You can thank Apple for the Lightning connector and App Store too, for all the good it does everyone in the EU. If a company uses their power to prevent competition with their own products or services, the market's jurisdiction reserves the right to restore competition to their market and prevent the harms inherent to monopoly abuse.
I probably dont get your sarcasm. But I never had a problem with Lightning. In the long run, I like the switch to USB-C... But when I got my first iPhone, USB-C wasn't invented yet, so... Also, I like the AppStore for its reviews, and would actually NEVER activate an alternative appstore. No need to weaken my security on purpose. I know, its apparently an unpopular opinion here, but that is mostly because many people only comment with their dev hats on and are apparently unable to see things from user perspectives...
To add: when apple switched to lightning they made a deal with hardware makers that they would support this for 10 years in order not to make all their hardware obsolete again.
They did eventually change it after exactly 10 years.
Not because their software would inherently break by switching to a different USB connector, or even by using a converter dongle. Apple signed this agreement because Lightning had a hardcoded DRM protocol baked into it to force third-parties to pay licensing fees. Of course they demanded a 10 year support window, it was a licensing ruse to make manufacturers pay a price premium to use the USB featureset.
The 3rd parties are not getting anything out of it. You literally pay for access to a tech stack that has nothing better than you would be able to do with USB.
I mean the other side of connection was USB so it was a necessity anyway.
If at least they upgraded the speed over the years, but nope stuck at USB 2.
For a hardware project I looked briefly at the MFi terms and they just don't make any sense. This is why any good lightning cable was always more expensive (at least before you get some from China with contraband auth chips)
Lightning is a major cash crab from Apple and revealed their actual playbook. Microsoft passed as a very bad players in the 90's but Apple is even worse.
The only people not accepting that are deranged fans.
USB-C is a car crash of an implementation landscape, just because the interface is a single design, doesn't mean that you can rely on it. It is better than it was, but we've had several instances of issues with the USB-C, including my own personal favourite of my Nintendo Switch charging socket burning out because I used a non-Nintendo charger - an Apple one, completely compliant and as good as they get - to charge the Switch. A £50 repair.
Some USB-C cables aren't data compliant. They just send power. There's all kinds of foibles with USB-C that have taken years to work on and this just isn't clear to tech folks, let alone non-tech consumers.
The Lightning port has never done this to me, the device just charges and that's it. It transfers files and that's it.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think USB C is perfect nor that it would have been my choice. In fact, from a mechanical standpoint, I prefer Lightning.
What I'm saying is that Apple didn't have to take a cut from every item sold by 3rd parties who wanted to use their specs.
They could even have sold the spec at a fair price but instead they went on a full rent-seeking strategy.
This is why, when there is chatter about Qualcomm/Apple feud on licensing, I laugh my ass off because this is exactly the same behavior they impose on their partners. Can dish it out but can't take it. My complaint is mostly about the hypocrisy of Apple's behavior.
But the real motivator was making as much money as possible, the fact that their specifications had some desirable qualities is nice but not very relevant (since you don't get a choice if you wanted to make an iThing accessory anyway). Their previous port (30-pin) had the same problem and it was rather terrible.
I had the first iPod with FW400 and they could have very well gone with mini-USB when they switched to their 30-pin to make it compatible with most PC who mostly had USB 2 and rarely FireWire. I used mini-USB for plenty of things from external hard-drive to digital cameras passing by digital mini-disc players and it was a fine port.
Yet they chose to make their completely proprietary 30-pin port, to rent-seek as much as possible on the accessory market. When they switched to Lightning, the goal was exactly the same, trying to pretend it's because it was better is disingenuous and very ignorant of Apple's history and behavior.
Plenty of corporations do things like that but the difference is that with Apple there is an army of zealots eating the bullcrap and justifying their behavior in a fanatical way.
They would have the same profit (in fact more) if they didn't have to pay a percentage of their sales to Apple.
The 3rd party manufacturers didn't make profit because of Apple but because of their customers choosing their products.
The way you try to reverse the situation and try to pretend Apple is entitled to a percentage of revenue from other companies making things to work with their products is pure insanity.
Do you think the brand of your car should get a cut of every compatible thing you buy to use with it? Should they get a cut on brake pad, tires, cables to their entertainment system, carpet of the right size for the particular car, etc. The list can be almost infinite.
Do you realize how absurd what you are trying to defend is?
Best interpretation of that is rent-seeking. Not strictly illegal, but prone to regulation at the very least.
Another way to put it is racketeering.
I guess that Apple has been toying with the line for so long that people don't even understand where their interests lies...
Sure, FireWire is an example of Apple using innovation to actually innovate. Lightning is an example of Apple using DRM to paywall an ordinary and freely availible USB 2.0 featureset.
Firewire was a speed/feature innovation.
Lighting was a port innovation.
Pay to play in either case.
Other options available to Apple instead of Lightning:
* stick with the iPod connector for longer
* switch to micro-USB
* never invent the iPod connector in favor of staying with Firewire or going to mini-USB and then switch to micro-USB or something else later anyway
None of these are better. I'm EXTREMELY glad they didn't switch to micro-USB. I had no shortage of mini-USB and then micro-USB devices and the micro-USB ports/cables are pretty much the worst I've ever dealt with.
Yeah. Also as I understand it, Apple is part of the USB committee and they were actively involved in the development of USB-C. Their experience developing the lightning connector actively led to usb-c being reversible.
If not for the lightning connector, we wouldn't have usb-c as we know it today.
Its also a stretch to claim apple doesn't like usb-c given how hard they've been pushing it on their laptops. In 2016, they started shipping laptops that only had usb-c ports - which worked around the chicken-and-egg problem we would have had otherwise. Dongle-gate was a real thing that annoyed a lot of people. But my desk is covered in usb-c peripherals - and that might not have happened if not for apple's "brave" choice.
The same thing happened with the original USB. Windows machines, even laptops, shipped with serial and even parallel ports for years after the first iMacs went all in on it. That gave the market for USB devices an enormous boost.
People have really bad memories of Mini- and Micro-USB, or aren't old enough to have experienced that era. Those things were fragile. At that point in time, it made all the technical and business sense in the world to replace their existing proprietary connector with a new, improved proprietary connector. The MFi program was a thing before Lightning, it's still a thing today, and has nothing to do with the specific connector.
The open alternative to 30-pin when Lightning was introduced was micro-USB and micro-USB is ass, but not switching away from 30-pin wasn’t an option for the phone they wanted to build at the time, that being the iPhone 5.
All in all, Lightning was a net benefit that overstayed its welcome by a few years. Even once USB-C was introduced a few years later, it took a few more years than that to become as pervasive as it did.
Overstaying its welcome was intentional to avoid burning peripheral developers who had been promised 10 years of compatibility after Lightning replaced the 30-pin dock connector, which was used from 2003-2012.
As noted in other comments, Apple was part of the USB working group, contributed to USB-C, and introduced USB-C/Thunderbolt-only laptops in 2016. There was backlash against this so they have since backtracked and reintroduced MagSafe and HDMI ports. Personally I would have preferred more USB-C/Thunderbolt ports.
No I get that and I know the history too; but that doesn’t mean it didn’t overstay its welcome as far as users are concerned. Speaking as someone that personally was never got hung up over the shape of the charge cable and certainly not for the flimsy e-waste arguments that were put forth: just in terms of transfer rate (at least on the higher end models) and device compatibility, USB-C has been an upgrade that users could have been enjoying 3 to 5 years earlier when USB-C was a bit more widespread.
I haven't paid for all that many lightning cables period, since they tended to be included with most devices that needed them, and aside from some strain reliefs that I've added myself in the form of heat shrink, they've been largely reliable too.
This was usually due to lint clogging up the port on the device. You could easily remove it with a toothpick and then everything was back in working order. Took just a few seconds at most.
I don't need an ad-blocker. I have YouTube Premium. And I really don't need Safari that often, actually. Besides, if we're really talking JS==insecure, 99% of users on desktop and mobile are insecure. I am sort of on your side, because I spend most of my web-time in Lynx in a tmux. But if I were to argue against JS, people would call me a weirdo. That war is over. I fought it until 2010.
I already said I dont use Safari that much. If you hadn't shortened the quote your reply would be moot. Maybe I need to rephrase, to make you happy: I don't use the web so much on my iPhone. The primary ad-offender in my world is YouTube, which I fixed by paying for Premium.
You know there aren't really ads on websites anymore, right?
There are ads in algorithm apps like YouTube, tiktok, Instagram, mobile games, streaming service "poor" subscriptions, etc. And there are paywalls. But the vast majority of interesting websites don't have ads anymore.
I am not an American. I just have a different opinion on some things then you. Ever tried some empathy?
Pragmatically speaking, I prefer YouTube Premium because I hate their inability to filter out scammy ads, and I still feel like supporting creators at least a bit. As a customer, its not always my call how much of my money goes to creators. Thats why I refuse to use Apple Music and/or Spotify. I spend my money on BandCamp, which I consider an appropriate compensation for other "sins" I might commit on the net.
How does people having the ability to activate alternative app stores on their phones affect you? Or have a Pebble with similar functionality to an Apple Watch? Just don’t activate the App Store or purchase a Pebble and stay in your walled garden.
We’re lucky our computers aren’t walled gardens because if Apple knew it would work this well with iOS, MacOS would be the same.
Yup, Apple made Lightning because USB-C wasn't a thing yet and MicroUSB is awful. Lightning is a whole lot better than MicroUSB, and they've been using it since 2012. MiniUSB B was pretty OK, Micro was just way too thin to be stable and would snap off frequently, in addition to being not very secure and hard to orient. Mini was thicker though, so while it worked fine for the HTC Apache and other Windows Mobile phones of the era, it wasn't going to be small enough to work on an iPhone.
So many people complaining about a really robust connector that solved real problems and has proven to be pretty reliable for 13 years. I'm no huge Apple fanboi, and I'm happy to have all their stuff use USB-C now, but the hate for Lightning is way inflated IMO.
I have no issue with Apple inventing a new, superior connector; I applaud them for it. My issue is with them making it a closed proprietary standard with authentication chips to lock out unapproved third-party vendors. They could have just invented Lightning and made it an open standard. We might not have even needed USB-C then; the industry could have just iterated upon Lightning.
As I understand it, the USB standard is licensed, and you have to pay for it to use the USB logo and to get a vendor ID if you are not already a paying member of the USB Association. Licensing requires passing a compliance test, which is a very good idea.
Apple was also part of the working group that developed USB-C.
USB-C pushed whatever it was doing too far; it's now necessary to know what kind of USB-C cable you have. There's one kind for data transfer and a different kind for rapid power draw. And they look exactly the same.
That has nothing to do with USB-C, but with the USB 3+ standard, AFAIK Apple uses Thunderbolt protocol that is compatible with USB but it has less optional features than USB protocol.
MicroUSB is fine, and Apple should've just used that (like every other phone manufacturer did, with great success). But Apple also has the world's biggest NIH complex, so they decided to invent a proprietary standard rather than go with something interoperable.
MicroUSB is a terrible connector. Every time I have to use one, it's impossible to get into the slot; it's finicky, breakable and has a one way orientation. Lightning is delightful to use.
Micro-USB connector has been consistently rated as one of the worst connectors ever invented[0], [2]. You can find more on the search engine of your choice.
Also relevant: 19 engineers from Apple worked on the USB-C connector and cable specification[1].
«None of the chargers fit snuggly into socket. The connectors are flimsy and get damaged easily. Just rolling up the charger and putting it in my pocket can cause the tip to break off»[0]
«While on the whole, I am satisfied with the switch to USB Micro, my only major gripe is the less obvious keying. Inserting the plug with good lighting is no problem (if you can see), but trying to plug in your cell phone after you've crawled into bed with the lights off can be a trial. As somebody who works with people with disabilities and medical conditions, I have heard from clients with compromised motor control, those with low vision, and those with distal neuropathies that they do experience a harder time plugging in their devices nowadays»[0]
Why didn't they they work with the other actors to create a common standard 13 years ago? You know why, because they don't care about their users! And they even tried to stop the move to a standard many years later when the lightning connectors were outdated, making it even more clear.
Proprietary, and for the first half of its run, they were insanely expensive. Thin flimsy, always breaking. Short by default. They got nasty and stained quickly.
Over the years, third party cheap ones were risky. May damage port or device.
Has a stupid chip in the connector so people can't easily replicate it like a USB cable.
It was the purest example of proprietary capture in an age where the "The correct universal port" has been around for decades. The massive irony is not missed on me as they used USB mouses and keyboards to engineer a step backwards.
There's things I like about Apple, but I could never bring myself to defend the lightning cable.
> ... security firm gets a chip on their shoulder, they can install a persistent backdoor on your phone...
But a random developer can't exfiltrate my data, which is the WAY WAY more common scenario that the previous poster was worried about.
I agree with them. The Apple App Store prevents a lot more malware than the ability to install ANY software. I like the Mac App Store as well, its a large library of software that is virtually guaranteed to be safe from infecting your computer with a virus.
Now, I know how to sideload onto my iPhone, I have homebrew on my MBP, but my brother/sister doesn't, my aunt can't, my uncle assumed his phone was facebook, and they are safer (from viruses) for it. Make installing viruses harder!
I spent decades as the de facto IT person in my family, and when iPhone and Android came around, family members started buying MacBooks, my load got lightened a LOT.
Well, Apple will have to redesign their security model, then. If the iPhone relies on Apple's white-glove curation to stay secure, then European users are enough of a reason to overhaul their security model.
It's great that you know how to sideload, I'm not saying everyone has to know how. I'm arguing that the option should exist regardless of if you pay for a $99/year subscription fee. It should be a part of owning the hardware you paid for and purchasing the right to control it as the user.
We are not buddies. And I am not confused enough to believe NSO Group would be interested in me. This is plain paranoia you are using to try to win an argument. Calm down. Besides, where is the competitive harm if you are so happy with your Android? Look, I am happy with Apple doing some basic things to make the device relatively safe. I know nothing is absolutely safe. And again, I am not high profile, and I am also not paranoid.
> Your security is nonexistent unless you disable iMessage and JS in Safari, even then Uncle Sam has Five Eyes watching your every move for any traces of "terrorist" support.
Your security is non-existed until you've established a realistic threat model. And if it includes targeted surveillance by nation-state actors, you've got bigger OPSEC problems than just your phone.
You never needed speeds in excess of usb 2.0? LOL, this is such old hat, guys in IBM t-shirts telling me how nobody ever needed more than 64K, and why go third party with your treasured computation when you can get the best, the infallible, the International Business Machine?
In the 15 years that I use iPhones now, I never needed the USB port for any data transfer except for one time when I used an external sound card to record things. Maybe I am a simpleton when it comes to mobile. I guess I deserve being LOLed at.
Apple didn't continue to iterate on Lightning because of the obvious future migration to USB-C connectors.
I will die on the hill that the Lightning plug is superior to the USB-C plug. Lightning could some day have supported USB-3.2+ speeds, if they'd chosen to work further on it.
Still, I have never once transferred data to my iPhone over a USB cable. I have used an iPhone since the first generation. For me, it has only ever been a means to charge the phone and to connect it to CarPlay. With wireless CarPlay and MagSafe charging, they could remove the port and I wouldn't miss it all that much (except for fast charging).
Agreed. I really miss lightning after getting a usb-c iPhone.
The best part of lightning port was how easy it is to clean. You can get lint and sawdust out of the clogged port with a toothpick. With usb-c, I can’t find a rigid non-metallic pick small enough to clean dust out of a usb-c port.
Apple was already well under way on their USB-C transition. They literally shipped the first all-USB-C laptop in 2015. Not the first Apple laptop. The first laptop full stop. The iPad Pro switched to USB-C from Lightning in 2018. Every year since, fewer and fewer devices released with Lightning and more and more with USB-C.
If you need more evidence, literally just consider that Apple never bothered to invest further in Lightning. There were no further speed bumps. No updates in the USB protocol version supported. Even charging, USB-A to Lightning has been capped at a pitiful 12W. Does this seem like the behavior of a company that wants to stay on Lightning?
The iPhone would undoubtably have been USB-C in a generation or two even without the EU’s involvement.
I've had tremendous trouble trying to get my iPhone SE to show up as a USB device. Never did figure it out, but the macOS app iMazing has served me well as a workaround.
Apple is choosing to limit USB C to USB 2 speeds to encourage people pay for a more expensive model. The iPhone 16 pro max has USB 3 speeds after all...
For iPhones "Max" is basically irrelevant when it comes to SoC specs; the phones are differentiated by whether they are "Pro" or not. The Pro (and Pro Max) support faster speeds, and the regular iPhones do not.
Op specifically called out “Max”. Most people would find that technically incorrect. But go ahead and draw lines in the sand wherever you wish if it makes you feel like you’re winning an argument.
I gave the max as an example. I did not say it was the only model that could get USB 3 speeds so you are "technically incorrect" and just want to win the argument.
The two models combined account for half of all iPhone sales. And nobody refers to them as anything but iPhones.
It is not just technically wrong to say “the iPhone doesn’t support a thing” when it the statement only applies to a fraction of the product line and actual user experience.
Thanks Apple, for switching connectors on your mobile devices once in 25 years and enforcing standards on 3p peripheral and cable manufacturers, until a government forced you to change making me throw all my cables away.
I specifically liked the lightning cable and the App Store. I had no problem getting lightning cables for a fair price, and I have no problem finding all the applications I need on my iOS devices. Compared with the sewer that is the Play Store, the App Store is a breath of fresh air.
Walled gardens are not inherently bad. I DO thank Apple for the App Store. It’s half the reason I have an iPhone. I WANT to be able to download any stupid thing in there without a care in the world re: viruses or other damaging experiences.
This is not to say every aspect of their walled garden is good, but I’m more than happy to accept those problems in light of the benefits I personally value.
This is all to say: it’s not much of an argument to point out that one of their selling points is an aspect of their ecosystem! I don’t think you’ll get through to anyone who doesn’t already agree with you.
I never understand this viewpoint — I understand what you're saying but there's no advantage to this over the Play Store model on Android.
You can have the walled garden, and also not restrict people's freedom — on Android I'm sure the number of people that use any other store than the play store or even side load apps are vanishingly small.
To even be able to do it you have to enable it deep in the settings. And even then, if a new app tries to install an apk you have to manually approve that app's ability to do that before reinitiating the entire process.
That's to say, the default experience is very wall gardened, and I do feel somewhat more protected when downloading something from the play store than not, and the vast majority of people will never leave the Google walled garden. But there exists a way to go around that walled garden when you need to, and that doesn't subtract from that walled garden mode in any way IMO.
For myself, the point is that I don't have to download another app store ever. If fortnite wants to get me (and roughly 50% of US mobile users) to play their game, they _have_ to follow the rules of the app store we have decided suits us best. If, however, other app stores are allowed, then there are no rules. No gatekeeper.
> I WANT to be able to download any stupid thing in there without a care in the world re: viruses or other damaging experiences.
The Apple ios app store is positively chock full of spyware. You can’t download apps without a care in the world. This is why Apple put a privacy label on the apps (which is still woefully inadequate; it is self-reported).
The permissions alerts don’t come from the App Store, they come from sandboxing and the permission model. This is a property of the OS, and everyone agrees that this is better than the anarchy of desktop OSs. But they were created decades earlier, sandboxing was obvious in hindsight only.
> surely any "spyware" on the app store is going to include a ton of permissions alerts when it does anything?
Not really. Push notifications is enough. I can send you a push notification and get loads of details from your phone, including cross-app fingerprinting. Iirc Apple allows ~3 silent push notifications per hour so they can be completely hidden.
But really, your search is as good as mine. The entire digital economy is based on personal data collected from your devices, and yes, that includes the iPhone. How is this news? What’s your definition of spyware?
> You can thank Apple for the Lightning connector and App Store too
The App Store was an absolute revolution for mobile app developers. It is hard to overstate how much of an improvement it was over the status quo. People are complaining about Apple taking a 30% cut; it used to be that the operators took a 70% cut. Not for hosting an app store, no, just for sending the reverse-billing SMS message with the install link. You had to host it yourself, there was no store so you had to advertise your app to make it discoverable. You had to arrange (and pay for) a shortcode and SMS provider for every single country you wanted to sell in. You had to write and host code to handle the incoming message on the shortcode and respond with a RB-SMS.
Next to that, the SDK’s were absolute dogshit, phone manufacturers didn’t give a shit about apps and the phones themselves were riddled with bugs (with the notable exception of SonyEricsson, their J2ME environment was excellent). Symbian was a PITA to develop for, BlackBerry was actively developer-hostile (unless you happened to be a Fortune-500 company). Samsung phones were an absolute disaster, every single phone model had a unique set of bugs you had to find workarounds for.
So in comes Apple, they charge only 30% and for that you get a nice SDK, an App Store that distributes your app, makes it discoverable and handles payments worldwide with zero extra effort. We were thrilled when they announced it, and rightfully so.
Google then followed suit with the Play Store, effectively matching what Apple was doing.
So yeah, Apple deserves some thanks for what they did with the App Store.
You’re not required to sell software through the App Store on macOS either. The App Store complaints are only relevant on mobile, which has always been a completely different market.
They did move to USB-C, but the lightning connector was actually a great product, far superior in usability to the Micro-USB, Mini-USB, and whatever other nonsense standards that existed. When Apple wanted to move to USB-C people complained about them "changing standards all the time". There really isn't a move that pleases everyone and even when they do the "right" thing people still complain lol.
> App Store too, for all the good it does everyone in the EU
The Apple App Store is pretty great. There's a large, vocal minority of folks that want changes there, but they also aren't the ones that have to deal with grandma and grandpa doing crazy stuff. If you want another App Store just by an Android phone since that's a feature they offer. Kind of like if I wanted a phone with a larger megapixel camera or something I'd buy something else.
>Apple charging cables, such as the Lightning to USB Cable, are easily prone to fraying. Most commonly, this fraying occurs from device usage while charging.
This has nothing to do with the plug though, its just the material they make their cables out of. Nothing is inherently different about USB-C that will stop this
But the licensing fees effectively introduced a price floor onto lightning cables. Apple's implementation having issues is a problem because other manufacturers could produce a very cheap alternative, but they would be unable to sell it a low cost due to having to pay the licensing fees.
I have a grandma and grandpa and I deal with their devices directly. I’m want an iPhone that lets me do more and I can set up (with their consent, of course) a more limited experience for them. Their phones currently have purchases turned off, for example, because they have a set of apps they need and there’s no reason for new apps, because even with the App Store not all of them are actually good enough to have on their phones.
I've heard it all before, both of these are simple to refute. Apple designed the USB-C connector, they knew it was an option. But as is Apple tradition, they created a new licensed serial and power connector specifically for their phones to promote MFi, their arbitrary USB DRM. Apple could have switched to USB-C at any time; they had no issue shipping millions of peripherals and Macs with them onboard. But they didn't, because then they couldn't foist a proprietary standard onto their most lucrative submarket.
> If you want another App Store just by an Android phone since that's a feature they offer.
Sorry, this is bullshit. Alternative sources for installing software will always exist, even current iPhone users have to accept Cydia as an option. You don't ever have to leave the Apple App Store, but your preference has no right to enforce an artificial limitation onto other users. The Mac as a product would not exist without third-party software distribution, the iPhone is undeniably stifled by Apple's stance on the matter.
Lightning development started in 2008 as I was there!
USB-C development started in 2012 (I was not there!), but from wiki, the ever helpful source of truth: "The design for the USB-C connector was initially developed in 2012 by Intel, HP Inc., Microsoft, and the USB Implementers Forum. The Type-C Specification 1.0 was published by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) on August 11, 2014.[1] In July 2016, it was adopted by the IEC as "IEC 62680-1-3".[3]"
I not sure of the logic here, but Lightning solved a problem way before USB-C existed and I'm sure, led to support of USB-C standards such as reversible connectors etc...
> You don't ever have to leave the Apple App Store, but your preference has no right to enforce an artificial limitation onto other users.
So... just buy an Android? This is not an artificial limitation, it's an express preference that the vast majority of iOS users have voted for.
> The Mac as a product would not exist without third-party software distribution
The Mac is a completely different product servicing a completely different set of needs. Nobody is asking for the iPhone to be able to run Node or Vim so they can do their work, they want to scroll Instagram and reply to their iMessage
I'm sure if it was really that much of an unmet need, Apple would be jumping out of their skin to go and build it and thus rake in the billions of unrealised revenue that must be out there
But they're not, so I'm continue to assume they know what they're doing. Again, go buy an Android if that's what you want
The EU was created to integrate and unify social security, pension systems, welfare states, and, ultimately, politics and policy—both foreign and domestic.
I couldn’t care less about Apple’s case, but the fact that this is being touted as the EU’s biggest achievement in decades says a lot about why Europeans don’t like the EU.
