[dTal]

USB-C is very far from a perfect connector. The female side still has a fragile plastic tongue that can break. They also reliably wear out with use, both the cables and the socket. We've all seen them fail. Actually all the USB connectors do eventually, because they all rely on a thin piece of sheet metal not bending when lateral force is applied. And, reversibility notwithstanding, they are still hard to fumble into place compared to (say) RJ45, or 3.5mm TRRS.

I have no love for Apple and their proprietary nonsense, but even lightning is a strictly better connector than USB-C - easier to insert, less fragile, better wearing. Still too many wires though.

I wish we'd used something like TRRRS, and stuck to 4 wires. Very robust, any orientation, easy to fumble in blind.

[tliltocatl]

TRRS might work for power, but it sucks for signal integrity - ergo no high-speed for you. And 4 wires is nowhere enough. You need two for each differential pair. No, half-duplex is absolutely not okay, it's the worst design decision in pre-SS USB.

[cassepipe]

Tangeant but then it means that framework's expansion card design for their laptop is a great idea: When the expansion cards plug into the mainboard they are already on a rail that prevents lateral stress, plus generally don't un/plug them often and you let the cheap replaceable expansion card takes on the wear.

[justin66]

> USB-C is very far from a perfect connector. The female side still has a fragile plastic tongue that can break. They also reliably wear out with use, both the cables and the socket. We've all seen them fail.

Strange comment. My USB C cables have only ever failed around the strain relief after lengthy use, as with any cable that gets handled a lot. I've got a few where I can feel the resistance gradually lessening when plugging and unplugging, but nothing has failed. As someone who wants to keep devices for a while the greatest thing about the USB C power standard sounds a little like faint praise, but: pretty much all my laptops relying on USB C for power will allow me to plug power into a different USB C port if the one I habitually use wears out.

Lightning was more failure prone, not just wearing out the goofy plugs but with failures on the device side. Micro-USB was a nightmare.

[fwip]

I also haven't had any USB-C ports fail, so +1 to your anecdata.

Some laptops are picky about what port you use to charge them, unfortunately - I believe my laptop has only one that can charge it fast enough to keep up with full GPU use - the others are around 20W iirc.

[fl0ki]

I was also worried about the plastic tongue, but I have never managed to break one. In contrast, I have managed to irreperably damage the exposed metal contacts on multiple Lightning cables. If you'd asked me which should be more durable, I would have predicted Lightning, but my experience has been the exact opposite and beyond any doubt.

[grey-area]

I have not in fact seen any USB-C sockets/cables fail, but I have seen a couple of failures with lightning (the fragile tongue on the male end can snap or get corroded/scratched).

[buran77]

> USB-C is very far from a perfect connector.

There is no perfect connector. But a common, standardized connector across applications and manufacturers, which is available now, and has most of the useful features is the next best thing.

[algoth1]

Audio 6.5 mm is as close as humanity got to a perfect connector. Unfortunately downsizing it to 3.5 mm removes the robustness of the female as it tends to eventually break

[snackbroken]

Here's a lifehack that will extend the life of the socket by ~1000x: you can buy a 3.5mm-to-3.5mm "adapter" that you keep plugged in to the female end. Now you have a wear part that is trivially replaceable.

Of course that doesn't work all that well for laptops where it would stick out and easily break when you put it in a bag, but for that one pair of headphones you like that is no longer being manufactured it's great!

[algoth1]

This is actually really smart!

[buran77]

There's no "perfect" connector because there are many needs and some conflict with each other.

[lugoues]

trrrs is a wild thing to want as the universal connector... They are bad for any actively powered connection since the tip/rings hit EVERYTHING on the way out and shorting. Split keyboard users know that pain.

[grey-area]

It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be good enough, and it is.

[prmoustache]

> Very robust, any orientation, easy to fumble in blind.

Meh.

Anyone who has used audio devices with TRS will tell you how fragile both the female and male connections are.

[dcrazy]

Seriously. Who hasn’t wiggled a headphone connector and heard the static? And you want to run 40Gbps over that?!

[dTal]

As with headphones, you can always just not wiggle it! Or arrange so that it doesn't rotate once it's fully inserted. There's nothing magical about the contacts in a USB connector.

[dcrazy]

> You can always just not wiggle it

Surely you understand how USB cables are used in reality? “Don’t wiggle it” is not practical advice.

> There’s nothing magical about the contacts in a USB connector.

Of course not. What’s special is the connector that holds it securely in place, and allows all 24 pins to make contact without shorting.

[diydsp]

Static is bc of the scrawny wires though.

Anyway, usb-c receptacles could be countersunk to help that fumbling problem. Right angle connectors could help, too.

[dcrazy]

You still have the problem of temporarily connecting every pin as you plug it in. USB-C has 24 pins and all are used. That would be a TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRS connector.