Hacker News Reader

Comment by pwpw | Hacker News Reader

Bell Labs allowed others to produce transistor based hearing aids royalty free. Volvo allowed others to use a 3-point harness system royalty free. Apple created Lightning to solve a problem and wanted royalties on all products using it. Naturally, the market moved to another solution.

While Lightning may be a good piece of technology, I think Apple is largely to blame for its demise. Standardization is good for consumers. Apple had control over its fate. I don’t blame them for wanting to collect royalties, but they were the only major manufacturer on the market not playing ball with a standardized port. Yet even their other products use USB-C, and the MacBook was actually an early adopter.

Accordingly, I don’t think this law eliminates competition. It brings simplification to consumers for a simple, boring port that can now be shared with many of their other goods and a single cable.

View on HN

> they were the only major manufacturer on the market not playing ball with a standardized port

I genuinely believe that there’s only one real reason Apple resisted moving away from Lightning:

They saw the writing on the wall from the EU over the last few years, and - remembering the way people lost their minds over the switch from 40-pin to Lightning (“it’s a money grab! they want me to replace all of my accessories!”) - chose to wait so they’d have someone to deflect blame to.

Licensing revenue from Lightning MFi is a drop in the bucket. I’m not a manufacturing operations expert, but I have to imagine that the simplification of supply chains alone will nearly offset that loss over time.

Except if Apple voluntarily made iPhones that charged over USB-C, most people would rejoice, because most people already have loads of USB-C chargers for all of their other electronic devices.

USB-C, so good you’re forced to use it!

Lightning vs USB-C is like VHS vs Betamax or HD-DVD vs Bluray, only Apple has sufficient market power it can abuse to avoid the inevitable convergence towards a common standard. It's exactly the correct thing to do for a regulator to step in and fix this.

Between my wife and I, we have two cell phones, three laptops, and a pair of wireless headphones. Only one of those devices doesn't use USB-C- her iPhone. I don't believe the other five devices have USB-C because they were forced to.

Great anecdote! My wife and I have a number of cell phones, tablets, headphones, and computers. The computers have USB-C, and so does one of the tablets. One headphone has micro-USB, and everything else is lightning. We have plenty of charging solutions for lightning (mostly USB-A bricks with lightning connectors), so moving to USB-C will mean we'll have to buy a 5-10 new bricks and cables. Not looking forward to it!

> Great anecdote!

This is unnecessarily snide.

> moving to USB-C will mean we'll have to buy a 5-10 new bricks and cables

Why? Your computers and one of your tablets already have USB-C chargers, so you could just use those for your phones. Further, USB-A to USB-C cables exist, so you could reuse your existing USB-A bricks, too.

I can't unplug my computer to charge my phone because I use my computer in clamshell mode, which sadly only works when its plugged in. I do sometimes charge through my computer, but I find this is pretty slow. I figured that USB-A to USB-C cables exist, and we might decide to buy some of these. But if the change is happening, it might be foolish to purchase cables that have one foot in the grave already. The upside would be that we could still charge our micro USB devices from the same bricks.

> But if the change is happening, it might be foolish to purchase cables that have one foot in the grave already.

I don't see USB-A going anywhere in the next decade or so, especially now that they're popping up in wall outlets and power strips alongside traditional wall plugs (at least here in the US; YMMV elsewhere). Hell, I was at a casino last weekend and pretty much every slot machine has a USB-A port specifically for charging phones (unfortunately, the casino's gift shop was sold out of USB-C and Lightning, but had lots of micro-B on hand - go figure lol).

Yeah I was traveling recently and realized that all the hotel/airport/airplane receptacles are USB-A. Wonder how long that will last?

> Wonder how long that will last?

Probably for longer than USB-A male connectors exist, knowing how fast things usually evolve in said industries :)

My anecdote was only supposed to show that USB-C has not so far needed mandates for it to be adopted.

Perhaps, but the vast majority of devices in our house do not use USB-C. They are either still on micro-USB, or they're on lightning. I realize people's experiences differ on this, but for many people USB-C devices are not common. These people do not have charging infrastructures in their homes for USB-C devices, and transitioning means throwing away a lot of cables and such.

Apple thinks it's good enough for iPads.

Apple thinks it's a groundbreaking innovation for iPads.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com