Standards are good. I love standards. Europe standardised on Micro USB so iPhone users could charge from many points. Apple’s response was to make us an adaptor, at cost, which is not available outside the EEA. This rather negated its purpose, of course; now you had to remember to bring the adaptor with your phone.
The Lightning connector itself uses an authentication process, now broken, so that the manufacturers might bend over. The consumer gets part of that cost, of course, and Apple now has control over the supply chain. However, I’m reluctant to ascribe motives without hard evidence (except when I’m ranting, natch). The fact is that Lightning is superior to Micro USB. On the other feeler, it’s less clear what the reasons are for requiring authentication of the Lightning adaptors themselves, but sadly, the closest logical reason is money. When Apple delivers a consumer benefit, we eventually forgive. It’s not often they come close like this. As with Apple’s recent deliberate sabotaging of the Apple Watch Qi charger, this does feel very much like another back massage for shareholders. Is it OK to accept the bad when there is also good? That’s something we can only really decide with our wallets when choice exists. I think we all agree that we don’t have choice. In that respect, at least, this is a fairly pointless discussion. :( -- The following information is important for all members of the Mac Visionaries list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor and your owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries@googlegroups.com/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
