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Comment by speeder | Hacker News Reader

If I remember correctly (I don't own an iPhone so to me this is kind all hearsay) what happened is Apple stopped shipping charges around the time chargers became USB-C, while their older ones used USB-A on the brick.

So the iPhone package would come with the phone itself, and a USBC-lightning cable, but the USB-C brick wasn't included and was ludicrously expensive, and nobody had one since it was new.

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The comment you're replying to makes the point that if you already had a charger, you could use the old charger and the old cable. There is no requirement to use the new cable that it came with. If you agree that people probably already had one from a few years ago, then they already had everything they needed to charge the phone. The 'new cable' did not stop anything from working that previously worked.

That is where point #3 comes in, being that Iphones are/where not very popular in Brazil (due to being prohibitively expensive), it is safe to assume that a significant number of sales are going to be first time Iphone buyers, who don't have a previous lightning cable.

It all comes down to: is the average buyer be reasonable expected to already have that fundamental piece at home? And in Brazilian market the answer to that is a clear no.

Ah that's fair then, that would be an issue. Though it surprises me a touch: my iphone 11 came with an A->lightning cable (I just checked).

Maybe it's that more recently Apple switched the bundled cables from A to C, but didn't provide a charger brick, so people who still only had USB-A chargers were SOL? That would make a lot of sense as well, and I would understand the anger.

> Apple switched the bundled cables from A to C, but didn't provide a charger brick, so people who still only had USB-A chargers were SOL

Yes, this is what happened on the iPhone 13 (may have been 12).

I think that was the first phone where they didn’t include the charger; after a decade+ of including a USB-A charger, that decision was probably fine for avoiding e-waste. Switching to USB-C on the wall side of the cable the next year was very iffy, since users were much, much more likely to need the new charger or an adapter.

If they were really worried about capacity (per shipping container) and reducing e-waste, they’d make the adapter available as an optional add-on at cost — making it free would likely generate more e-waste, since everyone would just go for the free charger.

You could just use your old lightning cable? the port on the phone didn't change, you could use any existing lightning charger and it would work just fine. There's no requirement that you have to use the cable bundled in the box.

> You could just use your old lightning cable?

If you were switching from a Lightning iphone to a Lightning iphone, then yes. But say you were switching from an older Android phone, or a limping iphone still on dock connector?

If you were using an iPhone with a dock connector, hats off for stretching one from 2012 (at best) to 2020, but that's hardly a large enough segment to count. Those things did not even have 4G, so the idea that a significant number of people were using one until 2020 and also decided to upgrade to an iPhone 12 is ridiculous.

Also, if you were using an older Android etc. you are still not required to use the USB-C to lightning cable. You can get a USB-A to lightning cable for cheap, and those aren't as liable to burn down your house as a cheap charge brick.

> Maybe it's that more recently Apple switched the bundled cables from A to C, but didn't provide a charger brick, so people who still only had USB-A chargers were SOL?

It started with the 11, but only for the Pro models. 12 everything was USB-C.

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