111–120 of 128 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a good innovation indeed. That being said, I'd rather deal with the minor annoyance of having to figure out which way to plug my USB cable than having to carry two sets of cables/adapters to accommodate all my devices.
On proper USB cables, it's always logo-side up, isn't it?
This is a great answer, but IIRC there's an other reason to prefer micro over mini: the moving parts in the micro-USB connection are in the male plug, not the female one like the mini. Since those parts tend to break easily, it's cheaper to replace the cable rather than the smartphone/device having the female port. That being said I'm still a bit mad at Apple for ditching their old large port, only to replace it with…
Apple's port, which doesn't have an up/down direction, is much easier to plug in than the micro USB port, which does. It is an innovation, like it or not, that USB doesn't have.
But, when taken in context of the real world, where only Apple devices have this svelte and clever and proprietary, closed, licensing-hostile connector... on balance, it fucking sucks. I would like my iPhones and iPads significantly better if they just would just grow up and use micro-USB.
Mini-USB almost got there, but due to the flaws detailed in the OP, couldn't really become The Standard. But Micro-USB did. Virtually everything uses it now. My bluetooth headsets, my wireless mouse (to charge), my Geiger counter, all my non-Apple phones and tablets, my pocket Wi-Fi terminals, my music players, my exercise gadgets, etc etc etc...
Every time I plug in an Apple device these days, I grimace and feel like I am driving this really awesomely designed car that looks great, handles great, is really comfortable... but only runs on this special gas that I can only buy at one gas station in town, that takes holidays at random.
The Lighting connector is a lot better than the gargantuan, ugly, hard to use Dock Connector of yesteryear (or even this year, if you are buying the cheap iPhone). But the time for proprietary non-standard connectors for mobile devices is past.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple's port, which doesn't have an up/down direction, is much easier to plug in than the micro USB port, which does. It is an innovation, like it or not, that USB doesn't have.
It's a great, great design when considered in a vacuum. Of all the cables I use (and I use many), it's the one I would choose if I could magically make that what all my devices use. But, when taken in context of the real world, where only Apple devices have this svelte and clever and proprietary, closed, licensing-hostile connector... on balance, it fucking sucks. I would like my iPhones and iPads significantly bette…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure you can. USB has a dedicated pin for sending power down and it's been an integral part of the design since the start (USB 1.0). How do you think USB pen drives (et al) work when they have chips which need powering? Or USB "soundcards", wireless dongles, USB keyboards and mice? They all need powering and they all need powering while in operation. You might not be able to send higher charges while using data - I'v…
I think you're missing the issue here. The examples you've given are all with the 'host' powering the 'device'. e.g. Your computer powering your USB keyboard. 'Host' and 'Device' are specific modes of operation in the USB spec, it isn't multi-master. The problem is when you want the 'device' to power the 'host', as is often the case when the 'host' is something with a battery, such as a tablet. There is no support bu…
That's the only way you'd ever want to power a USB device though. It makes no sense to power the host from the device. Plus this isn't even the case with iPod docks - they're all powered in the mains.
> The problem is when you want the 'device' to power the 'host', as is often the case when the 'host' is something with a battery, such as a tablet.
The host on an iPod dock isn't the iPod; it's the dock.
> There is no support built into the USB spec for this, it is always assumed that the 'host' provides power to the 'device'. An example of something that isn't supported would be a tablet 'dock' with a bunch of device connectors that could also charge the tablet, all via a single USB link.
In this example, the dock is the host and the tablet is the device. So the tablet would still be charged.
The thing with USB is, it doesn't matter which device is the server and which is the client at the software end as that's just an arbitrary software paradigm. You can have the USB host act as the client at the software end and the device as the sever (eg a music dock will be the host, but the phone is the server and the dock the client), all you need is the two devices to be able to speak to each other. And since USB is a two way protocol (else USB storage wouldn't work), it's pretty easy to have the host as the power source and the device as the item requiring USB power even when the device is the one sending signals back to the host (eg how USB mice and keyboards work).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a great, great design when considered in a vacuum. Of all the cables I use (and I use many), it's the one I would choose if I could magically make that what all my devices use. But, when taken in context of the real world, where only Apple devices have this svelte and clever and proprietary, closed, licensing-hostile connector... on balance, it fucking sucks. I would like my iPhones and iPads significantly bette…
If I had to use a micro-USB charger to charge my iPhone, I would die a little inside every time I plugged it in. Every single USB connector ever is a PITA to plug in. The Lightning connector on my iPhone is amazing. I can plug it in purely by feel, in my dark bedroom after turning out the lights. I dare you to try that with a USB connector. And the damn thing feels really sturdy too. I have no problem picking up my i…
Im just saying for me pretty-good-and-completely-ubiquitous beats sublime-design-but-have-to-worry-about-having-the-right-cable. It is indeed easier to plug in the Lightning phone charger in pitch black darkness. But I haven't needed to do that yet in 2013.
What I have needed to do is ask a bunch of people if they happened to have an iPhone cable -- oh no, sorry, not that one, I mean the newer one, thanks anyway... no? nobody? Ok fuck it I guess I will just turn off my phone to save that last 3% for an emergency.
That wouldn't happen if I just needed a standard micro-USB cable that pretty much every non-Apple device now uses.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Just let the free market decide things like this, it is extremely efficient at that. Yes, it absolutely did not take an EU intervention to standardise mobile phone chargers on Micro USB, instead, the manufacturers recognised that it is a good thing to get rid off proprietary chargers as consumers all only bought the phones with the standardised chargers. Or are you saying that needing a new, different, charger for…
But your point is? Apple is able to satisfy this requirement easily with a cruddy adapter (the cable actually). Anyways, if apple's solution is simply better than the android micro USB solution, who wins?
I win, because I don’t have to buy a new charger for every phone, because I can use standard USB cables to charge my phone and because said USB cables are ridiculously cheap; allowing me to carry one cable to connect my phone, my camera and 90% of my other gadgets to my computer (the rest using eSATA).
Frankly, I don’t care whether Apple’s solution is ‘simply better’ if it is only available for Apple’s products and hence necessarily restricted to a small percentage of the overall market.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking of up/down and Apple, I saw today that Apple's ethernet ports are upside-down. They're supposed to have the contacts at the top, to avoid collection of dust when the port is not in use.
I bet that's so the user won't need to lift the laptop to get their finger under the connector to depress the latching tab.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I bet that's so the user won't need to lift the laptop to get their finger under the connector to depress the latching tab.
Possibly, though I should note that the one I saw it on was an iMac, plenty of space all around.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're missing the issue here. The examples you've given are all with the 'host' powering the 'device'. e.g. Your computer powering your USB keyboard. 'Host' and 'Device' are specific modes of operation in the USB spec, it isn't multi-master. The problem is when you want the 'device' to power the 'host', as is often the case when the 'host' is something with a battery, such as a tablet. There is no support bu…
> I think you're missing the issue here. The examples you've given are all with the 'host' powering the 'device'. e.g. Your computer powering your USB keyboard. 'Host' and 'Device' are specific modes of operation in the USB spec, it isn't multi-master. That's the only way you'd ever want to power a USB device though. It makes no sense to power the host from the device. Plus this isn't even the case with iPod docks -…
You're still not getting it. I want the dock to power the tablet so it charges, the dock gets power from mains does not change that at all.
> The host on an iPod dock isn't the iPod; it's the dock.
You can't make this statement definitively. If one of the features of the dock is a keyboard, it's going to be acting as a HID interface device and will be acting in device mode....
> The thing with USB is, it doesn't matter which device is the server and which is the client at the software end as that's just an arbitrary software paradigm.
This is wrong. A 'device' can never initiate a transfer, all transfers are negotiated by the 'host'. The 'host' is the bus master and manages all transfers regardless of what they are or where they are going. e.i. USB is a 'polling' interface, not a 'pushing' interface. You can not have more than 1 host on a USB bus.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I am mad at Apple for not making Lightning an open standard. Lightning is just Apple's marketing term for Intel's Thunderbolt interface. The standard is available from Intel, and if it were not it would be more appropriate to direct your anger at Intel.
No, that's Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is the PCI interface, Lightning is the alternate USB connector.