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Comment by netcan | Hacker News Reader

I'm really surprised Apple don't do this just for user friendliness. I have lots of USB cables and chargers that have accumulated. That means that I can plug in at work, in the car, at home.. etc. I only have one lightning cable that usually lives at work. I also have a cheap-crap 30 pin that I can never find for my old ipod that a rarely use.

Basically this means that my ipad often runs out of juice and my ipod gets used even less. My guess is that there are a lot of old ipods that will not get a retirement job because they outlived their connectors.

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> I'm really surprised Apple don't do this just for user friendliness.

I can't stand proprietary connectors as much as the next person, but there's no denying that their Lightning connector is much much better than any USB. It's reversible for one (size and robustness aside).

Reversible always comes up when asked what makes it better. Always reversible. Sometimes there's some other thing, but you can count on reversible.

How hard it is to feel which way you're holding the USB cable? They are often asymmetrically designed, you know?

I can do it half asleep in pitch dark.

If someone can't plug in a cable in the right way, I seriously doubt they should be using a smart phone in the first place... or any technology more sophisticated than a pointy stick.

> If someone can't plug in a cable in the right way, I seriously doubt they should be using a smart phone in the first place... or any technology more sophisticated than a pointy stick.

Sure, I'll take that bait. There are innumerable disabilities which might mean people have trouble manipulating small objects. That seems like an obvious reason for making it reversible for one. But congratulations for managing to do it half asleep in the dark (anecdotes don't make a convincing argument: I could share several contrary anecdotes myself).

But as for other benefits? There have been USB standards that have been deprecated because they were so fragile (I forget which–Mini?). The Lightning connector is solid, not hollow, and so seems more robust. The Lightning connector is also designed to support much higher power ratings than USB, so can charge devices faster.

I doubt Lightning is that much bigger than USB that it helps handling it.

And I didn't say anything about whether Lightning is better or worse than USB, or more versatile or what ever. Just that can we please stop with the "But it's reversible" thing? It just sounds like something to say when people can't come up with better reasons.

Not everything has to be grand. Iterating away small annoyances is a worthy part of design and is often noticeable.

@vikaveri: Since plugging in the cable is my only interaction with my phone charger, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that improving that makes it better. It is literally the one thing the cable does.

Whether it's worth the cost is another issue, but even ignoring the other advantages Osmium brings up, it's a better connector.

To the contrary, pointy sticks can be quite dangerous.

I was amused to read in reviews of new iPad keyboards from logitech and belkin that they charge via micro USB. So that points out one of the big negatives: anyone who can reasonably avoid using it will, even first tier, brand name iPad accessory makers. Clearly they didn't think it was "much much better", at least not enough to pay whatever Apple was asking to use it.

> at least not enough to pay whatever Apple was asking to use it.

And I think that's the key issue – not just Apple's licensing fees, but the cost of the cables too. They'd either have to include a Lightning cable themselves or handle complaints from customers who need to buy an extra one. Either way, it's a bad deal.

The fact that it's a closed standard and requires licensing fees (both of which are clearly ridiculous) are separate issues from whether the design itself is technically better than USB or not.

What? And risk loosing all those people who will be forced to buy a new one because they can't find the old connector?

Ultimately they don't care for the product just the next potential purchase.

It's not for user friendliness but for inter-operability that we'd change that cable. USB is way less user friendly than the lightning connector.

It also means apple can't control who makes accessories.

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