound a LITTLE bit better
| than the Maxes do, but the logistical cost of the cabling is
| such that I call it a win for wireless, absolutely. In fact, we
| recently moved house, and as part of the pre-move purge I gave
| away the Sennheisers and the little amp. I just wasn't using
| them.
|
| There's definitely contexts where a wire probably still makes
| sense. I'm given to believe that latency can be a problem for
| musical recording, for example, and so those folks still use
| wired phones. But for me? Yeah, it's wireless all the way now.
|
| (When I say the move is recent, I mean REALLY recent -- like,
| we're still working around boxes. It sure would be nice to
| figure out which of the remaining boxes has those Airpods in
| it.)
| danielbln wrote:
| Same story here. I was very much in the "take my headphone
| jack over my dead body" camp. But then I got used to wireless
| earbuds/air pods and now I never ever want to go back to
| cabled earphones, ever. Just the thought of the cable getting
| snagged on something and pulling out one or both earphones
| makes me rage.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > I don't miss headphone jacks AT ALL ... But then I tried
| the OG Airpods, and then the Pros with ANC ... Then I tried
| the AirPods Max ... I bought a pair
|
| Now, what you miss is around $1000, for hardware that will
| likely fail faster than any wired alternative.
|
| That's the part that pissed off so many people. Apple
| obsoleted good quality headphones to sell their high margin
| products. Airpods are decent, but it is a cash grab.
|
| My phone (Galaxy XCover 7) has a headphone jack by the way,
| and I use it. Not very often, but I sometimes plug my gaming
| headset to it, or sometimes an AUX jack. And by the way, it
| also has a removable battery and it is IP68, for those who
| think that it makes waterproofing impossible.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| For those not going for this one, should get a bunch of USB-C to
| Lightning adapter. I bought a few packs and they are all over the
| house, the car, tech pouch, etc. I stopped caring about Lightning
| cables. Lighting pins are going to be needed for a pretty long
| time. The TV Remote is going to be there for quite a while, the
| mice, the keyboard.
| Starmina wrote:
| Like he highlights in his video, those adapter are not
| reversible. They only charge 9V max in one side and limited to
| 5V if you flip them.
| zulln wrote:
| Which should be fine for all the things the comment mentions
| though (remotes, keyboards, etc).
| thrance wrote:
| ALL my devices are now USB-C and it feels great: laptops,
| phone, headset, mice, game controller...
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Killer feature would be also a 3.5mm earphone jack.
| vachina wrote:
| Haha, 50 Swiss franc for what the Chinese can do for 10CNY. Yeah
| nah.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| What sucks (or is awesome) is that if this gets popular, it
| will certainly show up on Alibaba in the next few weeks and
| Amazon a few weeks after that.
|
| It will be a nicer material while much cheaper too.
| vachina wrote:
| There are already charging cases that is a little thicker,
| that offers usb c input.
| zevon wrote:
| The material thing is debatable. 3D printed Polyamide -
| possibly with a fibre filler - is really nice for phone
| cases, in my opinion. The surface texture is grippy, it's
| quite durable (and I like the look).
| rahulbisht wrote:
| The USB-C connector sticking out feels a bit odd. We can explore
| to move the port at the bottom, make it horizontal and add a cut-
| out in the case for the cable to fit in. That would make the
| cover more natural and clean.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Just to clarify: I can't use the wired USB-C Apple headphone
| adapter with this?
| LeonM wrote:
| The data and PD communication are both working (that was the
| majority challenge on the EE side, shown in his video). So it
| would depend on the capability of his solution to let the phone
| work in host mode, thus being able to provide power to the
| adapter.
|
| Though I'm also not sure how the MFi situation is with those
| generations of iPhones, and what restrictions Apple has built
| in to the OS. I haven't worked with MFi for a while, and I
| don't know for sure if MFi chips are even required anymore for
| that generation of lightning devices, or whether the author has
| incorporated one.
|
| EDIT: I just saw this on his website:
|
| > Any other accessory that requires power _from the phone_ is
| not compatible.
|
| So no, USB-C to headphone adapters won't work, they need power.
| rckt wrote:
| What is the point of this? I'm not questioning the engineering
| part. This guy is amazing. I just don't understand the issue with
| iPhones' lightning port. Is there a shortage of lightning cables
| in the world?
| rf15 wrote:
| Saving up on actual cables you carry around - you always have
| that one extra iphone cable, while everyone else is on USB-C
| for years now.
| pimterry wrote:
| It's just _ridiculously_ useful having every single device you
| own work with the same charger. It's not the end of the world,
| but not even having to think about chargers has been a
| gamechanger.
| diggan wrote:
| > What is the point of this?
|
| Probably for people like me, where the only Apple hardware I
| own and use is a iPhone 12 Mini, almost everything else is
| USB-C or the previous USB iterations. It'd be great if I can
| use the same cables I use for everything else with my phone
| too.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| My current lightning cable is breaking apart and I'll need to
| buy another at some point. I have dozens of USB-C cables at
| home.
|
| Having to carry one able less while travelling is also nice.
| Currently I carry a USB-C cable for headphones, would be nice
| to re-use that for the phone too.
| bapak wrote:
| I love unplugging the charger from my computer and charging my
| phone in a swift, 3-seconds motion.
|
| Likewise, I hate that USB-A is still everywhere and _I cannot_
| use it without carrying yet one more cable. Sometimes I have
| it, sometimes I don 't.
| saagarjha wrote:
| For a moment I thought this would be
| https://twitter.com/David3141593/status/1548314959943122945
| ubermonkey wrote:
| That's a cool idea and I'd probably be on board for it if I
| weren't married to a different case system for compatibility with
| the mount on my motorcycle.
|
| If I were 10 years younger I'd probably leap on a new phone to
| pick up USB-C, but (a) Apple replaced my Lightning-based iPhone
| 14 Pro at like the last possible moment of warranty, so right now
| I have essentially a new phone and (b) there's still so many
| OTHER Lightning or USB-Micro holdouts in our house that USB-C
| Nirvana is years away.
|
| (E.G., Lightning on 2 sets of regular Airpods plus my Maxes as
| well as our phones; Micro on both our Kindles, my espresso scale,
| my camera's battery charger, and a ton of cycling gadgets.)
| traspler wrote:
| I just got the iPhone 14 Pro version of it two days ago.
|
| I like the texture very much and all-in-all it seems like a great
| case. The textured buttons and the wide island are very nice
| touches :)
|
| The way I hold the phone in my right hand does make the
| connector-corner dig into my palm, which is not very comfortable.
| I'll see how well I can adapt.
|
| Also the top piece has veeery slight warping which makes some
| seams not as seamless but does not impact functionality. I know
| it's a hand-made product so that's fine to me, just a reality
| check on what to expect.
|
| The clasp of the top piece also seems a bit flimsy and even with
| the adjustments mentioned in the video I worry if it will break
| at some point.
| Pfhortune wrote:
| Once the SE third gen is available, I could finally have a
| TouchID iPhone with USB-C! Really wish Apple had done a final
| fourth gen of the SE with these features...
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