5 ms·

iPhone 15’s shift to USB-C

55 points by jamiegreen 3y ago

gareth_untether 3y ago
And help the environment!
mensetmanusman 3y ago
It also has the potential to be quite confusing. There will almost certainly be some laptops that attempt to charge themselves from the iPhone battery depending on which of the 10 versions of USB-C are being implemented. Will all the counterfeit usb-c cables also cause a bunch of confusion when features don’t work? Will plugging in your phone at the airport be less of a risk?
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  Legit concerns. But for what % of Apple iPhone owners do they apply? For the majority of uses a majority of the time a standard connector is better than non-standard one. Let's just pop the champagne, toast the win, and move on.
  - alwayslikethis 3y ago
    I wish USB C has a way of determining charging direction. This is often annoying when you try to use phones as power banks. Would be nice if some type C cables can be directional, i.e. preferentially charging in one direction if at all possible.
- bearjaws 3y ago
  Apple will gladly sell you a 100% compatible cable for $20, just like they do with lightning.
  - knallfrosch 3y ago
    Which is a fair offer if you don't have to research USB-C for 2 days just to then order the wrong cable anyway.
    - mikeweiss 3y ago
      I'm a Google Pixel user that's been using USB C to charge my phone, laptops and other devices/accessories for years now and I've never run into this issue before. It just works.
      - Renaud 3y ago
        Charging is rarely an issue. At worse you will charge at 5V/1A=5W as it’s the common minimum that any USB cable with basically just 2 wires connected will provide. So any crappy USB cable will ´work’ for charging, and it’s transparent enough that you won’t really notice in most case.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > Will all the counterfeit usb-c cables also cause a bunch of confusion when features don’t work? Only if Apple adds MFi-style DRM like they did with Lightning. Otherwise, the only real "features" that could possibly break is data/charging, which is a problem on most serial cables (including Lightning).
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  > which of the 10 versions of USB-C are being implemented The only charging differences between cables are raising the current limit above the default 3 amps (which is only relevant at 60+ watts). Those differences won't confuse any devices.
- josteink 3y ago
  > There will almost certainly be some laptops that attempt to charge themselves from the iPhone battery depending on which of the 10 versions of USB-C are being implemented. It’s not like there are 100s of phones out there with a USB-C connector we can try this on already? ;)
chiefalchemist 3y ago
> The idea of a pocketable thin client model of computing where you basically take your PC with you wherever you go, and plug it into accessories including displays and input devices that can work with any wherever you need, has been around for a long time. But an iPhone 15 sporting a full-featured USB-C port with the capabilities of the latest Thunderbolt spec has no technical barriers toward making it actually happen. So in theory someone can make an iPad sized touchscreen that connects to your iPhone via USB-C and you'd have no need for an iPad? Or course such a screen could be shared within a household, etc. Desktop in my pocket would be fan-fn-tastic, obviously. But even a simple larger (than my phone) touchscreen would be a handy step forward.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  > So in theory someone can make an iPad sized touchscreen that connects to your iPhone via USB-C and you'd have no need for an iPad? Or course such a screen could be shared within a household, etc. I have a non touch screen monitor similar to this - power and video over a single USB C port. It works with both my personal Macbook and my work Windows computer. It should work with an iPad Pro with USB C. https://a.co/d/2D0bbh5 https://a.co/d/2D0bbh5
  - chiefalchemist 3y ago
    Yeah I have a small backpackable external screen as well. But if it could do touch then my phone can act as tablet. My use case would be reading ebooks.
input_sh 3y ago
How does the author make the logical leap from "it'll use Type C" to "it'll have Samsung DeX equivalent"? I think it's too much of a gimmick for Apple to even try, plus Apple is really not known for giving a damn about making their products work well with third-party peripherals.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  As much as I want to like things like dex, I always find myself thinking that the real world application isn't really any better than carrying around a laptop.
  - wredue 3y ago
    Yeah. In a normal work day on a brand new i7 w/ 32 gigs of ram, I would say I get frustrated by the computer not doing what I tell it to in a decent timeframe more than a few times a day. Now we’re saying “hey, let’s take a slower device with even slower pieces of shit applications on a foundation that worse at multi-window multitasking and make it what people use” I’d probably blow my own brains out if this actually happened. The technology is there for this to be usable. The dogshit development practice of “well, the hardware will catch up to my dogshit eventually” is meaning that “the technology isn’t there”. Edit: Case in point. This very laptop just spent 15 MINUTES cold boot till it allowed me to join my Teams meeting. Granted the phone will stay on, so wouldn’t run in to cold boot issues. But also, I don’t want my work phone on all the time. That’s just letting work invade my personal time.
    - _ea1k 3y ago
      Honestly, I played around with a desktop environment with Termux on a Pixel 5. I was shocked at how decent it was. I could see a new iPhone performing pretty well. With enough RAM, it'd be decent for a lot of people. But it'd always have the unavoidable downside of meaning that your phone was effectively tethered (even if just wirelessly) to your desktop. And at that point, why not just have a decent CPU in the desktop? I guess it'd work well in a world where you constantly traveled between workstations and also couldn't bring your laptop. I've never lived in that world.
BrentOzar 3y ago
If Apple wanted to make the iPhone a computer replacement, and all that was holding them back was USB-C, they would have added it in a long time ago. They didn’t. They waited until the EU made them switch to USB-C.
- abhinavk 3y ago
  They don't even want to make iPad a computer replacement. Half of the models have a M-class chip powering them.
- bloppe 3y ago
  I would argue their main motivation for keeping iOS separate from MacOS is that it's much more locked down. If they were to try to merge the two, they would either have to give up a sizeable portion of revenue from their app store and advertising monopolies on iOS, or handicap MacOS making it much less competitive with laptops that actually treat you like the owner of your own hardware. But if the EU is successful at tearing down a few more of the iOS garden walls, Apple may start to think convergence is a good idea.
matt3210 3y ago
Looking forward to throwing away all my lightning cables /sarcasm
- jvm___ 3y ago
  Looking forward to the thrift stores full of audio docks with lightning cables. All the fat ipod plug ones are still around.
rffn 3y ago
Apple would cannibalize their computer and iPad sales if they were supporting the thin client model like Samsung DeX. See how they already avoid cannibalization of the iPhone business by preventing the iPad to make phone calls. They protect their product lines from each other. As much as I like to see such a feature, I don’t think Apple will ever give it to us.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
  I would love a tablet that could work as a phone and do calls and texts. Do any good ones exist?
- kalleboo 3y ago
  Which is a very sad conclusion because Steve Jobs was very explicit that they had to cannibalize their own products or someone else would.
  - eviks 3y ago
    There are things people say and then there are things people do
    - kalleboo 3y ago
      Steve Jobs is dead.
      - trompetenaccoun 3y ago
        What the user probably means is that just because he said this publicly doesn't mean he meant it. Steve Jobs was great at marketing and was well informed on what potential buyers wanted to hear.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    SJ said a lot of things. There is nothing courageous about cannibalizing an iPod that had an average selling price of $200 and a much smaller market with a phone that is three times more expensive
tapoxi 3y ago
>An iPhone that’s able to project something more like iPadOS (or, ideally, but not definitely wishful thinking on my part — macOS) when connected to a screen could easily replace a laptop for probably a significant portion of the population, including for casual computing, and for the work tasks of the bulk of the knowledge workforce. No, it wouldn't, because you'd need a display and input device(s) at your destination. So then we ended up with these laptop-style shells for Android and Windows Phone devices that supported this model and suddenly you can't use your phone separately while you're in laptop mode. It's easier to just bring a laptop/Chromebook with you. There's no need for the device's local storage when you're already syncing important documents to the cloud anyway. This is a "cool" solution in search of a problem.
- nsonha 3y ago
  The problem is having too many devices. Most people should just need a phone that can also serve as a personal computer. A personal laptop is a hassle, remember we already have a work computer provided by our employers
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    > remember we already have a work computer provided by our employers What a ridiculous and privileged thing to say. Most people do not, in fact, have a computer provided by their employer.
    - nsonha 3y ago
      Even if they don't they shouldn't be forced to choose between buying yet another computer they rarely use and doing personal things on a laptop where they also do important works.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    I rarely open my personal laptop anymore. Maybe once a month? I don’t really do computer-tinkering as a hobby, these days. I have a windows desktop for games, but zero important things happen on it (I mean—it’s Windows). Just games. It’s not logged into any non-gaming accounts at all. Important personal stuff’s all on my phone. Hell, I basically bought my last house entirely from my phone, including the paperwork, and that was a few years ago. Adding a laptop to the mix wouldn’t have helped. House projects? Phone is several tools for those, laptop’s useless. Banking? Family photos and videos? Notes, alarms, shopping lists, timers, calendar, email, messaging? Document scanning, sending stuff to the printer? Shopping? Ride hailing? Reservations and tickets? Phone. There’s little room or need for a laptop. And I grew up pre-smartphone (hell, didn’t have the Internet at all until I was like 12) so I was well-accustomed to using desktop computers in the before-time.
xwdv 3y ago
As a computer enthusiast I don’t want a desktop in my pocket. I want big heavy rigs, that simply have to be big to do the kind of computing I want to do. I’m not looking for a thin client.
- Firaxus 3y ago
  As another computer enthusiast, why not both? I have a pretty beefy rig, but I’d also like to leverage the full compute on my iphone/ipad. If the software wasn’t locked down, the hardware would be more than competitive with the laptop my job provides me. And having an ipad as a full compute device would have been perfect for my university days; the small programming assignments I had would have been perfect to develop on that form factor (ipad + small bluetooth keyboard, together thinner than most laptops).
dist-epoch 3y ago
Why does this read like an Onion article?
ballenf 3y ago
Apple will take the approach theorized here when it can be done wirelessly. Bring your phone close to a "Magic Monitor" and the desktop experience starts instantly. The change of plug shape is irrelevant to whether this paradigm shift happens inside Apple, but Apple is better positioned than any other device maker to accomplish it if they focused on it.
- dirtsoc 3y ago
  Is apple wireless carplay the precursor to this?
- layer8 3y ago
  Why would they do this if they can sell you a more expensive iMac instead? Plus the iCloud subscription to sync all your data between the two?
camillomiller 3y ago
I have been covering similar features for 10 years now. While everyone somehow cheers hard about them on paper, in practice their usage is non-existent. Convergence is not gonna happen, users do not seem interested at all in this type of crossover use-case. Samsung and Motorola’s solution have been around for a while and they’re a testament to that. Lenovo now has even a feature that lets you have access to a Windows 11 Cloud PC via ThinkPhone if you’re a business or corporate user. The use case scenario is there, but apparently it’s just not as compelling to actual users as it seems made out to be. That’s why Apple is not gonna allow anything like that to happen on an iPhone.
PrimeMcFly 3y ago
The forced shift to USB-C is indisputably a win for consumers. Well done EU. The strangest thing has been all the people whining and claiming this stifles innovation. It doesn't.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Seeing that when the EU first wanted this they wanted to force everyone to use micro USB, what happens when someone wants to invent a better standard?
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    The legislation gets amended. Simple. Ideally, the legislation gets amended to that there can be a review process every X amount of years.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      Wow, now we have to wait on legislators to set standards, in the hypothetical scenario, how long would it have taken them to move from Micro USB to USB C. I am so surprised that people are okay with letting slow moving legislators set technological directions.
      - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
        Always a worst case scenario with you people. If the legislation denoted a review board then it could be as fast moving as need be.
        scarface_74 3y ago
        Why would we ever think that the government moves slower than tech companies and is down right ignorant when it comes to technology and the trade offs and unintended consequences when it comes to technology?
    - msie 3y ago
theodric 3y ago
B.S. If this was going to happen, why didn't it already happen a decade+ ago on the overwhelming-dominant mobile platform, Android? Especially given that the technology existed in a complete, commercially-available consumer platform no later than 2011? https://www.cnet.com/reviews/motorola-laptop-dock-review/ https://www.cnet.com/reviews/motorola-laptop-dock-review/
antirez 3y ago
Illogical association of ideas. It will be an iPhone with the USB-C connector to charge it. Stop.
nocsi 3y ago
Odd, because Apples already implemented a thin client on iPhones, it’s called CarPlay. It can work over usb or Wi-Fi. Otherwise I don’t see apple ever allowing a device to be a one stop. If they were going for that then it obsoletes stuff like handoff and universal control. But really, why do people actually want this? If you’re using your phone for work then it’ll probably have to be domain joined. Then at that point your employer has eyes into the one device you use for everything
behnamoh 3y ago
I hope the EU presses Apple to adopt other standards as well. (e.g., file format. It's ridiculous that you can't just drag and drop a picture from your photos library as a Gmail attachment because the format would be HEIC).
- Firaxus 3y ago
  I’m pretty sure there’s a setting in ios as to the default file format for photos? And jpeg is an option? Just checked - it’s under “camera - formats - most compatible”.
sahin 3y ago
I believe that with the iPhone 15 adopting USB-C, it will pave the way for a more streamlined integration of USB-C power adapters across almost all electronic categories. The shift towards USB-C as the go-to power and data connector for a plethora of electronic devices has been on the rise in recent years. We will have one cable for so many things. Finally....
livinglist 3y ago
Finally, less charging cables to carry while traveling.
- kalupa 3y ago
  just gotta replace all the old lightning cables along the way. sadly, I won't be able to stop carrying something to charge my AirPods using usb-c, yet
msie 3y ago
I think the USB-C cable will make little to no difference for the majority of Apple users out there. I hate how the EU has coerced Apple to make this change.
- rideontime 3y ago
  I think the USB-C cable will make a big difference for me. I love how the EU has coerced Apple to make this change.
dang 3y ago
Related ongoing thread: iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37485290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37485290
rich_sasha 3y ago
Why on Earth would you make a phone out of Titanium? I mean, yes, hard, shiny, expensive... but just seems so wasteful.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  Lightweight and durable. That’s why people love titanium. You wanna make a big rectangle that is super thin and costs thousands of dollars and you’re gonna have to concern yourself with frame flex. The original XL iPhones had a bending problem. Whatever structural member they eventually designed in to solve that, it’s going to be some amount of thinner, lighter, stronger when made with titanium. As far as wasteful - sort of. Titanium metal isn’t particularly rare, it’s just bound up in ore that takes an extremely energy intensive process to convert to usable material. That’s the Kroll method, invented 80 years ago to refine titanium. There’s actually a new process called the Armstrong method which is way simpler and less capital and energy intensive. In a very real sense, Apple investing in titanium is exactly what we need to push down the cost of refining and fabricating with the metal. Aluminum used to be more precious than gold, and then 150 years ago scientists figured out how to cheaply refine aluminum. Now we use aluminum for everything from cheap bottle openers and bike frames to disposable containers and Martian rover parts. I learned about all of the above over the last 10 years as an engineering nerd. I’ve long been awaiting the day when the Armstrong process is the norm and titanium costs are super low. However that process creates powder, so this might also require low cost titanium 3D printers. All I know is investment can bring down these costs, and I’m glad to see apple doing it! Bonus: these department of energy videos on the comically complex Kroll process[1] and the super simple Armstrong process[2]: [1] https://youtu.be/oWyrzZh3We0?si=OdRTu6crob-PVkLJ https://youtu.be/oWyrzZh3We0?si=OdRTu6crob-PVkLJ [2] https://youtu.be/73HLzYuIfx0?si=dRwfraPivcKyCA6U https://youtu.be/73HLzYuIfx0?si=dRwfraPivcKyCA6U
  - rcarr 3y ago
    This post and these videos were awesome, thanks!

55 points by jamiegreen 3y ago

And help the environment!

It also has the potential to be quite confusing. There will almost certainly be some laptops that attempt to charge themselves from the iPhone battery depending on which of the 10 versions of USB-C are being implemented. Will all the counterfeit usb-c cables also cause a bunch of confusion when features don’t work? Will plugging in your phone at the airport be less of a risk?

chiefalchemist 3y ago
Legit concerns. But for what % of Apple iPhone owners do they apply? For the majority of uses a majority of the time a standard connector is better than non-standard one. Let's just pop the champagne, toast the win, and move on.
- alwayslikethis 3y ago
  I wish USB C has a way of determining charging direction. This is often annoying when you try to use phones as power banks. Would be nice if some type C cables can be directional, i.e. preferentially charging in one direction if at all possible.
bearjaws 3y ago
Apple will gladly sell you a 100% compatible cable for $20, just like they do with lightning.
- knallfrosch 3y ago
  Which is a fair offer if you don't have to research USB-C for 2 days just to then order the wrong cable anyway.
  - mikeweiss 3y ago
    I'm a Google Pixel user that's been using USB C to charge my phone, laptops and other devices/accessories for years now and I've never run into this issue before. It just works.
    - Renaud 3y ago
      Charging is rarely an issue. At worse you will charge at 5V/1A=5W as it’s the common minimum that any USB cable with basically just 2 wires connected will provide. So any crappy USB cable will ´work’ for charging, and it’s transparent enough that you won’t really notice in most case.
smoldesu 3y ago
> Will all the counterfeit usb-c cables also cause a bunch of confusion when features don’t work? Only if Apple adds MFi-style DRM like they did with Lightning. Otherwise, the only real "features" that could possibly break is data/charging, which is a problem on most serial cables (including Lightning).
Dylan16807 3y ago
> which of the 10 versions of USB-C are being implemented The only charging differences between cables are raising the current limit above the default 3 amps (which is only relevant at 60+ watts). Those differences won't confuse any devices.
josteink 3y ago
> There will almost certainly be some laptops that attempt to charge themselves from the iPhone battery depending on which of the 10 versions of USB-C are being implemented. It’s not like there are 100s of phones out there with a USB-C connector we can try this on already? ;)

chiefalchemist 3y ago

> The idea of a pocketable thin client model of computing where you basically take your PC with you wherever you go, and plug it into accessories including displays and input devices that can work with any wherever you need, has been around for a long time. But an iPhone 15 sporting a full-featured USB-C port with the capabilities of the latest Thunderbolt spec has no technical barriers toward making it actually happen. So in theory someone can make an iPad sized touchscreen that connects to your iPhone via USB-C and you'd have no need for an iPad? Or course such a screen could be shared within a household, etc. Desktop in my pocket would be fan-fn-tastic, obviously. But even a simple larger (than my phone) touchscreen would be a handy step forward.

scarface_74 3y ago
> So in theory someone can make an iPad sized touchscreen that connects to your iPhone via USB-C and you'd have no need for an iPad? Or course such a screen could be shared within a household, etc. I have a non touch screen monitor similar to this - power and video over a single USB C port. It works with both my personal Macbook and my work Windows computer. It should work with an iPad Pro with USB C. https://a.co/d/2D0bbh5 https://a.co/d/2D0bbh5
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  Yeah I have a small backpackable external screen as well. But if it could do touch then my phone can act as tablet. My use case would be reading ebooks.

input_sh 3y ago

How does the author make the logical leap from "it'll use Type C" to "it'll have Samsung DeX equivalent"? I think it's too much of a gimmick for Apple to even try, plus Apple is really not known for giving a damn about making their products work well with third-party peripherals.

_ea1k 3y ago
As much as I want to like things like dex, I always find myself thinking that the real world application isn't really any better than carrying around a laptop.
- wredue 3y ago
  Yeah. In a normal work day on a brand new i7 w/ 32 gigs of ram, I would say I get frustrated by the computer not doing what I tell it to in a decent timeframe more than a few times a day. Now we’re saying “hey, let’s take a slower device with even slower pieces of shit applications on a foundation that worse at multi-window multitasking and make it what people use” I’d probably blow my own brains out if this actually happened. The technology is there for this to be usable. The dogshit development practice of “well, the hardware will catch up to my dogshit eventually” is meaning that “the technology isn’t there”. Edit: Case in point. This very laptop just spent 15 MINUTES cold boot till it allowed me to join my Teams meeting. Granted the phone will stay on, so wouldn’t run in to cold boot issues. But also, I don’t want my work phone on all the time. That’s just letting work invade my personal time.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    Honestly, I played around with a desktop environment with Termux on a Pixel 5. I was shocked at how decent it was. I could see a new iPhone performing pretty well. With enough RAM, it'd be decent for a lot of people. But it'd always have the unavoidable downside of meaning that your phone was effectively tethered (even if just wirelessly) to your desktop. And at that point, why not just have a decent CPU in the desktop? I guess it'd work well in a world where you constantly traveled between workstations and also couldn't bring your laptop. I've never lived in that world.

BrentOzar 3y ago

If Apple wanted to make the iPhone a computer replacement, and all that was holding them back was USB-C, they would have added it in a long time ago. They didn’t. They waited until the EU made them switch to USB-C.

abhinavk 3y ago
They don't even want to make iPad a computer replacement. Half of the models have a M-class chip powering them.
bloppe 3y ago
I would argue their main motivation for keeping iOS separate from MacOS is that it's much more locked down. If they were to try to merge the two, they would either have to give up a sizeable portion of revenue from their app store and advertising monopolies on iOS, or handicap MacOS making it much less competitive with laptops that actually treat you like the owner of your own hardware. But if the EU is successful at tearing down a few more of the iOS garden walls, Apple may start to think convergence is a good idea.

matt3210 3y ago

Looking forward to throwing away all my lightning cables /sarcasm

jvm___ 3y ago
Looking forward to the thrift stores full of audio docks with lightning cables. All the fat ipod plug ones are still around.

rffn 3y ago

Apple would cannibalize their computer and iPad sales if they were supporting the thin client model like Samsung DeX. See how they already avoid cannibalization of the iPhone business by preventing the iPad to make phone calls. They protect their product lines from each other. As much as I like to see such a feature, I don’t think Apple will ever give it to us.

Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
I would love a tablet that could work as a phone and do calls and texts. Do any good ones exist?
kalleboo 3y ago
Which is a very sad conclusion because Steve Jobs was very explicit that they had to cannibalize their own products or someone else would.
- eviks 3y ago
  There are things people say and then there are things people do
  - kalleboo 3y ago
    Steve Jobs is dead.
    - trompetenaccoun 3y ago
      What the user probably means is that just because he said this publicly doesn't mean he meant it. Steve Jobs was great at marketing and was well informed on what potential buyers wanted to hear.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  SJ said a lot of things. There is nothing courageous about cannibalizing an iPod that had an average selling price of $200 and a much smaller market with a phone that is three times more expensive

tapoxi 3y ago

>An iPhone that’s able to project something more like iPadOS (or, ideally, but not definitely wishful thinking on my part — macOS) when connected to a screen could easily replace a laptop for probably a significant portion of the population, including for casual computing, and for the work tasks of the bulk of the knowledge workforce. No, it wouldn't, because you'd need a display and input device(s) at your destination. So then we ended up with these laptop-style shells for Android and Windows Phone devices that supported this model and suddenly you can't use your phone separately while you're in laptop mode. It's easier to just bring a laptop/Chromebook with you. There's no need for the device's local storage when you're already syncing important documents to the cloud anyway. This is a "cool" solution in search of a problem.

nsonha 3y ago
The problem is having too many devices. Most people should just need a phone that can also serve as a personal computer. A personal laptop is a hassle, remember we already have a work computer provided by our employers
- edgyquant 3y ago
  > remember we already have a work computer provided by our employers What a ridiculous and privileged thing to say. Most people do not, in fact, have a computer provided by their employer.
  - nsonha 3y ago
    Even if they don't they shouldn't be forced to choose between buying yet another computer they rarely use and doing personal things on a laptop where they also do important works.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  I rarely open my personal laptop anymore. Maybe once a month? I don’t really do computer-tinkering as a hobby, these days. I have a windows desktop for games, but zero important things happen on it (I mean—it’s Windows). Just games. It’s not logged into any non-gaming accounts at all. Important personal stuff’s all on my phone. Hell, I basically bought my last house entirely from my phone, including the paperwork, and that was a few years ago. Adding a laptop to the mix wouldn’t have helped. House projects? Phone is several tools for those, laptop’s useless. Banking? Family photos and videos? Notes, alarms, shopping lists, timers, calendar, email, messaging? Document scanning, sending stuff to the printer? Shopping? Ride hailing? Reservations and tickets? Phone. There’s little room or need for a laptop. And I grew up pre-smartphone (hell, didn’t have the Internet at all until I was like 12) so I was well-accustomed to using desktop computers in the before-time.

xwdv 3y ago

As a computer enthusiast I don’t want a desktop in my pocket. I want big heavy rigs, that simply have to be big to do the kind of computing I want to do. I’m not looking for a thin client.

Firaxus 3y ago
As another computer enthusiast, why not both? I have a pretty beefy rig, but I’d also like to leverage the full compute on my iphone/ipad. If the software wasn’t locked down, the hardware would be more than competitive with the laptop my job provides me. And having an ipad as a full compute device would have been perfect for my university days; the small programming assignments I had would have been perfect to develop on that form factor (ipad + small bluetooth keyboard, together thinner than most laptops).

dist-epoch 3y ago

Why does this read like an Onion article?

ballenf 3y ago

Apple will take the approach theorized here when it can be done wirelessly. Bring your phone close to a "Magic Monitor" and the desktop experience starts instantly. The change of plug shape is irrelevant to whether this paradigm shift happens inside Apple, but Apple is better positioned than any other device maker to accomplish it if they focused on it.

dirtsoc 3y ago
Is apple wireless carplay the precursor to this?
layer8 3y ago
Why would they do this if they can sell you a more expensive iMac instead? Plus the iCloud subscription to sync all your data between the two?

camillomiller 3y ago

I have been covering similar features for 10 years now. While everyone somehow cheers hard about them on paper, in practice their usage is non-existent. Convergence is not gonna happen, users do not seem interested at all in this type of crossover use-case. Samsung and Motorola’s solution have been around for a while and they’re a testament to that. Lenovo now has even a feature that lets you have access to a Windows 11 Cloud PC via ThinkPhone if you’re a business or corporate user. The use case scenario is there, but apparently it’s just not as compelling to actual users as it seems made out to be. That’s why Apple is not gonna allow anything like that to happen on an iPhone.

PrimeMcFly 3y ago

The forced shift to USB-C is indisputably a win for consumers. Well done EU. The strangest thing has been all the people whining and claiming this stifles innovation. It doesn't.

scarface_74 3y ago
Seeing that when the EU first wanted this they wanted to force everyone to use micro USB, what happens when someone wants to invent a better standard?
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  The legislation gets amended. Simple. Ideally, the legislation gets amended to that there can be a review process every X amount of years.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Wow, now we have to wait on legislators to set standards, in the hypothetical scenario, how long would it have taken them to move from Micro USB to USB C. I am so surprised that people are okay with letting slow moving legislators set technological directions.
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
      Always a worst case scenario with you people. If the legislation denoted a review board then it could be as fast moving as need be.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        Why would we ever think that the government moves slower than tech companies and is down right ignorant when it comes to technology and the trade offs and unintended consequences when it comes to technology?
  - msie 3y ago

theodric 3y ago

B.S. If this was going to happen, why didn't it already happen a decade+ ago on the overwhelming-dominant mobile platform, Android? Especially given that the technology existed in a complete, commercially-available consumer platform no later than 2011? https://www.cnet.com/reviews/motorola-laptop-dock-review/ https://www.cnet.com/reviews/motorola-laptop-dock-review/

antirez 3y ago

Illogical association of ideas. It will be an iPhone with the USB-C connector to charge it. Stop.

nocsi 3y ago

Odd, because Apples already implemented a thin client on iPhones, it’s called CarPlay. It can work over usb or Wi-Fi. Otherwise I don’t see apple ever allowing a device to be a one stop. If they were going for that then it obsoletes stuff like handoff and universal control. But really, why do people actually want this? If you’re using your phone for work then it’ll probably have to be domain joined. Then at that point your employer has eyes into the one device you use for everything

behnamoh 3y ago

I hope the EU presses Apple to adopt other standards as well. (e.g., file format. It's ridiculous that you can't just drag and drop a picture from your photos library as a Gmail attachment because the format would be HEIC).

Firaxus 3y ago
I’m pretty sure there’s a setting in ios as to the default file format for photos? And jpeg is an option? Just checked - it’s under “camera - formats - most compatible”.

sahin 3y ago

I believe that with the iPhone 15 adopting USB-C, it will pave the way for a more streamlined integration of USB-C power adapters across almost all electronic categories. The shift towards USB-C as the go-to power and data connector for a plethora of electronic devices has been on the rise in recent years. We will have one cable for so many things. Finally....

livinglist 3y ago

Finally, less charging cables to carry while traveling.

kalupa 3y ago
just gotta replace all the old lightning cables along the way. sadly, I won't be able to stop carrying something to charge my AirPods using usb-c, yet

msie 3y ago

I think the USB-C cable will make little to no difference for the majority of Apple users out there. I hate how the EU has coerced Apple to make this change.

rideontime 3y ago
I think the USB-C cable will make a big difference for me. I love how the EU has coerced Apple to make this change.

dang 3y ago

Related ongoing thread: iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37485290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37485290

rich_sasha 3y ago

Why on Earth would you make a phone out of Titanium? I mean, yes, hard, shiny, expensive... but just seems so wasteful.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
Lightweight and durable. That’s why people love titanium. You wanna make a big rectangle that is super thin and costs thousands of dollars and you’re gonna have to concern yourself with frame flex. The original XL iPhones had a bending problem. Whatever structural member they eventually designed in to solve that, it’s going to be some amount of thinner, lighter, stronger when made with titanium. As far as wasteful - sort of. Titanium metal isn’t particularly rare, it’s just bound up in ore that takes an extremely energy intensive process to convert to usable material. That’s the Kroll method, invented 80 years ago to refine titanium. There’s actually a new process called the Armstrong method which is way simpler and less capital and energy intensive. In a very real sense, Apple investing in titanium is exactly what we need to push down the cost of refining and fabricating with the metal. Aluminum used to be more precious than gold, and then 150 years ago scientists figured out how to cheaply refine aluminum. Now we use aluminum for everything from cheap bottle openers and bike frames to disposable containers and Martian rover parts. I learned about all of the above over the last 10 years as an engineering nerd. I’ve long been awaiting the day when the Armstrong process is the norm and titanium costs are super low. However that process creates powder, so this might also require low cost titanium 3D printers. All I know is investment can bring down these costs, and I’m glad to see apple doing it! Bonus: these department of energy videos on the comically complex Kroll process[1] and the super simple Armstrong process[2]: [1] https://youtu.be/oWyrzZh3We0?si=OdRTu6crob-PVkLJ https://youtu.be/oWyrzZh3We0?si=OdRTu6crob-PVkLJ [2] https://youtu.be/73HLzYuIfx0?si=dRwfraPivcKyCA6U https://youtu.be/73HLzYuIfx0?si=dRwfraPivcKyCA6U
- rcarr 3y ago
  This post and these videos were awesome, thanks!