Wiredfire

Depends on how we define “best”. USB-C has the same weakness of micro USB of having “tongue” in the port. This is poor design and leaves ports prone to failure of this tongue gets damaged. I’ve seen this happen more than once with either from folk aggressively jamming charger cables in slightly misaligned or just wear & tear. Lightening on the other hand is a much more robust port design. The “tongue” is the cable with a hollow port. 1st party lightening cables are pure trash, which is itself a ewaste matter, but we’re talking port design.

Now every other aspect of lightening is inferior to USB 3 (important to note USB-C ≠ USB 3) , but by my needs it’s the “better” connector.

I don’t see how USB-C is objectively better at the charger end, unless we’re meaning the reversible nature at both ends which is.. it’s good but it’s not “wow” (and neither is it “wow” with lightening).

I’m happy to be proven wrong, and I’m not going to get pissy if in 3-4 years my next phone is an iPhone with USB-C, it’s just the merits seem over-egged and I’d wager for the average, non-technical, user the benefits are minimal and potentially cause some minor confusions.

So fun and games all round for those guys >_<

While I agree, Reddit really is learning “fuck around and find out” the hard way from all sorts of angles. They must be in perpetual crisis mode. Which sucks for the actual staffers, of course

No. USB was on the Android side, split between Mini/Micro/C connectors on the phone side and USB-A on the brick side. There were a gazillion fast charging standards so that you still might have to replace your brick.

It’s the charger side I was talking about here. Androids and iPhones both charge from a USB-A charger. Fast charging has been a crapshoot but I can still charge a phone on about any charger it just might not do a fast charge (which is bad for battery health anyway but that’s another thing )

keeping chargers the same will reduce e-waste as people can use USB-C to charge many devices

That’s my point.. we already could charge many devices from the chargers we had

Just replies to another comment to won’t paste again as that’s a bit spammy. But in short USB-A was already a de facto standard for charging. The bit on the end of the phone wasn’t really an issue and I’ve seen little evidence that it was an ewaste issue.

So we’re stuck with USB-C and can’t have whatever will inevitably come along that’s better sooner or later until the EU shift their view.

Basically either has no impact on ewaste or actually generates more waste and discourages further developments in port design.

The USB C thing is daft because we already had a de facto standard. All smartphones connected to a USB-A charger. Requiring USB-C forevermore stifles innovation for whatever in time would supersede USB-C.

There’s also the small matter or ewaste. Mandating that the phone end must be USB-C but saying nothing of the charger end has ended up with most OEMs interpreting it as USB-C both ends. So people are either getting cables that don’t work with their chargers which get wasted or they go buy new chargers causing their old ones to be waste.

As an aside lightening is also a more physically robust design (setting aside transfer speeds etc.. which mean nothing to most users), so kinda sucks that all phones will be required to have the tongue-in-port design which is a weak point.

I also wonder when Apple will stick two fingers up at this and go portless and just have wireless, which Androids would then copy, then we’re in a far worse place heh.

Great intentions, execution that delivers little to benefit or, at worst, detriment.

Fair point on the cinema example - didn’t think that one through!

It’s beyond stupid. ISPs are in the business of, ya know.. providing internet services. It’s like the government charging the cinema because I used the public roads to get there.

The EU once again showing their ineptitude to actually effectively regulate anything technical. They lack the knowledge or the desire to gain the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions.

I also think their USB-C ruling was stupid but not quite as stupid as this.

I’ve always found snapdrop very very inconsistent. When it works is amazing, but it often as not doesn’t see other devices.

LocalSend, on the other hand, is excellent. It’s an app so needs to be installed but it available for about every platform desktop and mobile and is my go-to now.