the stupidest thing is iPad had USB-C since 2018! and yet on iPhones they latched on to lightning for another 6 years before EU forced them to standardize
That’s because they’ve been pushing the iPad as a sort of Mac Lite, but they can’t do that unless you can plug peripherals or a thumb drive into it. You can 100% plug a USB-C laptop dock into an iPad, and it’ll work. You can even use a mouse with it if you really want to.
But they wanted to keep Lightning around as long as possible, because they made a commission on every single lighting cable that was sold; Companies had to license the rights to use the connector, and had to pay Apple for every one they used. That’s why Lightning cables were always a few bucks more expensive than a comparable USB-C cable. That extra few bucks was going straight into Apple’s pocket. It was a huge source of passive income for the company, which they were reluctant to let go of.
the stupidest thing is iPad had USB-C since 2018! and yet on iPhones they latched on to lightning for another 6 years before EU forced them to standardize
They were keeping their promise of 10 years of Lightning ecosystem support. Dropping the old iPod connector was highly controversial.
They were earning millions from lightning royalities
And they promised to do so for at least 10 years.
we promise we’ll use the inferior, proprietary connector
“We promise to keep increasing our profit by overcharging customers for awful cables they can’t get anywhere else”
What a dumb promise
That’s because they’ve been pushing the iPad as a sort of Mac Lite, but they can’t do that unless you can plug peripherals or a thumb drive into it. You can 100% plug a USB-C laptop dock into an iPad, and it’ll work. You can even use a mouse with it if you really want to.
But they wanted to keep Lightning around as long as possible, because they made a commission on every single lighting cable that was sold; Companies had to license the rights to use the connector, and had to pay Apple for every one they used. That’s why Lightning cables were always a few bucks more expensive than a comparable USB-C cable. That extra few bucks was going straight into Apple’s pocket. It was a huge source of passive income for the company, which they were reluctant to let go of.