There is absolutely zero need for USB-A. None. It does nothing whatsoever that USB-C can't do, and there are ton of things that USB-C can do better. There is no need for two USB "mid sized" plug standards - and obviously USB-C is now the dominant. Almost every single peripheral, device, component, that can run on USB-A runs on USB-C. And there is a huge contingent of devices that could never run on USB-A. As soon as everyone has agreed that USB-A is dead, completely dead, people will cease manufacturing USB-A peripherals, which further enhances the value of a port that almost everyone is now using for everything.
Honestly - the USB-A port should have been wiped out a couple years ago - the only reason it didn't is that everyone has this massive legacy of USB-A ports (Hotels, Airports, Airplanes, etc...) that people plug into, which kept them holding onto those legacy peripherals longer than they should have. Also - some weird hardware dongles that haven't been upgraded to USB-C.
What we need to do is start seeing how quickly Hotels/Cars/Airplanes/Airports/... start switching over to USB-C. When that happens there will be this massive cascade effect - it will be exponential:
I'm guessing by 2032, nobody will be carrying legacy USB-A peripherals anymore. Only wildcard will be if there is a USB-next that will replace C. Please don't let that happen before USB-C takes over the world.
> There is absolutely zero need for USB-A. None. It does nothing whatsoever that USB-C can't do, and there are ton of things that USB-C can do better.
What's the USB-C story nowadays if you have N USB-C peripherals and M USB-C ports where N > M?
Most USB-C hubs seem to have one USB-C for connecting to the computer, one USB-C for connecting to a peripheral, and then a bunch of USB-A for connecting to more peripherals.
To get something that actually increases the number of USB-C peripherals, especially if more than one of your peripherals needs more than low power, and is reliable it appears that you have to get a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 dock and it is pretty pricey.
Until there are cheap reliable 1 to many USB-C hubs USB-A is not going to go away.
The argument is that it's legacy and it will die because USB-C is better is a variety of ways. And in true Apple fashion, Apple is killing it somewhat aggressively. Though it's not just Apple. Something like a Google Pixelbook is USB-C only as well.
The same thing can be said for the unnecessary apple lightning plug - it serves no purpose other than apple selling adapters and blocking usb-c use. Yet it keeps being used. Lots of companies have things with only usb-c but the real problem is not new use, it's the billions of devices with usb-a plugs on them. In my house there are probably 10 usb-c plugs across several computers and 100 usb-a things to plug in.
The Lightning connector was introduced in 2012 while USB-C was introduced in 2014.
My theory is that Apple made commitments to keep supporting the Lightning connector on their phones for a number of years to get manufacturers to create devices with it.
Say whatever you want, when it was introduced it was clearly a big improvement over the micro USB connectors everyone else was using. By now it’s holding them back though.
The main purpose lightning serves is that it removes a barrier to Apple customers upgrading to the next iPhone. Apple will get to USB-C--probably sooner rather than later; I wouldn't bet against this year--but that's actually a case of getting onto a standard even though there's no real advantage right now for Apple customers and some pain.
Honestly - the USB-A port should have been wiped out a couple years ago - the only reason it didn't is that everyone has this massive legacy of USB-A ports (Hotels, Airports, Airplanes, etc...) that people plug into, which kept them holding onto those legacy peripherals longer than they should have. Also - some weird hardware dongles that haven't been upgraded to USB-C.
What we need to do is start seeing how quickly Hotels/Cars/Airplanes/Airports/... start switching over to USB-C. When that happens there will be this massive cascade effect - it will be exponential:
I'm guessing by 2032, nobody will be carrying legacy USB-A peripherals anymore. Only wildcard will be if there is a USB-next that will replace C. Please don't let that happen before USB-C takes over the world.