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What he means is, having a proprietary connector means they can milk accessory makers with licensing fees.
by pipodeclown 3y ago
What he means is, having a proprietary connector means they can milk accessory makers with licensing fees.
- Gigachad 3y agoWhat accessory makers? The only thing lightning is used for these days is charging. I can’t imagine that charging cables is a huge money spinner for apple.
- withinboredom 3y agoHere's a few accessories I can think of: - headphones - displays - "gas station" chargers (for when you leave yours at home and just need something cheap) - memory card readers These are just the ones I own.
- Gigachad 3y agoOther than charging cables, none of those are the average person uses on an iphone. The ipads now all use usb c. I cant imagine Apple would be risking huge fines for the EU for the 10 people who plug SD cards in to their phone.
- sschueller 3y agoI assume the large car makers are paying apple a huge amount to be able to install lightning cable adapters in the cars.
- sircastor 3y agoThey’re not. In fact I’ve never seen a lightning port on a non-Apple device. The other end of the cable is either USB-A or USB-C. And Apple is pushing for new vehicles to use CarPlay wirelessly anyway.
- oxfordmale 3y agoIt is not the charging cables, but the actual chargers itself. They are eye watering expensive if you buy them from Apple directly. Amazon and eBay are flooded with fakes that can be life threateningly dangerous. I can see why some people prefer to buy from Apple rather than figuring out what brands are actually not going to burn your house down.
- Gigachad 3y agoI just had a look. The charging bricks they use are USB-C (the phones come with a lightning to C cable now) and cost $30 AUD. That seems very cheap.
- oxfordmale 3y agoVersus $0 for all the chargers I have collected over the years.
- Gigachad 3y agoUse those then? They all work on the iPhone
- Dylan16807 3y agoGoodbye goalposts.
- andyjohnson0 3y agoGood point re dangerous fakes, but I wonder how persuasive it is in practice. Ive occasionally seen teardowns of fire-risk power blocks on hn, but (genuine question, because idk) is that a mainstream concern?
- oxfordmale 3y agoI bought a 100W Apple MacBook charger from Amazon. After using it for a few hours, it has a burnt smell. I can't be the only one that experienced this.
- andyjohnson0 3y agoI get that. But I've always struggled to believe that revenue from licencing or direct sales of Lightning connectors is that big a deal to Apple. I think their insistence on using their own connector is more about product differentiation and lock-in than about revenue and performance.
- drexlspivey 3y agoWhy do the new ipads have USB-C then?
- bonzini 3y agoBecause they want you to be able to use external USB docking stations. Lightning doesn't interoperate with external displays.