The news has had a little time to sink in. Lightning, Apple’s proprietary connector, is now a dead man walking. We all knew it was coming. Apple moved its iPad to USB-C, and European countries now require all phones to use a common connector. It was only a matter of time before Apple complied. So what now?
Pour one out for Lightning
Lightning was introduced with Apple’s iPhone 5 eleven years ago. At the time it replaced Apple’s 30-pin Dock Connector, which frankly no one liked. It was large, flimsy, and hard to support. Lightning was small, elegant, and fast enough for anything you wanted to do with it. And yet it was doomed from the start.
USB-C was released to the public about 15 months after Lightning was. In many ways it was inferior to Lightning. It’s a bigger connector and it has more areas where dust and gunk can collect. However, it’s also supported by just about everyone and it will allow for much faster speeds and much higher voltage than Lightning. Lightning never had a chance.
Any hope for old cables?
For the most part, old cables don’t have much use. I’ve used them as cat toys, in place of ribbons when wrapping stuff for my geeky friends, and even to hang things from the ceiling. But honestly when it comes to the idea of reusing cables for any meaningful purpose, it can’t really be done.
There are Lightning to USB-C adapters around, but they’re really about the same price as new cables. A Lightning cable will never carry speed as quickly as a USB-C cable anyway. I would say it’s not really worth trying.
If you are handy with a soldering iron you could find some use for these cables. Chances are you’re never going to have the dexterity to add a USB-C connector to a former Lightning cable, but USB can be used for other things. It’s good for supplying low voltage to a number of hobbyist projects.
Really for most of us…
Most of us will either throw away our cables or responsibly recycle them. There’s barely enough copper in them to reclaim, unfortunately. This flood of Lightning cables into landfills was actually Apple’s argument for keeping Lightning alive. When the EU was considering its “one connector strategy,” Apple argued that landfills would be overwhelmed by people throwing away old cables. Europe’s government didn’t buy that. I don’t either.
The good news here is that USB-C is likely to be with us for a long while yet. It’s not a perfect connector. Absolutely not. But it’s about as small as human hands can handle. It can handle data speeds far beyond the needs of most people. It’s not going anywhere.
So, feel good about saying goodbye to your many tired and frayed Lightning cables, and if you’re ready to upgrade to that new iPhone, call the folks at Solid Signal! We’ll give you much better customer service than Apple or any of the cell providers! Call us at 888-233-7563 or fill out the form below.
