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Comment by RandomWorker | Hacker News Reader

When it comes to choosing between a Mac and a PC, many people opt for a Mac because of its superior build quality. However, it's worth noting that Apple products have consistently received low scores from iFixit, indicating that they are difficult to repair. For Microsoft to win, maybe the strategy is to advocate for repairability and encourage Apple to prioritize it in their designs. Thereby taking Apple s focus away from innovation to repairability.

iPhone 14 was underwhelming in sooooo many ways, but it's repairability went up! My sense is that the iPhone 15 will lack innovation due to the USB C conversion... and we will see what the iPhone 16 will bring.

But legal troubles force Apple's hand, and they can't focus on adding value in other ways.

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> iPhone 14 was underwhelming in sooooo many ways, but it's repairability went up

Its theoretically more repairable but since they increased the number of pairing issues, I'd say that their latest model is the most unrepairable iPhone yet.

The usb c tangent is kind of weird. It feels like an anti regulation stand for the sake of it.

It's not like switching to USB-C will be any great technical feat for Apple. There is already USB-C on the iPad, and the iPhone is just a smaller iPad. It won't even cost anything: they are going to need to reconfigure their production lines anyway for whatever other changes they make in that generation.

> It won't even cost anything:

It's costing Apple probably tens of millions of dollars of annual revenue from Lightning cable/connector sales and MFi licensing fees to other vendors.

At the same time, Lightning has been getting a bit long-in-the-tooth (USB2.0 speeds are impractical for making local backups of iPhone photo libraries) - as much as I want to believe that Apple would have switched the iPhone over to USB-C within a few years, I realise it's equally possible they'd have introduced a "Lightning 2" or similar.

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There are still rumours out there that the iPhone 15 could be port-less in Europe, and so only charge via Qi - which coincides with Apple actually increasing the physical spec gap between North American vs. East-Asian models of iPhone for example (e.g. no SIM tray in NA vs. but people in SE Asia get physical dual-nano-SIM trays - and still no return of the headphone jack.

> There are still rumours out there that the iPhone 15 could be port-less in Europe

I'm not sure taking a significant hit to their revenue would really worth just to avoid using usb-c.

> Lightning has been getting a bit long-in-the-tooth (USB2.0 speeds are impractical […])

Lightning actually already supports USB 3.0, but Apple have only ever used that for supporting external accessories on some iPad models… models which now use USB-C instead, I think.

They earn a lot from their propertiary cables.

Lots of apple fans overpay to shpw that they can overpay.

No-one is being ostentatious about owning genuine iPhone Lightning cables.

Besides, Anker and Belkin's cables are way better.

Anker and Belkin are absolutely paying Apple certification fees.

This is an incredibly bewildering argument. It seems to imply that getting rid of the worthless lightning connector somehow means the entire company can't focus on other aspects of the product?

By this same...train of logic. We shouldn't legislate phones won't explode. Or Samsung won't innovate in other ways, because they're too busy keeping their phones from exploding!

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