@andrewt IIRC when they switched away from their 30 pins cable the standard was mini or micro USB which was really shitty. Lightning was ahead of its time, and they had no reason to scrap it until USB-C came around and was not so bad. My personal opinion is that lightning is a better experience, you don’t have to look where to plug the cable thanks to the rounded edges, and it clicks nicely. But USB-C is good enough.
So I don’t think it’s Apple fault. If they had switched to every USB standard they would have ended with much more port than just the 30 pins and lightning. Sure though if the standard was open, maybe everyone would had aligned on it, I agree with this.
I think it would have been better if both USB-C and Lightning could have lived together longer for a smoother transition.
But again like I said to now like 5 people, we are aligned: we don’t like e-waste. Let’s not fight. I just don’t agree that it’s reducing e-waste.
@alyx i guess i just think that the reason lightning was introduced was not "the existing standard usb ports just aren't up to the job" so much as "usb-c will be out in a couple of years and if we're still using the dock connector by then, people are going to want us to switch. better invent a new connector *now* that's just arguably better than usb-c and then we can keep our monopoly on iphone-compatible accessories and pretend like we didn't have a choice". it's cynical, sure, but like, this is the company that disabled progressive web apps altogether rather than support using them with any other browser than safari, this is exactly the kind of thing they would do. they don't give a shit about e-waste or security or whatever, those are just the nice reasons they tell you when asked why they've done something that's obviously anti-competitive
@alyx i guess i just think that the reason lightning was introduced was not "the existing standard usb ports just aren't up to the job" so much as "usb-c will be out in a couple of years and if we're still using the dock connector by then, people are going to want us to switch. better invent a new connector *now* that's just arguably better than usb-c and then we can keep our monopoly on iphone-compatible accessories and pretend like we didn't have a choice". it's cynical, sure, but like, this is...