←back to thread

Cross-Platform P2P Wi-Fi: How the EU Killed AWDL

(www.ditto.com)
223 points stusmall | 4 comments | 28 Mar 25 13:13 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
joshstrange ◴[28 Mar 25 15:01 UTC] No.43506331[source]▶
So it's lightning all over again? Lightning was better than micro-usb, then USB-C came out and was even better and people get pissy at Apple for creating something better than the standard (and donating some of that back to the standard).

I know this will not be popular here but I really do not like the EU's most recent round of "no, you have to open up this feature".

replies(7): >>43506363 #>>43506414 #>>43506475 #>>43506639 #>>43506728 #>>43506765 #>>43507121 #
fire_lake ◴[28 Mar 25 15:07 UTC] No.43506414[source]▶
Lightning is still better than USB C in terms of physical connector design (Lightning puts the male part on the more easily replaced cable side). Annoying that it’s not a strict improvement being imposed.
replies(5): >>43506666 #>>43506730 #>>43506932 #>>43506942 #>>43509029 #
1. lxgr ◴[28 Mar 25 15:29 UTC] No.43506666[source]▶
At least as far as I can tell, this seems to be a solved problem. USB-C ports on iPhones are holding up just fine.

I'll take a 1% higher chance of a port wearing out over a 100% chance of needing to always carry two cables and not being able to share accessories with Android users any day.

replies(1): >>43507218 #
2. literalAardvark ◴[28 Mar 25 16:20 UTC] No.43507218[source]▶
The port connector is more reliable on USB-C.

The fine springy wiry bits that are impossible to clean and easy to damage are on the cable, which is a massive improvement. See: the super common broken Ethernet ports.

replies(1): >>43508956 #
3. emchammer ◴[28 Mar 25 19:10 UTC] No.43508956[source]▶
For those of us who used to fix PCBs and wire breadboards, it’s nice to see the traces are still there, like knowing where your food comes from, even if any hope of an analog baseband project is long past. Lightning is one of Apple’s hits.
replies(1): >>43513476 #
4. literalAardvark ◴[29 Mar 25 07:12 UTC] No.43513476{3}[source]▶
Yeah, let's make more things the wrong way for the nostalgic aesthetic.

I'm old enough to have done that, and to really miss the old world, but an improvement is an improvement.

None of the stuff I grew up with is "hackable" anymore. None of the design constraints of small, sleek, performant, high battery life and secure are amenable to that.

Even (production) Linux has stopped being a hacker's paradise and is tightening the rope.

And that's what the iPhone is: a production phone.

You want some cool toys? Get Arduinos, hacker laptops, RPis, Arch.

It's all still out there, but not every device needs to have its guts out.

That being said I will always miss SoftIce, being able to look stuff up in memory, being able to look stuff up in network traffic... alas, it's gone, and the truth is we're better off for it.