Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dayjobpork 2014 days ago
Apple is also the company that decides that 'x port' is the new greatest thing ever and drops support for previous ports
1 comments

This is nonsense.

Apple maintained the iPhone 30 pin connector for 10+ years. The Lightning port is 10 years old. Apple supported Thunderbolt for its entire life as a standard. Apple was one of the first to use USB-A and supported it for ~20 years until they switched to USB-C (another standard).

Apple does tend to go all in on a bus, but they don't change them often. You won't find 8 different ports on a Mac to satisfy the previous 4 generations of various connector technologies.

Regardless, if you buy a USB-C powered computer, it doesn't matter a bit what Apple does next year. It's USB-C. Whether Apple changes next year or not, you can still buy cheap/ good third party USB-C charges and they are likely only going to get better.

I think apple has this reputation because even if they keep a port for 10 years, that means 20% of the people get their first apple product within 2 years of the port disappearing
This still makes no sense. USB connectors for smartphones have gone through 3-4 different iterations in that same time depending on the make. If you bought Samsung, you likely went through a year or two with that god-awful USB 3.0 "Micro-B" connector.
My first smartphone was a Palm Pre in 2009 that took a micro USB. I recently (this year) got my first smartphone with a USB-C connector and all of the ones in the interim used micro USB.

As far as computers, I have had USB A on all of the laptops I've ever owned, and gone through 2 display connectors (DVI, and HDMI). The laptop I'm currently typing this on has a VGA connector, should I need it. My wife, who uses macs has had a different display connector for every laptop going back to her G4.

For desktops, I wouldn't be surprised to see a PS/2 connector on the back of my computer, though I haven't looked and I know my second most recent one had a PS/2 connector. Heck, my motherboard has a firewire pin-header, which is absurd because that standard had approximately zero popularity on PCs in the first place!

Apple has much more abrupt changes. I don't think there was a single Mac that shipped with both ADB and USB ports, and it was about a year from the first iMac with USB, and the last Mac Pro with ADB shipping.

This abruptness is possible because Apple controls much more of the ecosystem than anybody does in the PC world. I think I had USB ports on my computer for 3-ish years before I ever used the for anything at all (thumb drives weren't really a thing yet, and I had no need to upgrade my mouse or keyboard). For a long time mice would implement both USB and PS/2 and come with an adapter to let them plug into either.