The iPod was revolutionary, not because it played MP3s, but because you could easily organize your entire music library and load it onto your pocket-sized device. Creative Nomad could fit more songs, as the infamous Slashdot comment mentions. But in typical Apple fashion, it was ease of use that made the iPod so successful.
Of course, some of the credit goes to iTunes, but we also think connectors are important. After all, you have to transfer gigabytes of songs from your computer to your player. The first Nomad featured a parallel port (you may also have heard of it as a “printer port”), later models he moved to USB (and his FireWire with some functionality). bottom.
The Creative Nomad Jukebox arrived in September 2000 with a 6 GB hard drive (1 GB more than the original iPad). However, it only had a USB 1.1 port and a top speed of 12Mbps. It takes over an hour to fill up the internal storage using that slow connection.
Instead of USB, Apple adopted FireWire in the first iPod in 2001. This is a connector that has only recently been adopted for Macs. FireWire tends to be named after the speeds it supports. For example, FireWire 400 runs at 400Mbps. This is the very 400Mbps variant used on the very first iPod, which is about as fast as his 480Mbps peak USB 2.0 speed.
The 3rd generation iPod replaced FireWire with its own 30-pin dock connector. This carried over to the first iPhone as the connector handled all major use cases (charging and data transfer as well as support for certain accessories).
After nearly a decade of using 30-pin connectors, Apple wanted something more modern and sleek. This came out with his iPhone 5 in 2012 and was called Lightning. And it made people angry.
An entire ecosystem has been formed around the 30-pin connector. For example, they’ve been found in iPod-compatible speakers and even in cars and hotel rooms. Imagine if your new iPhone or iPod wasn’t compatible with the head unit in your car or the speakers you bought for each hotel room.
Speaker docks were a popular accessory that worked with iPods and iPhones.
Of course there were adapters, but they are by no means ideal. To assuage customer anger, Apple promised not to change adapters for at least 10 years. And as far as the iPhone (and the now-discontinued iPod) is concerned, Apple has kept its promise.
After the introduction of Lightning, some older device accessories required adapters
Despite some major complaints about USB-C, Apple is actually an early adopter of the connector. But the USB-C standard was finalized in 2014, and by then it was too late. Apple wanted to do away with the 30-pin connector as soon as possible.
What is Lightning, anyway? It’s a male plug on the cable side and a female connector on the device side, and it’s very small as the pin count has been reduced from 30 to just 8 (for comparison, USB-C has 24 pins).
The Lightning plug actually has 16 pins, but in a mirrored configuration, only 8 are typically used. This allows the plug to be inserted in two directions, thus avoiding the USB curse. You may have heard the old joke that he had to try three times to get the USB connector in the right direction.
With only eight pins available, the maximum data transfer rate is the same as USB 2.0, the aforementioned 480Mbps, not much better than the original FireWire port on the original iPod.
But keep in mind that Lightning has 16 pins. Most device receptacles only have 8 pins. There are exceptions like the iPad Pro (before the switch to USB-C) with its 16-pin Lightning receptacle. This enables support for USB 3.2 Gen 1 speeds (aka 5Gbps). As far as we know, certain card readers are the only devices that utilize this, and it only worked on the iPad Pro. For example, Apple never released a Lightning to USB 3 cable.
The only Lightning accessory that supports USB 3.2 Gen 1 speeds
When the iPhone 5 was announced in 2012, Phil Schiller called Lightning “the modern connector of the next decade.” Well, that decade ended last year. It’s time for a new connector.
The iPhone 5 introduced the world to the Lightning connector – ‘the newest connector for the next decade’
Apple is pretty much there, every Mac has USB-C, now every iPad does too, and even the new Apple TV remote uses it. ‘s Apple keyboards and mice, and of course the iPhone.
The Lightning era is over and Apple has already confirmed that iPhones will move to USB-C, but the exact timing has yet to be officially announced. Although unofficial, analysts believe it will happen this year, ahead of his end-2024 deadline imposed by the EU.
Apple remembers switching from 30-pin connectors and making many accessories obsolete. This was actually one of the arguments against adopting USB-C. Many accessories and cables that use Lighting will soon be in the trash. Of course there are adapters, but they are by no means ideal.
USB-C to Lightning Cable • USB-C to Lightning Adapter for charging the 1st generation Apple Pencil
Conversely, USB-C has many advantages. We covered this in detail in last week’s article. The biggest benefit for Apple users is that they can now use one cable for everything instead of carrying separate cables for their MacBook and iPhone.
In the past, there have been embarrassing moments where new MacBooks only have USB-C ports and new iPhones only have USB-A to Lighting cables. Also, the iPad 10th generation that supports the original Apple Pencil but doesn’t have a proper port to charge it, so an adapter is needed.
Perhaps future iPhones will finally break the 30W barrier and support proper fast charging. Or maybe not, USB-C has a lot of features, and it’s up to Apple to decide which features he uses.
