this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026
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Remember folks, apple onyl has usb c because they were forced to
They were forced to have one, they were not forced to remove everything else.
That is solely on them.
Malicious compliance
fuck apple but you're kinda mistaken here, if you're talking about just iphone, maybe you're right - but they had usb c (actually thunderbolt) on macbook and ipad before any legal rulings, macbooks before there was even any hint of legislation iirc.
They may be talking about micro usb 3.0 that was basically usb-c before the physical plug was developed. It was a micro usb with a really stupid additional plug bonded to it to make it high power and I think gave extra data lanes. Lighting plug was probably apples counter to that ungodly sin upto the tech universe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Connector_USB_3_IMGP6033_wp.jpg
yeah i have an external ssd that uses that weird clamshell connector, you can actually just plug in a regular micro B and it works with usb 2.0 speeds
lightning was basically a better version of the micro-b connector, it debuted with the iPhone 5 in 2012, it had a few advantages over micro-B including a reversible connector. back when it came out apple users complained because all the accessories used the old 30-pin connector so they weren't compatible, so apple pledged to not change the iPhone connector again for a long time, iirc 10 years? i think that's why iPhones were still using lightning until 2023 despite having usb C on the macbook since 2016
Yeah, the hate on lightning kinda reminds me of the hate on FireWire. It's like, the only alternative at the time was USB 1.0, which was 8mbs. Even in the ~~late~~ early 00s, that could have meant hours to sync your ~~phone~~ iPod.
aren't these different tech stacks and connectors?
Macbooks have had Thunderbolt 3 (the protocol) over USB-C (the physical form factor) since about 2015. The Thunderbolt 3 protocol became incorporated into the USB 4 standard in 2019 (and is implemented on the physical USB-C port).
Earlier versions of Thunderbolt were proprietary standards jointly controlled by Apple and Intel, but implemented over Mini-DisplayPort connectors. They were phased out in new devices starting in around 2015.
used to be, not anymore though, thunderbolt uses the same ports as USB C and is compatible with USB C, you can think of thunderbolt as enhanced USB C
is it thunderbolt emulated through software on the USB pin stack? or is it really thunderbolt pins offering a USB connector, emulating USB protocols on the thunderbolt stack?
No. Some pins in USB can be used for non-USB protocols. If your monitor takes USB-C, likely the video signal is transmitted using DisplayPort on those pins.
Ditto thunderbolt.
i'm sorry, i don't know the details of how it's implemented exactly
Its capable of some pretty high bandwidths, there's some extra hardware required to make the ports work for thunderbolt. But I think it just runs through the normal USB-C pins.
Its more like an internal switch, rather than emulation. At least the Wikipedia page mentions different pin configurations per usage mode...
I asked a slop machine and it said that Thunderbolt is implemented in the PCIe/Displayport hardware mode of the USB. I then checked the wikipedia and it more or less aligned with that interpretation
In apple's defense, they wanted a reversible high speed connector, but the USB committee in their infinite wisdom was like "what if we added a tumor to the micro USB instead?"
iPhones only have USB-C because they were forced to, but MacBooks were some of the very early adopters of the connector, and iPads also picked it up well before the requirement.