[malsme]

What the EU did with the standardisation of connectors was a good thing for consumers. I'm not really sure why someone would side with Apple in this respect, other than if you own shares in the business, work for them, for a supplier etc.

[sjwright]

I also side with them as a consumer who frequently connects cables to devices, and therefore knows that micro-usb sucks balls.

If I was an Apple shareholder I would have wanted them to stick with the 30 pin connector; as much as Lightning should greatly improve usability, Apple have so much marketplace inertia stored in the 30 pin accessory market, and they're going to lose all of it overnight.

See that awesome fancy speaker dock? Chances are it's got a 30 pin connector on it. That's not going to be the case in 18 months. And I bet less than half of the speaker dock market is Lightning by then; the rest will be neither.

[dgudkov]

That's correct. I enjoy getting rid of bunch of different cables. Now 1 plug and 1 micro-USB cable can charge all phones, tablets and e-readers in house.

[adestefan]

Because it limits innovation. What if there was a law that was enacted in the 1970s that mandated every video interconnect must be a single RCA cable?