I fix electronics and people bring in phones all the time. Even though I’m not a phone shop and don’t even have a bench set up for phones. I get way, way more usb phones in for ports than lightning ones.

Now it’s not just usbc (although nowadays it almost always is), but I keep a big ol bin of different usb ports to replace with. I have done four lightning ports in comparison.

If people are lucky they just didn’t have a small enough pin to clean out the crud from around the tongue. Some will have one of the pins on the tongue bent back and shorting something out and confusing the controller, they might be able to get by without it or it may work for a little while once it’s straightened back out but I know that one’s coming back soon. Most have damage to the tongue from cleaning too vigorously using a field expedient tool or the port component itself is ripped off the board due to how well the very strong annular connection between a usbc port and cable transfer torque.

I like usbc for a bunch of stuff, but phones ain’t it.

[–] reddit_sux@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well there are more USB-C devices than lightning.

[–] bloodfart@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

That’s true, but at least one a week for a few years now versus four ever? Nah. The ports too delicate for what users put it through.

Plus I get more apple stuff in general than the marketshare numbers would dictate. It gets repaired and resold longer. Massive amounts of usbc devices are throwaway and gimmies from institutions and carriers and are just disposed of when they break.

Some of that effect is the expense of apple stuff, some of it is the emotional attachment people build with a computer after they’ve used it for ten years, some of it is just plum retained value. People aren’t gonna chuck a laptop they can resell for $400 when it needs a $100 repair.