Ok, I have to take issue with this. I will never be an apple user, but until USB-C came out I was honestly jealous of the lightning cable. It is reversible and consistent, two things other phone chargers never were. Sure, for data transfer it's outdated as hell now, but it is still good enough for most uses
I worked cellular retail for 8 years I’ve never really seen fried pins on iPhones. The frayed cables are pretty much inevitable especially if it is apples first party cables. Shockingly I have had contamination in usbc ports though. It caused several devices of mine to no longer charge due to corrosion. Still not sure what exactly caused it but I suppose it was juice from a vape that leaked into the connector. Basically fried my laptop c ports, my iPads port and my pixel’s port. I still think the move to c was pretty necessary.
Only complaint is cables that have contaminants can easily travel between devices now.
Other than that the protocol support is all over the place.
Everyone I know who uses an iPhone has had fried pins on the cable, not necessarily on their device. No one I know personally has had any issues with USB-C.
Though both experiences are anecdotal, I think we can take this away from our conversation at least: no cable design is perfect. Lol!
Consistent in that they used the same type of charger for almost all their devices after they established it. Mini-USB outdoes them in ubiquity, but the connector is usually a piece of shit.
When they go portless (I'm guessing next year or 2) they don't want people bitching that the charging is slower, so they're not going to support wired charging that's faster than wireless.
The same law that forces standardised cable by the EU also forces Apple to not go portless, since it needs a standardised port on the device that can be used to charge.