The reign of the Lightning cable is over, and the USB-C era has begun — leaving us wondering what sets one charger apart from another. We do a teardown of Apple's Thunderbolt 4 and its competitors.
The vastness of the ecosystem built around Apple products cannot be understated. You can’t just change the iPhone port every few years.
Ditching the 30-pin adapter created no small degree of controversy. Though the device itself got favorable reviews, the New York Times’ tech columnist at the time called it “not just a slap in the face to loyal customers” but a “jab in the eye.”
The Lightning connector was introduced on September 12, 2012, with iPhone 5. And there was so much controversy around it that they publicly committed to using it for at least 10 years.
The USB-C spec was not finalized until nearly two years later, in August 2014.
I can’t fault a company for activity committing to a decade of compatibility with peripherals. And I certainly can’t fault them for avoiding the disaster called Micro USB.
I remember it being fully implemented on my MacBook. What exactly was missing?
iPhones.
The vastness of the ecosystem built around Apple products cannot be understated. You can’t just change the iPhone port every few years.
The Lightning connector was introduced on September 12, 2012, with iPhone 5. And there was so much controversy around it that they publicly committed to using it for at least 10 years.
The USB-C spec was not finalized until nearly two years later, in August 2014.
I can’t fault a company for activity committing to a decade of compatibility with peripherals. And I certainly can’t fault them for avoiding the disaster called Micro USB.
True, because they already had a better connector for that specific use-case. But USB-C and Thunderbolt have been implemented on MacBooks for ages.
iPhones were missing (until now)