WEBVTT

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back in 2012 apple released the iphone 5 which was a big deal not just for giving

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us more screen real estate than previous models but also for introducing the

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lightning connector and while it was a welcome change from the previous big fat

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30 pin cable we're still stuck with it eight years later and it hasn't exactly

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aged well of course there is that old saying if it ain't broke don't fix it

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but the lightning connector has the obvious problem that the rest of the

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phone world has moved on to usb type c which is faster and more versatile so

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why is apple stubbornly holding on to such an old connector other than you

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know keeping a proprietary standard around to make more money it might

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surprise you to know that apple is actually part of the usb implementers

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forum the original group of companies that worked on usb type-c

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however apple really wanted to go ahead and start getting thinner sleeker

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devices to market and given their timetable for the iphone 5 they didn't

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want to wait around for the usbc standard to get finalized so they

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slapped their own miniaturized port onto the phone instead and given that usbc

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didn't start appearing in smartphones until 2015 that initial decision does

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look like it made some sense open standards in the tech industry take a

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notoriously long time to get approved and make their way onto gadgets and even

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the lengthy approval process does not mean that they will end up working

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perfectly in fact the public release of usbc didn't go very well with lots of

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poor quality cables and accessories hitting the market this meant apple was

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quite happy to stick with their proprietary connector which gave them

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much more control over what consumers were actually getting apple either

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produces lightning devices itself or licenses out the spec to third parties

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of its own choosing and while that approach drives up costs it admittedly

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does make quality control a bit easier but apple had another reason not to make

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the switch to usbc it already caught a lot of heat for switching to lightning

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in the first place do you know how many apple accessories you see in your

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average big box store that use lightning connectors well back in 2012 there were tons of

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similar accessories that used the 30 pin dock and switching to lightning rendered

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all those older accessories obsolete as they would only work with iphone models

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that were quickly becoming outdated i mean the 4s didn't even have lte

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so apple didn't really want to alienate its consumers yet again by pulling the rug

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out from an even larger accessories install base and in fact the company has

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directly said this more recently in statements regarding the european

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union's push to get standard connectors on most wireless consumer electronics

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apple would also face logistical issues in switching its supply chain over to

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usbc when it's been set up for so long to crank out lightning products on mass

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and although it's definitely inconvenient that iphones don't use usbc

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they also don't really need to it's true that lightning is a relatively

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slow connector as its speed seems to be somewhere in between usb2 and usb3 but

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data transfer over a wired connection is quickly becoming less and less important

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for smartphones contrast this with the fact that apple has put usb type c on

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macs and ipads which makes more sense

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since these are you know full-fledged computers and need to be compatible with

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a wider universe of pc peripherals and you go oh yeah okay so does this mean

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that we're going to have the lightning connector for a long time to come well perhaps not

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as plenty of rumors have been flying that apple will come out with a portless

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iphone in the next few years because there's no reason apple couldn't do that

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now that they use wireless charging across their entire lineup

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of course that might still really mess up the iphone accessory market but do

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