USB-C ports are more fragile than Lightning - one of the three ports on my laptop will no longer hold cables in place anymore. It also requires more precise alignment to get the cable plugged in.

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dijit 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I agree, and it preceeded USB-C. It came out in a market that was almost overwhelmingly USB Micro B; which was an extremely terrible connector.

Apple really fucked up by keeping the connector proprietary. Sure it helped them slim some phones but it didn't exactly help long term, and now we have a technologically inferior connector that took even longer to come to market.

I can't forgive Apple for that.

Good engineering, early to market, mired by greedy and short sighted businessmen.

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anonymars 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I thought this way too, but have since heard that the Lightning connector itself has the spring-loaded contacts that wear out, in contrast to USB-C where they're on the cable. So I don't think it's so straightforward

	▲	dijit 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Honestly, I’m not sure either. I can’t find anybody who actually went through the trouble of testing port/cable durability over many cycles. I can personally speak to the seeming reliability of the springs on lightening, but thats anecdotal and would only apply to devices I’ve interacted with. Truthfully USB-C has been almost as reliable (only seen 2-3 ports with issues over literally hundreds, vs the 0 for lightning over a smaller sample). I guess at some point the argument is moot, but I do like digging lint out of USB-C connectors a lot less- it is a lot more worrying to do.

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wao0uuno 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Apple USB-C ports and plugs are superb so maybe the design is not so bad. Maybe most manufacturers just use crappy ports to save a few cents. But yeah, mechanically Lightning was awesome. Great plug/port.