I think 500mbps is a stretch tbh, even the spec's 480 is still a stretch considering USB protocol overhead. If your device uses the much slower MTP then you've got that overhead on top of the USB protocol too.

That said, in real life this is not much more than 20MB/s. That's more than adequate for internet, but this speed is 2005 laptop hard drive territory. Forget recording in 4k or 8k, because that footage is going to take a while to pull out - airdrop would probably be much faster than using the cable, which is embarassing IMO

Even if the lightning data transfer speed is "good enough", you're still paying big money for a premium device, where the manufacturer made a conscious decision to use tech from over two decades ago... when just adding two more lines to the SoC and switching the connector to something compatible is all it takes to benefit from the much greater transfer speeds now.

...actually meh I don't really care lol, nobody is going to stop Apple from milking their customers regardless of how intuitive their software is.

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

Oh yeah. You’re not getting 480 out of that wire and airdrop is totally faster. 4k isn’t awful over airdrop though. Maybe I’m just glad it’s not ntsc real time capture like back in the day…

Ultimately I agree with you. It would have been good to add the other “side” to the receptacle and have plenty of lanes. You’d need some way to show that a wire is new lightning, but that’s small potatoes.

Ultimately though even with the bad speeds I think lightning is the better connector for a phone. Not many people are transferring video off their phone using a wire, most upload it directly. But everyone puts their phone in their pocket. I’ll take the connector you can easily and safely clean lint out of over the one that saves time transferring video any day.