People keep mentioning Wi-Fi Aware with this, but so far haven't seen anyone actually prove that this is the case.
Apple undoubtedly added Wi-Fi Aware support to iOS https://developer.apple.com/documentation/WiFiAware, but its not clear whether iOS actually supports AirDrop over Wi-Fi Aware. Apple clearly hasn't completely dropped AWDL for AirDrop, because you can still AirDrop from iOS 26 to earlier devices.
Note that the Ars Technica article never directly makes the claim that Apple supports Airdrop over Wi-Fi Aware. The title is two independent statements - "The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop" - that's true.
> Google doesn’t mention it in either Quick Share post, but if you’re wondering why it’s suddenly possible for Quick Share to work with AirDrop, it can almost certainly be credited to European Union regulations imposed under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Again, they're just theorising. They never directly make the claim. Would love on Hacker News for someone to do some Hacking and actually figure it out for real!
It's frustrating how much people want this to be an EU win they'll fabricate evidence. The same happened with RCS in iOS, everybody jumped in to credit it to the EU, when you can find the document spelling out how RCS is a requirement for China.
I don't care which sovereign state or union forces the trillion dollar tech giant to behave. I'm just glad it happened. And I applaud China if this was their victory.
I want it to happen with a thousand times more intensity for Apple and Google.
We should own these devices. We shouldn't be subsistence farmers on the most important device category in the world.
They need to be opened up to competition, standards, right to repair, privacy, web app installs, browser choice, messaging, etc. etc.
They shouldn't be strong arming tiny developers or the entire automotive industry. It's vastly unfair. And this strip mining impacts us as consumers.
There is very little literature about Chinese requirements rolled out
and when there is, its talked about as American tech companies bowing to an authoritarian regime as opposed to fighting a burgeoning market force acting on behalf of consumers and the American tech companies losing that fight
the latter is how the EU work is syndicated
in between is that there likely is no fight with Chinese regulators alongside an unwillingness to alter access to that market
So they forced Apple to drop an Apple proprietary thing in favor of… a Wi-Fi standard Apple helped develop specifically to replace their proprietary thing.
Not quite as strong as the headline makes the case sound.
Users all got to complain that the EU are the meanies responsible for their old wires and chargers and accessory no longer being compatible, but it seems infinitely more likely that Apple was going to adopt USB-C on largely the same schedule even if the EU didn't intercede.
To be clear, Apple had already moved their laptops and computers to USB-C -- long in advance of almost any one else -- and had moved their iPad Pros and Air to USB-C, building out the accessory set supporting the same, years before the EU decree. Pretty convenient when they get to blame the EU for their smartphones making the utterly inevitable move.
Begging? Apple filed a couple of light objections -- basically a "don't regulate us, bro" -- and then moved on. Their resistance was laughably superficial
Look, Apple is a predatory, extraordinarily greedy company, but these sorts of "thanks EU!" discussions are a riot. Thanks EU, for making Apple support a clone of an Apple feature that didn't exist until Apple made it, and for "forcing" Apple to transition their line to USB-C, which they were already almost completely done doing.
I think you missed GP’s point. The briar patch is a reference to the story of Br’er Rabbit, which involves pretending to object to a punishment that one really doesn’t mind at all (and might even prefer).
The GP is suggesting that Apple was more than happy to have this mandate. I tend to agree: they wanted to switch the iPhone to USB-C anyway, but there’s always people who are going to be upset that their Lightning accessories no longer work or need an adapter. But this way they can say that the EU forced their hand. They get what they wanted all along, but they also get a scapegoat who can take the blame for the remaining downsides.
>> which they were already almost completely done doing
Honest question - why did they stick with lighting on iphones for so long, given that usb-c has been ubiquitus on phones for years before that point. I mean we can sit here and say "duh apple was going to do it anyway" but like.....why didn't they? Why did samsung have usb-c phones long before apple?
and then they went all-USBC on the MBP before the ecosystem was ready, got absolutely slammed for it, and went back (on magsafe). 4 times bitten, once shy. I'm sure the cynical money reason played a role too, of course, but nobody else is mentioning the 4 times bitten so I felt obliged.
I upgraded my iPad to a USB-C version and discovered I couldn't use my 1st-gen (Lightning) Apple Pencil with it even though it's compatible -- because I first had to buy a special female-female USB-C<->Lightning dongle just to be able to plug it in to pair it. (Even though I can keep using my Lightning charger to charge it separately from my iPad.)
Moving from Lightning to USB-C hasn't been too bad for me since I use wireless charging with e.g. my Lightning AirPods. But the transition is a huge pain. Because of weird cases like the Pencil, it's not even enough to just have a USB-C charging cable and a Lightning charging cable.
The Pencil situation is a disaster. There are at least 3 first party versions plus the 3rd party ones. And when version X + 1 comes out they don’t drop support for version X, they use it in a different product for some stupid reason. Probably because the tooling already exists.
So you can find entire matrices online attempting to explain which iPads support which pencils.
It’s horrible. The Lightning -> USB-C transition is probably one of least objectionable parts of pencil history.
They openly said why, millions upon millions of devices (speakers etc) people wanted to use with lightning connectors. There was never a good time and EU putting a deadline on it gets Apple free of the e-waste accusations.
No one was accusing Apple of e-waste when for decades the world had decided common standards were a great way to reduce e-waste.
Outside of America this has been obvious since the mid 2000s when people complained about a proliferation of chargers with phones because pre-iPhone the non US cellphone market was far more advanced.
Really? Do you remember the user shit storm when they dumped the dock connector and went to lightning? People wouldn’t shut up for years, even though lightning was way way better.
I think this whole narrative being spun here that Good Guy Apple was Being Oppressed by the lowly end users & wanted to do the right thing (be thrown into the briar patch) all along, just never could form the political will for it and needed EU intervention is some insane fucking weird ass made up nonsense. WTF wtf wtf? Surely you must be joking.
Apple has had MfI certification on Apple compatible products for decades & has actively wanted to protect that revenue stream & domain of control. If folks could just plug in devices & have them just work, that would erode their ownership.
And just as bad, it would raise all sorts of questions like "why does this mouse not do anything on my iPhone" and obscure the careful market delineations Apple vigorously has established between its products (which makes people buy more products than they need). Apple never wanted to be a good guy, Apple never wanted to lower itself to the common market of peripherals and standards. Their involvement with USB-C was likely far far far before it was apparent their device teams would have to give up MfI controls.
Apple's resistance was presumably user inertia. Users had billions of cables and accessories for lightning, and Apple saw during a prior transition that people get really pissed off about this sort of change.
And let's be real about Samsung et al -- before USB-C, they were using the utter dogshit micro USB connector (funfact -- this terrible connector became prevalent because the EU made a voluntary commitment with manufacturers to adopt it). micro-USB is a horrible connector from a user-experience and reliability perspective. USB-C was a massive, massive upgrade for those users.
In Apple land, everyone already had a bidirectional, reliable connector. Even today to most Apple users the switch from lightning to USB-C was just a sideways move.
> In Apple land, everyone already had a bidirectional, reliable connector
Wait, I thought the Apple 30-pin connector was not reversible?
USB-C has been out for over a decade now. There was only a small window of about two years where iphones had lightning and other phones did not yet have usb-c.
Apple probably wouldn’t have changed to usbc for their phones. Lightning was a mobile phone / other development, whilst usbc and its contributions came from their Mac department.
They did not like each others standards. I know Apple engineers working on the phone who dislike the change even up to this day…
USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime. The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which makes it more robust and easier to clean.
> USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime.
USB-C connectors are usually rated for 10k cycles. Do you have any evidence that lighting connectors are rated for more cycles than that?
> The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which makes it more robust and easier to clean.
This is very weak a priori arguing. I could just as well argue that USB-C has the center blade shielded instead of exposed and so is more durable.
Unless you have some empirical evidence on this I don't see a strong argument for better durability from either connector.
My Pixel 8 certainly hasn't gone through 10k cycles and it barely holds on to any USB-C connector I put inside it. They all fall out even when laying still on a flat surface.
There's always outliers, of course, but I had this issue with USB Micro-B on at least one other device and never saw it with a Lightning connector.
Your Pixel 8 could be about two years old. The connector performed way under spec and you should send it in for repair (assuming your are in a country with a 2 year warranty period)
This is probably lint buildup. You can scrape it out with any thin and stiff object like a safety pin.
A small amount of lint gets into the hole. You pack it in when you plug in the cable. Repeat a thousand times and now you have a stiff “plug” of lint that prevents the connector from fully entering your device.
The 10K cycle insertion rating for USB-C is an idealized metric that does not include lateral force, torque, device movement, or real-world wear patterns. These non-axial forces are a known cause of USB-C port failures and are explicitly not accounted for in the standard 10k-cycle durability claim.
USB-C center tongue female design means that the port will break before the cable. With lightning, the cable plug takes all the stress.
Apple doesn’t publish insertion cycles rating for Lightning connectors, so it’s impossible to provide empirical evidence of that.
In my personal experience, I’ve had two USB-C ports go bad on two MacBooks. I’ve yet to own a USB-C-charging phone, but I’ve never had a Lightning port fail.
> These non-axial forces are a known cause of USB-C port failures and are explicitly not accounted for in the standard 10k-cycle durability claim.
I agree and that's par for the course for any standard, they have to limit the requirements to something that is economically manufacutrable and testable.
Meanwhile, lightning connectors have no public standard to speak of so this is a mute point.
> USB-C center tongue female design means that the port will break before the cable. With lightning, the cable plug takes all the stress.
This is another a priori armchair expert argument which I just put very little weight on without data to back it up.
> Apple doesn’t publish insertion cycles rating for Lightning connectors, so it’s impossible to provide empirical evidence of that.
That conclusion does not follow. We can still obtain empirical evidence through direct testing without Apple publishing anything.
> In my personal experience, I’ve had two USB-C ports go bad on two MacBooks. I’ve yet to own a USB-C-charging phone, but I’ve never had a Lightning port fail.
That's fair, everyone has different anecdotal experiences as a foundation for their opinion here. The problem is that anecdotal data is just not very informative to others, that's all.
Groan. Come on. Cite one. A single "Apple engineer" to support this ridiculous claim of insider knowledge. What year do you think it is?
You understand that the SoC and I/O blocks are largely shared between the Mac and the iPad / iPhone now, right? This invention of some big bifurcation is not reality based. The A14 SoC (which became the foundation for the Mac's M1) had I/O hardware to support USB-C all the ways back to the iPhone 12. Which makes sense as this chipset was used in iPads that came with USB-C.
Pretty weird for hardware that is largely the same to "not like each others standards".
It is also worth noting that Android wasn’t using the standard as well. If they had, this would have been day 0 interoperability for Android phones. Instead, it is a single phone model released a couple months after iOS 26.
Hah, right? Everyone understands that Apple wouldn't have done anything by themselves if it wasn't for the DMA.
The whole selling point of Apple was that as long as you're inside the ecosystem, you'll get the smoothest experience. Well, now the law says that devices, apps and products from third parties should be able to be used on an iPhone as seamlessly as Apple's own products, of course they wouldn't have given that up willingly.
It is literally correct. My point was I think it implies the EU had to force a totally belligerent Apple (which we’ve certainly seen) instead of Apple already working on this and EU perhaps speeding the timeline a little.
And yet Apple resisted adopting that standard until the EU forced them to.
It’s fascinating seeing all the anti-EU Apple fanbois when arguably Apple’s most successful iPhone change in the last half decade, the switch to USB-C, was an EU decision.
If a law forced Apple to do good for everyone, not just a small group of people, isn't that a good thing? It wasn't exactly that AirDrop got legislated, but thanks to the DMA, AirDrop (and other things) are within scope and they now have to make things more seamless for everyone. Win-win no?
I don't think it was an anything post. You are an Apple customer upset at the status quo, which is understandable, but your post is not.
If "think of the children" feels like manufactured consent for the erosion of rights, spending money supporting Tim "Client Side Scanning" Cook isn't going to yield some moral reprisal from Apple. Emotionally manipulating you into accepting conditional surveillance is part of Apple's security model. They're the "good guys" and they don't need to prove it.
Regulators never manage to design good products, but they’re weirdly good at accidentally clearing technical roadblocks that incumbents had no incentive to touch.
This is what "interoperability" actually looks like in practice: nobody forces Apple to ship AirDrop-for-Android, they just force them off a proprietary stack and onto a public standard, and suddenly Google can meet them on neutral ground. The EU didn’t create a feature, it removed Apple’s ability to say "we technically can’t."
Also notice the asymmetry: once both sides sit on Wi-Fi Aware, Apple gets basically nothing by embracing Quick Share, but Google and users get a ton from being able to talk to AirDrop. So the market on its own would never converge on this, because the only player who could unlock the value had the least reason to. You need a regulator to make the defection from proprietary to standard mandatory, then "open" just looks like someone finally flipping a bit that was always there.
I wonder if it's related to Apple's change from AWDL to Wi-Fi Aware, but AirDrop seems much more reliable on iOS 26. I can send to multiple people at once and they often all succeed, but most importantly, if one transfer fails or is cancelled, I can retry and it works. In older versions of iOS, a failed transfer seemed to block all future attempts until the phone was restarted.
the weird one for me is that if I hit share, and then hit the airdrop target, it doesn't work, but if go into airdrop and then select the same target, then works. Apple, fix your shit, yo.
An additional benefit is that the Wi-Fi standard also means that the weird account requirements on Google's Nearby Share can be avoided by independent implementations (i.e. on Windows or Linux or maybe rooted Android, iOS and macOS already have it of course).
"Contacts only mode" will always be a challenge, but at least the "I just want to share a file without Google watching me" use case is now resolved by Google implementing a standard that doesn't involve them.
Unfortunately, this is Pixel 10 exclusive for now, for some reason. I expect Samsung to pick this up eventually as well, but I'm not sure if Google will be able to backport this tech through Google Play Services the way they did with Nearby Share on older phones.
Qualcomm has confirmed it's coming to Snapdragon phones soon[0], which maybe hints that it's dependent on the SoC drivers? Samsung uses a mix of Snapdragon and their own Exynos, but I can't see them not releasing it to their Snapdragon phones when others do, and then they pretty much have to release it to their Exynos phones too.
Look, I don't like some of the things the EU is doing and I think Apple should consider (along with other tech companies) selling products tailed to the EU, Asia and rest of the world. In the long-run, it might be cheaper.
That said, they are setting a good example of legislating for tech. We should be doing a lot of that here in the US. I don't need a bulletproof, ultra-secure, end-to-end encrypted, formally verified phone (although that would be nice). As a boring regular person, I want to not have to need all of that because my government will imprison people that violate my rights. But more on-topic, the FTC (EDIT: FCC) exists to regulate among other things, wireless comms, so this would be something they should be legislating.
Although, putting on my tech hat, I need to re-state that I disagree with this move. I want tech companies to experiment and use faster, more secure, more reliable comms tech without having to worry about compatibility. It is in my interest as a consumer.
Lightning was a superior technology to USB-C, we don't have it now because the EU forced apple's hands. I don't want to lose out on good tech. The EU should have instead forced everyone else to use lightning if they want things simpler.
Why is the EU intent on having inferior tech, inferior capability, inferior pay, inferior innovation-friendly environment. They have the power to demand better things and provide them for their people. The compromise isn't needed. At the risk of offending the HN crowd, I'll even say that the EU shouldn't support open-source things unless they are actually the superior tech. You can't eat or pay your bills with ideals. If commercial/properietary tech is better for europeans, that is what the EU should focus on.
I will drive European or Japanese cars that are better than American cars, I don't mind doing the same with tech, except with Europe that's getting more and more rare. What happened to Nokia and Ericsson. NL has ASML, wouldn't it be nice if we had a TSMC competitor in Europe as well? I don't want to keep going on, but I hope my point is clear.
Competition is good, Android shouldn't need to support AirDrop, it should come up with a better alternative and leave iPhone users wondering why Android's solution is faster and works at greater distances. Same with iMessage compatibility.
Instead competition, the EU is wanting forced mediocrity. They are within their rights for sure, but it isn't the best thing to do.
I only wish they did the same thing with electrical outlets and forced the world to use one mediocre standard :)
> it should come up with a better alternative and leave iPhone users wondering why Android's solution is faster and works at greater distances. Same with iMessage compatibility.
Okay, so, why don't we see competition in places where it matters, like Airdrop, iMessage and the App Store?
The answer seems to be pretty simple, to me; Apple considers themselves above competition. It doesn't matter if a superior system exists, they ultimately decide what is righteous and anyone who disagrees buys a different phone. It's a lose/lose situation between consumers and the economy, who neither get superior software solutions nor cheaper products.
> If I had to guess why neither of Google’s Quick Share posts mentions Wi-Fi interoperability standards or the DMA, it may be because Google has been complaining about various aspects of the law and its enforcement since before it was even passed
This is telling a lot about US companies complaining about EU laws.
I'm libertarian, but I have to say watching the EU torment Apple has been delightful and one of the stronger arguments for muscular regulatory action.
The USB-C thing just made everything better. It cost Apple basically nothing---maybe a few million/year of profit, which for a company that's worth $3 trillion is nothing, and it made my and many other people's lives quite a bit more convenient.
Same with this Airdrop thing, and same with RCS (although there's some reporting that RCS had more to do with China than the EU).
Eventually, someone is going to break open iMessage, and poor Apple will actually have to compete again for customers. Maybe they'll innovate something more interesting than Airpods Ultra Mega Pro Max or a thinner phone.
Apple made major contributions to USB-C and adopted it a decade ago in their MacBooks. They were committed to lightning for 10 years starting in 2012-ish, so usb-c was likely inevitable in iOS devices.
However I would preferred a backwards compatibility lightning 2.0 upgrade. Cleaning a usb-c port is a huge pain and they are more prone to pocket lint clogging than lightning.
While I really like the convenience of not having multiple different cables to charge my devices when travelling, I agree with you on cleaning the usb-c port. In that respect, the lightning design was a lot more elegant and made more sense for a pocketable device.
Haven't encountered that yet. But I always try to be extra careful and also look for the thinnest ones I can find. Seems like a product niche right there. Rigid, thin, non-conductive picks.
Careful on what you wish for. The same regulatory action can be (is) being used for Chat Control (that dropped off the main page for some reason). Ultimately neither power center acts for the general interest.
You're a libertarian but regulatory intervention made everything about the market better and a better world for everyone involved with a relatively small change that was being stubbornly refused by a company for a small marginal benefit to themselves?
Left libertarianism is compatible with such views.
Basically, libertarian on social issues paired with a preference for a decentralized economy, as opposed to a "tankie" (Stalinist) style centrally planned economy.
Or... You know... We also like watching one giant corporation that benefits from distinctly authoritarian policies get wrecked by another authoritarian entity to the benefit of better competition in the market.
But apparently unless you're a suckup to the authoritarian entity that you like is now a LINO.
Sure, because I think that, ultimately excessive regulation stifles innovation. I mean, heck, the EU is looking to effectively dismantle GDPR because they're worried that it's going to cause them to miss out on the AI boom.
My point was just that Apple is such an outrageously bad actor (and the USB-C and Airdrop rules so beneficial) that these rules were getting even a very pro-market person like me to at least be open to the idea of regulating some of these out-of-control giants.
Your last paragraph doesn't really make you come off as a libertarian at all. If Apple is truly a bad actor, then the libertarian response isn't to have the EU force them to use USB-C on iPhones, it's for people to move away from iPhones to other choices, which means Androids.
“Excessive regulation stifles innovation” is pretty much a tautology. The point of argument is what constitutes “excessive.” Libertarians generally consider almost any amount to be excessive. What you’re describing just sounds like being aware of tradeoffs, which should be true of anyone paying attention.
The DMA also forces them to have interoperable end-to-end encrypted group video call support in like 5 years or something insane. No idea how that's supposed to happen!
So what is it? Comanagement between EU representatives and Apple employees? It looks like the German model where unions co-manage the companies.
On the paper it looks great, but the problem is the EU is not necessarily representing its citizens. It’s great for my Apple products, but I’m also paying for an entire lavish class of superior citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by lobbies.
> Comanagement between EU representatives and Apple employees?
Whatever gave you this impression? That’s not what the story is saying at all.
> the EU is not necessarily representing its citizens
It is not supposed to. The EU is a group of states, not citizens. If you want your voice to really count, lobby your national government, which has more say in the councils of ministers or the council of Europe than the MEPs have.
> I’m also paying for an entire lavish class of superior citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by lobbies.
How big is that "entire lavish class"? Just to know how upset I need to be. Also, which law was "written by lobbies"?
People keep mentioning Wi-Fi Aware with this, but so far haven't seen anyone actually prove that this is the case.
Apple undoubtedly added Wi-Fi Aware support to iOS https://developer.apple.com/documentation/WiFiAware, but its not clear whether iOS actually supports AirDrop over Wi-Fi Aware. Apple clearly hasn't completely dropped AWDL for AirDrop, because you can still AirDrop from iOS 26 to earlier devices.
Note that the Ars Technica article never directly makes the claim that Apple supports Airdrop over Wi-Fi Aware. The title is two independent statements - "The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop" - that's true.
> Google doesn’t mention it in either Quick Share post, but if you’re wondering why it’s suddenly possible for Quick Share to work with AirDrop, it can almost certainly be credited to European Union regulations imposed under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Again, they're just theorising. They never directly make the claim. Would love on Hacker News for someone to do some Hacking and actually figure it out for real!
It's frustrating how much people want this to be an EU win they'll fabricate evidence. The same happened with RCS in iOS, everybody jumped in to credit it to the EU, when you can find the document spelling out how RCS is a requirement for China.
I don't care which sovereign state or union forces the trillion dollar tech giant to behave. I'm just glad it happened. And I applaud China if this was their victory.
I want it to happen with a thousand times more intensity for Apple and Google.
We should own these devices. We shouldn't be subsistence farmers on the most important device category in the world.
They need to be opened up to competition, standards, right to repair, privacy, web app installs, browser choice, messaging, etc. etc.
They shouldn't be strong arming tiny developers or the entire automotive industry. It's vastly unfair. And this strip mining impacts us as consumers.
There is very little literature about Chinese requirements rolled out
and when there is, its talked about as American tech companies bowing to an authoritarian regime as opposed to fighting a burgeoning market force acting on behalf of consumers and the American tech companies losing that fight
the latter is how the EU work is syndicated
in between is that there likely is no fight with Chinese regulators alongside an unwillingness to alter access to that market
So they forced Apple to drop an Apple proprietary thing in favor of… a Wi-Fi standard Apple helped develop specifically to replace their proprietary thing.
Not quite as strong as the headline makes the case sound.
Apple also helped develop USB C more than a decade ago, they still had to be forced to actually use it in their phones. There is no contradiction here
Users all got to complain that the EU are the meanies responsible for their old wires and chargers and accessory no longer being compatible, but it seems infinitely more likely that Apple was going to adopt USB-C on largely the same schedule even if the EU didn't intercede.
To be clear, Apple had already moved their laptops and computers to USB-C -- long in advance of almost any one else -- and had moved their iPad Pros and Air to USB-C, building out the accessory set supporting the same, years before the EU decree. Pretty convenient when they get to blame the EU for their smartphones making the utterly inevitable move.
It's conceivably politically incorrect to use this reference, but Apple was begging the EU not to throw them into that briar patch.
Begging? Apple filed a couple of light objections -- basically a "don't regulate us, bro" -- and then moved on. Their resistance was laughably superficial
Look, Apple is a predatory, extraordinarily greedy company, but these sorts of "thanks EU!" discussions are a riot. Thanks EU, for making Apple support a clone of an Apple feature that didn't exist until Apple made it, and for "forcing" Apple to transition their line to USB-C, which they were already almost completely done doing.
I think you missed GP’s point. The briar patch is a reference to the story of Br’er Rabbit, which involves pretending to object to a punishment that one really doesn’t mind at all (and might even prefer).
The GP is suggesting that Apple was more than happy to have this mandate. I tend to agree: they wanted to switch the iPhone to USB-C anyway, but there’s always people who are going to be upset that their Lightning accessories no longer work or need an adapter. But this way they can say that the EU forced their hand. They get what they wanted all along, but they also get a scapegoat who can take the blame for the remaining downsides.
>> which they were already almost completely done doing
Honest question - why did they stick with lighting on iphones for so long, given that usb-c has been ubiquitus on phones for years before that point. I mean we can sit here and say "duh apple was going to do it anyway" but like.....why didn't they? Why did samsung have usb-c phones long before apple?
Because they were getting a reputation for churning the ports too quickly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyTA33HQZLA&t=19s
and then they went all-USBC on the MBP before the ecosystem was ready, got absolutely slammed for it, and went back (on magsafe). 4 times bitten, once shy. I'm sure the cynical money reason played a role too, of course, but nobody else is mentioning the 4 times bitten so I felt obliged.
Seriously.
I upgraded my iPad to a USB-C version and discovered I couldn't use my 1st-gen (Lightning) Apple Pencil with it even though it's compatible -- because I first had to buy a special female-female USB-C<->Lightning dongle just to be able to plug it in to pair it. (Even though I can keep using my Lightning charger to charge it separately from my iPad.)
Moving from Lightning to USB-C hasn't been too bad for me since I use wireless charging with e.g. my Lightning AirPods. But the transition is a huge pain. Because of weird cases like the Pencil, it's not even enough to just have a USB-C charging cable and a Lightning charging cable.
I wouldn’t blame USB-C for that, personally.
The Pencil situation is a disaster. There are at least 3 first party versions plus the 3rd party ones. And when version X + 1 comes out they don’t drop support for version X, they use it in a different product for some stupid reason. Probably because the tooling already exists.
So you can find entire matrices online attempting to explain which iPads support which pencils.
It’s horrible. The Lightning -> USB-C transition is probably one of least objectionable parts of pencil history.
They openly said why, millions upon millions of devices (speakers etc) people wanted to use with lightning connectors. There was never a good time and EU putting a deadline on it gets Apple free of the e-waste accusations.
No one was accusing Apple of e-waste when for decades the world had decided common standards were a great way to reduce e-waste.
Outside of America this has been obvious since the mid 2000s when people complained about a proliferation of chargers with phones because pre-iPhone the non US cellphone market was far more advanced.
Really? Do you remember the user shit storm when they dumped the dock connector and went to lightning? People wouldn’t shut up for years, even though lightning was way way better.
I think this whole narrative being spun here that Good Guy Apple was Being Oppressed by the lowly end users & wanted to do the right thing (be thrown into the briar patch) all along, just never could form the political will for it and needed EU intervention is some insane fucking weird ass made up nonsense. WTF wtf wtf? Surely you must be joking.
Apple has had MfI certification on Apple compatible products for decades & has actively wanted to protect that revenue stream & domain of control. If folks could just plug in devices & have them just work, that would erode their ownership.
And just as bad, it would raise all sorts of questions like "why does this mouse not do anything on my iPhone" and obscure the careful market delineations Apple vigorously has established between its products (which makes people buy more products than they need). Apple never wanted to be a good guy, Apple never wanted to lower itself to the common market of peripherals and standards. Their involvement with USB-C was likely far far far before it was apparent their device teams would have to give up MfI controls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MFi_Program
Apple's resistance was presumably user inertia. Users had billions of cables and accessories for lightning, and Apple saw during a prior transition that people get really pissed off about this sort of change.
And let's be real about Samsung et al -- before USB-C, they were using the utter dogshit micro USB connector (funfact -- this terrible connector became prevalent because the EU made a voluntary commitment with manufacturers to adopt it). micro-USB is a horrible connector from a user-experience and reliability perspective. USB-C was a massive, massive upgrade for those users.
In Apple land, everyone already had a bidirectional, reliable connector. Even today to most Apple users the switch from lightning to USB-C was just a sideways move.
> In Apple land, everyone already had a bidirectional, reliable connector
Wait, I thought the Apple 30-pin connector was not reversible?
USB-C has been out for over a decade now. There was only a small window of about two years where iphones had lightning and other phones did not yet have usb-c.
GP meant Lightning. It was reversible.
You are correct, the dock connector for was not.
And they couldn’t go to USB-C instead of Lightning initially as Lightning came out first.
> but it seems infinitely more likely that Apple was going to adopt USB-C on largely the same schedule even if the EU didn't intercede
There is no reason to believe this at all given how hard Apple fought the EU on this.
People spent a whole decade complaining about the iPod dock -> Lightning change.
I'd wait to blame the EU also.
Apple probably wouldn’t have changed to usbc for their phones. Lightning was a mobile phone / other development, whilst usbc and its contributions came from their Mac department.
They did not like each others standards. I know Apple engineers working on the phone who dislike the change even up to this day…
Did they give reasons for why they don't like the change?
USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime. The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which makes it more robust and easier to clean.
> USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime.
USB-C connectors are usually rated for 10k cycles. Do you have any evidence that lighting connectors are rated for more cycles than that?
> The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which makes it more robust and easier to clean.
This is very weak a priori arguing. I could just as well argue that USB-C has the center blade shielded instead of exposed and so is more durable.
Unless you have some empirical evidence on this I don't see a strong argument for better durability from either connector.
My Pixel 8 certainly hasn't gone through 10k cycles and it barely holds on to any USB-C connector I put inside it. They all fall out even when laying still on a flat surface.
There's always outliers, of course, but I had this issue with USB Micro-B on at least one other device and never saw it with a Lightning connector.
Your Pixel 8 could be about two years old. The connector performed way under spec and you should send it in for repair (assuming your are in a country with a 2 year warranty period)
Unfortunately we're nearing the anniversary of the warranty's expiration.
My lightning connector on my iPhone 12 is completely unreliable - I need to twist the phone against the cable to get it to change.
Fortunately MagSafe works fine!
This is probably lint buildup. You can scrape it out with any thin and stiff object like a safety pin.
A small amount of lint gets into the hole. You pack it in when you plug in the cable. Repeat a thousand times and now you have a stiff “plug” of lint that prevents the connector from fully entering your device.
My own empirical evidence suggests that USB-C ports stop holding tightly onto cables after light to moderate use.
To be fair, Lightning ports were prone to being clogged with lint, but that was fixable in twenty seconds with a safety pin.
exactly!
The 10K cycle insertion rating for USB-C is an idealized metric that does not include lateral force, torque, device movement, or real-world wear patterns. These non-axial forces are a known cause of USB-C port failures and are explicitly not accounted for in the standard 10k-cycle durability claim.
USB-C center tongue female design means that the port will break before the cable. With lightning, the cable plug takes all the stress.
Apple doesn’t publish insertion cycles rating for Lightning connectors, so it’s impossible to provide empirical evidence of that.
In my personal experience, I’ve had two USB-C ports go bad on two MacBooks. I’ve yet to own a USB-C-charging phone, but I’ve never had a Lightning port fail.
> These non-axial forces are a known cause of USB-C port failures and are explicitly not accounted for in the standard 10k-cycle durability claim.
I agree and that's par for the course for any standard, they have to limit the requirements to something that is economically manufacutrable and testable.
Meanwhile, lightning connectors have no public standard to speak of so this is a mute point.
> USB-C center tongue female design means that the port will break before the cable. With lightning, the cable plug takes all the stress.
This is another a priori armchair expert argument which I just put very little weight on without data to back it up.
> Apple doesn’t publish insertion cycles rating for Lightning connectors, so it’s impossible to provide empirical evidence of that.
That conclusion does not follow. We can still obtain empirical evidence through direct testing without Apple publishing anything.
> In my personal experience, I’ve had two USB-C ports go bad on two MacBooks. I’ve yet to own a USB-C-charging phone, but I’ve never had a Lightning port fail.
That's fair, everyone has different anecdotal experiences as a foundation for their opinion here. The problem is that anecdotal data is just not very informative to others, that's all.
"I know Apple engineers working on the phone"
Groan. Come on. Cite one. A single "Apple engineer" to support this ridiculous claim of insider knowledge. What year do you think it is?
You understand that the SoC and I/O blocks are largely shared between the Mac and the iPad / iPhone now, right? This invention of some big bifurcation is not reality based. The A14 SoC (which became the foundation for the Mac's M1) had I/O hardware to support USB-C all the ways back to the iPhone 12. Which makes sense as this chipset was used in iPads that came with USB-C.
Pretty weird for hardware that is largely the same to "not like each others standards".
Absolutely. It is excessively obvious and I don’t understand how not much more of a common take that is.
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Apple still has not moved iPhones to usb c outside of Europe so I'd seems like they're not gonna "just do it"
What are you talking about? The iPhone has been using USB-C globally since the iPhone 15 in 2023.
It is also worth noting that Android wasn’t using the standard as well. If they had, this would have been day 0 interoperability for Android phones. Instead, it is a single phone model released a couple months after iOS 26.
Apple was forced to upstream the standard because the writing was on the wall so may as well preempt it.
It’d also a benefit for Apple, since once upstreamed it shares the maintenance burden across all participants.
I feel like your take is what an Apple PR person might say in order to downplay Apple's defeat.
Hah, right? Everyone understands that Apple wouldn't have done anything by themselves if it wasn't for the DMA.
The whole selling point of Apple was that as long as you're inside the ecosystem, you'll get the smoothest experience. Well, now the law says that devices, apps and products from third parties should be able to be used on an iPhone as seamlessly as Apple's own products, of course they wouldn't have given that up willingly.
The headline is 100% correct.
It is literally correct. My point was I think it implies the EU had to force a totally belligerent Apple (which we’ve certainly seen) instead of Apple already working on this and EU perhaps speeding the timeline a little.
And yet Apple resisted adopting that standard until the EU forced them to.
It’s fascinating seeing all the anti-EU Apple fanbois when arguably Apple’s most successful iPhone change in the last half decade, the switch to USB-C, was an EU decision.
The EU: Sacrificing constituents' privacy rights with one hand, while courageously fighting for the sacred right to AirDrop with the other.
If a law forced Apple to do good for everyone, not just a small group of people, isn't that a good thing? It wasn't exactly that AirDrop got legislated, but thanks to the DMA, AirDrop (and other things) are within scope and they now have to make things more seamless for everyone. Win-win no?
Don't worry, the United States is always eager to prove that you can neglect both consumer rights and user privacy at the same time.
This wasn't a "meanwhile, the U.S. is good" post. Let's hope this massive AirDrop "win" eases the sting of the rights that the EU is eroding.
I don't think it was an anything post. You are an Apple customer upset at the status quo, which is understandable, but your post is not.
If "think of the children" feels like manufactured consent for the erosion of rights, spending money supporting Tim "Client Side Scanning" Cook isn't going to yield some moral reprisal from Apple. Emotionally manipulating you into accepting conditional surveillance is part of Apple's security model. They're the "good guys" and they don't need to prove it.
The national governments are to blame, not the EU.
Regulators never manage to design good products, but they’re weirdly good at accidentally clearing technical roadblocks that incumbents had no incentive to touch.
This is what "interoperability" actually looks like in practice: nobody forces Apple to ship AirDrop-for-Android, they just force them off a proprietary stack and onto a public standard, and suddenly Google can meet them on neutral ground. The EU didn’t create a feature, it removed Apple’s ability to say "we technically can’t."
Also notice the asymmetry: once both sides sit on Wi-Fi Aware, Apple gets basically nothing by embracing Quick Share, but Google and users get a ton from being able to talk to AirDrop. So the market on its own would never converge on this, because the only player who could unlock the value had the least reason to. You need a regulator to make the defection from proprietary to standard mandatory, then "open" just looks like someone finally flipping a bit that was always there.
I wonder if it's related to Apple's change from AWDL to Wi-Fi Aware, but AirDrop seems much more reliable on iOS 26. I can send to multiple people at once and they often all succeed, but most importantly, if one transfer fails or is cancelled, I can retry and it works. In older versions of iOS, a failed transfer seemed to block all future attempts until the phone was restarted.
Is there any proof that this change actually happened?
Have you tried the NFC-bumping the tops of the iPhones together yet? So far I’ve had superb success rate on iOS18.
the weird one for me is that if I hit share, and then hit the airdrop target, it doesn't work, but if go into airdrop and then select the same target, then works. Apple, fix your shit, yo.
Yep seen this before too.
An additional benefit is that the Wi-Fi standard also means that the weird account requirements on Google's Nearby Share can be avoided by independent implementations (i.e. on Windows or Linux or maybe rooted Android, iOS and macOS already have it of course).
"Contacts only mode" will always be a challenge, but at least the "I just want to share a file without Google watching me" use case is now resolved by Google implementing a standard that doesn't involve them.
Unfortunately, this is Pixel 10 exclusive for now, for some reason. I expect Samsung to pick this up eventually as well, but I'm not sure if Google will be able to backport this tech through Google Play Services the way they did with Nearby Share on older phones.
Qualcomm has confirmed it's coming to Snapdragon phones soon[0], which maybe hints that it's dependent on the SoC drivers? Samsung uses a mix of Snapdragon and their own Exynos, but I can't see them not releasing it to their Snapdragon phones when others do, and then they pretty much have to release it to their Exynos phones too.
[0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-confirms-Quick-Share-...
Have you confirmed that the new feature works without an account or is that speculation?
The account requirement for nearby share never made sense yet they still did it the way...
I'll be happy when Airdrop works reliably on Apple equipment.
It can't reliably work between two adjacent rooms in my home without arm-waving.
A hundred or thousand mile trip through iCloud works tons better.
can the EU pass a law forcing apple to make AirDrop work between two ios devices?
Look, I don't like some of the things the EU is doing and I think Apple should consider (along with other tech companies) selling products tailed to the EU, Asia and rest of the world. In the long-run, it might be cheaper.
That said, they are setting a good example of legislating for tech. We should be doing a lot of that here in the US. I don't need a bulletproof, ultra-secure, end-to-end encrypted, formally verified phone (although that would be nice). As a boring regular person, I want to not have to need all of that because my government will imprison people that violate my rights. But more on-topic, the FTC (EDIT: FCC) exists to regulate among other things, wireless comms, so this would be something they should be legislating.
Although, putting on my tech hat, I need to re-state that I disagree with this move. I want tech companies to experiment and use faster, more secure, more reliable comms tech without having to worry about compatibility. It is in my interest as a consumer.
Lightning was a superior technology to USB-C, we don't have it now because the EU forced apple's hands. I don't want to lose out on good tech. The EU should have instead forced everyone else to use lightning if they want things simpler.
Why is the EU intent on having inferior tech, inferior capability, inferior pay, inferior innovation-friendly environment. They have the power to demand better things and provide them for their people. The compromise isn't needed. At the risk of offending the HN crowd, I'll even say that the EU shouldn't support open-source things unless they are actually the superior tech. You can't eat or pay your bills with ideals. If commercial/properietary tech is better for europeans, that is what the EU should focus on.
I will drive European or Japanese cars that are better than American cars, I don't mind doing the same with tech, except with Europe that's getting more and more rare. What happened to Nokia and Ericsson. NL has ASML, wouldn't it be nice if we had a TSMC competitor in Europe as well? I don't want to keep going on, but I hope my point is clear.
Competition is good, Android shouldn't need to support AirDrop, it should come up with a better alternative and leave iPhone users wondering why Android's solution is faster and works at greater distances. Same with iMessage compatibility.
Instead competition, the EU is wanting forced mediocrity. They are within their rights for sure, but it isn't the best thing to do.
I only wish they did the same thing with electrical outlets and forced the world to use one mediocre standard :)
> the FTC exists to regulate among other things, wireless comms
FCC purview?
oops, I meant FCC, edited it.
> it should come up with a better alternative and leave iPhone users wondering why Android's solution is faster and works at greater distances. Same with iMessage compatibility.
Okay, so, why don't we see competition in places where it matters, like Airdrop, iMessage and the App Store?
The answer seems to be pretty simple, to me; Apple considers themselves above competition. It doesn't matter if a superior system exists, they ultimately decide what is righteous and anyone who disagrees buys a different phone. It's a lose/lose situation between consumers and the economy, who neither get superior software solutions nor cheaper products.
> If I had to guess why neither of Google’s Quick Share posts mentions Wi-Fi interoperability standards or the DMA, it may be because Google has been complaining about various aspects of the law and its enforcement since before it was even passed
This is telling a lot about US companies complaining about EU laws.
I'm libertarian, but I have to say watching the EU torment Apple has been delightful and one of the stronger arguments for muscular regulatory action.
The USB-C thing just made everything better. It cost Apple basically nothing---maybe a few million/year of profit, which for a company that's worth $3 trillion is nothing, and it made my and many other people's lives quite a bit more convenient.
Same with this Airdrop thing, and same with RCS (although there's some reporting that RCS had more to do with China than the EU).
Eventually, someone is going to break open iMessage, and poor Apple will actually have to compete again for customers. Maybe they'll innovate something more interesting than Airpods Ultra Mega Pro Max or a thinner phone.
Apple made major contributions to USB-C and adopted it a decade ago in their MacBooks. They were committed to lightning for 10 years starting in 2012-ish, so usb-c was likely inevitable in iOS devices.
However I would preferred a backwards compatibility lightning 2.0 upgrade. Cleaning a usb-c port is a huge pain and they are more prone to pocket lint clogging than lightning.
While I really like the convenience of not having multiple different cables to charge my devices when travelling, I agree with you on cleaning the usb-c port. In that respect, the lightning design was a lot more elegant and made more sense for a pocketable device.
Plastic dental picks work great for cleaning USB-C ports.
just don’t apply too much pressure or the center segment can bend over time, becoming weak and prone to potentially snapping off.
It happened to me at least.
Haven't encountered that yet. But I always try to be extra careful and also look for the thinnest ones I can find. Seems like a product niche right there. Rigid, thin, non-conductive picks.
Careful on what you wish for. The same regulatory action can be (is) being used for Chat Control (that dropped off the main page for some reason). Ultimately neither power center acts for the general interest.
You're a libertarian but regulatory intervention made everything about the market better and a better world for everyone involved with a relatively small change that was being stubbornly refused by a company for a small marginal benefit to themselves?
We call them "LINO"s.
Left libertarianism is compatible with such views.
Basically, libertarian on social issues paired with a preference for a decentralized economy, as opposed to a "tankie" (Stalinist) style centrally planned economy.
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Or... You know... We also like watching one giant corporation that benefits from distinctly authoritarian policies get wrecked by another authoritarian entity to the benefit of better competition in the market.
But apparently unless you're a suckup to the authoritarian entity that you like is now a LINO.
Bingo.
Sure, because I think that, ultimately excessive regulation stifles innovation. I mean, heck, the EU is looking to effectively dismantle GDPR because they're worried that it's going to cause them to miss out on the AI boom.
My point was just that Apple is such an outrageously bad actor (and the USB-C and Airdrop rules so beneficial) that these rules were getting even a very pro-market person like me to at least be open to the idea of regulating some of these out-of-control giants.
Your last paragraph doesn't really make you come off as a libertarian at all. If Apple is truly a bad actor, then the libertarian response isn't to have the EU force them to use USB-C on iPhones, it's for people to move away from iPhones to other choices, which means Androids.
“Excessive regulation stifles innovation” is pretty much a tautology. The point of argument is what constitutes “excessive.” Libertarians generally consider almost any amount to be excessive. What you’re describing just sounds like being aware of tradeoffs, which should be true of anyone paying attention.
> EU is looking to effectively dismantle GDPR
The reason is lobby, not innovations.
The usb C to hdmi adapter is 100x less reliable than the lightning to hdmi adapter (having talked to many that used both).
Not sure why that is, but something to ponder.
The DMA also forces them to have interoperable end-to-end encrypted group video call support in like 5 years or something insane. No idea how that's supposed to happen!
Telegram implemented such feature.
https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end/group-calls
Will this help or hinder the CCP’s strong arming of Apple to hinder airdrop?
[dupe]
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854
The better dupe (linked in TFA) - from March:
> Cross-Platform P2P Wi-Fi: How the EU Killed AWDL
https://www.ditto.com/blog/cross-platform-p2p-wi-fi-how-the-...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43505022
[dupe] of your own comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062963
[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854
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Is the eu or apple the toddler here?
So what is it? Comanagement between EU representatives and Apple employees? It looks like the German model where unions co-manage the companies.
On the paper it looks great, but the problem is the EU is not necessarily representing its citizens. It’s great for my Apple products, but I’m also paying for an entire lavish class of superior citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by lobbies.
> Comanagement between EU representatives and Apple employees?
Whatever gave you this impression? That’s not what the story is saying at all.
> the EU is not necessarily representing its citizens
It is not supposed to. The EU is a group of states, not citizens. If you want your voice to really count, lobby your national government, which has more say in the councils of ministers or the council of Europe than the MEPs have.
> I’m also paying for an entire lavish class of superior citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by lobbies.
How big is that "entire lavish class"? Just to know how upset I need to be. Also, which law was "written by lobbies"?
> the problem is the EU is not necessarily representing its citizens.
Yes, EU citizens probably absolutely love not being able to conveniently share files between Android and iOS.
> I’m also paying for an entire lavish class of superior citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by lobbies.
What lobbies, in this particular case? Google? Samsung?