The thing with lightning is that while it gives more confidence to the average person in terms of connection engagement and it's solid seeming nature, it's mechanically inferior as an everyday connector - you can e.g. see that clearly in off-brand lightning cables being far worse than a rando C cable. I'm glad that lightning is going away, not just because it's usb 2.0.I'd argue that it hasn't "worked fine" since since 1998 when we first learned of USB superposition (seriously, its harder to plug in blind underneath a desk in the dark than a legacy PS2, DIN, VGA or DB9 port), but irrespective - as you say it is time to move on.
USB-A is too large to really use as a port on things like
phones
mouse charging ports
USB-B, mini-b, micro-b and the other hackery standards of B that are intended for the "device" end of a USB-A cable also need to die in a fire. As tech guy I literally have a bag full of cables to plug in the various standards on the below chart.
I mean really, it isn't just USB-A that needs to die, its the rest of it as well.
I mean just refer to the chart on this page:
Ultimate Guide to USB Cables by StarTech.com
This complete USB cable guide explains all about USB ports, connector types, USB versions and speeds, helping you find the right connection for your device.au.rs-online.com
Seriously... all of that trash (some of which people may not have ever seen before, never mind be able to name - not just "A") can be replaced with type-C everywhere.
PLUS displayport, mini displayport, thunderbolt and proprietary charging.
A few years ago I would have argued that lightning was the superior connector type (based on the mechanical connection/retention - irrespective of what protocol is running over it) but over the past 5 years I have had far less issues with type-C than I have with lightning.
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USB-A
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If the alternative was a Mac Mini with 6 full-fat TB/USB4 ports each with support for 40-80Gbps data, displays and 15W+ power delivery then you'd have a point. But it isn't - the M4, as far as we know, has 4 TB/USB4 controllers and the new Minis only offer 3 full TB/USB4 ports - why they don't offer 4 (the upper tier M4 iMac does, so the M4 clearly has 4 TB/USB4 controllers, the M4 Pro definitely does) is a mystery but it isn't resources being carved off for USB-A because it doesn't have USB-A!
The 2 front USB-C ports are presumably driven by an "extra" USB 3.1 controller somewhere via an internal hub - and only support USB 3.1 10Gbps, no display support or Thunderbolt speeds. Nothing that a USB-A port can't deliver (except maybe USB 3.2 x2 mode but the front ports on the Mini don't appear to advertise that). Any USB-A ports would be added to that hub.
That's certainly how the Mx Max Mac Studio works: you have the maximum 4 TB4/USB4 ports driven by the 4 SoC controllers, an additional USB 3.1 controller driving 2 extra USB C/USB3.1 connectors on the front and 2 USB-A on the back which share an internal USB 3 hub. Take away the USB-A ports and you'd still need the extra controller and internal hub.
So, by having a mixture of USB-C/3.1 and USB-A ports in addition to the full Thunderbolt ports you wouldn't be "carving off" resources that you didn't already need for the extra USB-C ports. Apple chose not ti implement 10Gbps on USB-A ports - but that's quite possible (several hubs/docks support 10Gbps USB-A)).
USB A devices are still being sold today - including many with captive cables, meaning adapters or nothing - and many USB-C devices work perfectly well via a USB-A socket - often shoppong with an adapter or alternate cable. Some low-profile USB-A dongle devices with electronics in the plug shaft will never have a like-for-like USB-C equivalent So unless you live in a 100% Mac and Mac specialist suppliers ecosystem, its going to be a long. long time before USB A is no longer relevant.
USB A on the Mini is water under the bridge, but hopefully they'll keep the useful mixture of USB-A and USB-C/3.1 on whatever follows the Studio.
Removal of USB-A from Mac laptops is ancient history now.
This is the Mac Mini forum, which only lost its USB-A ports a few months ago, and the current Mac Studio (which some potential Mini buyers will be debating over) still has them. so the issue is fresh.
People choose desktop Macs over laptops for various reasons - but one of those is better built-in connectivity for peripherals.
The new Mini is rather "swings and roundabouts" in that respect - the M4 had gained a TB port, the M4 Pro has gone from 4xTB4 to 3xTB5 (how many people are going to use 80Gbps/8k displays on all 3 ports...?) - both have lost USB-A and the front ports have come at the expense of 2 rear USB ports rather than as an extra. We're waiting to see what happens to the Studio (it ain't broke, so hopefully Apple won't fix it).
Concur with this, and even genuine lightning cables are acting sketchy on my 13 mini.
I've yet to have any issues with type C in 5 years across 3 Macs and multiple PCs.
Based on looking at the connectors (back when type C was new) I thought lightning would win out. But it just doesn't.
Ironically, the advice from some who are anti-USB-A ports to others is to get a USB-A-to-C adapter or a cable that's USB-A at one end and C at the other. So again we may end up with your 'bag full of cables' situation.
What you describe is a 'chicken and egg' issue - as a tech. guy you need to a bag full of cables to prepare for the variety of devices you may encounter. Many computer users, on the other hand, like their computer and/or dock to have a 'bag full of port types' to accommodate whatever variety of peripheral cables they may encounter.
I don't work in tech. and I've got a mix of cables and realize the dream of a 'one size fits all' standard has appeal. For me, micro-USB vs. mini-USB charging port interfaces annoy because they look so similar.
You hit a key point with the term 'replaced,' a verb, an action word, and as we know from science, action requires investment of energy to drive a process.
In other words, replacing things has a cost - material, financial, hassle (e.g.: researching options (e.g.: new product, cable vs. adapter, order it), etc...
A lot of people just aren't that into it. If their computer or new dock has some USB-A ports, and they can plug their old gear right in, that's good. If they need to order or go buy something else to make it work, that's bad. These people aren't concerned about a tech. sector culture war to drive USB-A into extinction.
Ironically, there are USB-C to HDMI adapter cables, but I don't see a big push now to get rid of HDMI ports, as enough people find them convenient to have built-in. Apple got rid of HDMI in MacBooks Pros, IIRC, but brought them back due to pushback.
-----------------------------------
Both sides of the USB-A port issue have some good points.
I have seen some anti-USB-A port sentiment go farther, though; in another thread, some people resented that a new CalDigit Thunderbolt 5 hub included some. It's like that thing is a form of 'dongle,' an add on to your Mac's built-in ports.
I'm probably grading on a curve because my reference point for being absolutely terrible to plug in was a blind DVI video port on a cheese grater Mac.
Also, it's clear that whomever designed micro-USB was 24 years old with perfect eyesight. Some of those give me problems even when they're right in front of me in broad daylight because the ports are recessed into shaded crevices so it's still hard to tell which side is the wide end.
It's nowhere near as hard to blindly plug in a USB-A cable than any of those cables you mention. Especially when you mention PS2 (or in Apple's day, ADB) - Accidentally mis-plugging one of those could very well lead to a busted connector.
If you're plugging something in "under a desk in the dark", you're more than likely plugging something in that is meant to stay plugged in for the foreseeable future, not something you're likely to be plugging and unplugging on a daily or even weekly basis.
It's almost like USB-A was never designed to be a device-side connector.
For the most part, that is already happening pretty naturally. Mini-USB has been incredibly rare on any devices made in at least the last 10 (and probably closer to the last 20) years. Micro-USB is something that still exists here and there, but is also becoming increasingly rare. The only place where you might still see regular old-fashioned USB-B nowadays is on larger devices like printers, scanners, and larger audio interfaces that are largely semi-permanent installations. Even in that case, many of those devices are moving to USB-C (higher-end audio-interfaces in particular).
Of course, as has been mentioned many times in this thread (even by me), the device-side of USB is and always will be a big hodgepodge of connectors, some standard, some "standard", and many proprietary. It is unlikely that outside of government intervention (ie, EU's directive on phone chargers), this will not change in any meaningful way anytime soon. This really has nothing to do with USB-A vs. USB-C and everything to do with what device manufacturers are designing on their side of the snake.
At this moment, my MacBook Pro has an USB-C Ethernet adapter and an HDMI cable plugged into it. I've also been using it with a recently bought scanner that uses a USB-B 3.0 connector - currently using a C to A adapter for use with the supplied USB-A/B 3.0 cable.
I've found that the Mag-safe connector, HDMI connector and SD slot makes this MBP much easier to use that my former MBP with just 2 USB-C connectors.
...which is why that it's a good idea - at least on devices which have the space, and already have the maximum supported number of full-featured TB/USB4 ports - for additional USB3-only ports to be a mixture of USB-C and USB-A.
...especially since the Element 5 hub has added two USB-C/3.1 ports and dropped one of the 4 USB-A/3.1 ports compared to the previous model.
I think maybe people just don't get that a TB4/5 hub can only support 3 full-featured downstream TB4/5 ports - and that anything beyond that is usually USB 3.1g2 only whether it's type C or type A (USB 3.2x2 support seems rare, even on non-TB type-C ports). Or that, if you've got more than 3 super-fast 20/40/80 Gbps TB/USB4 peripherals you probably want to spread them out around the host's TB4 controllers rather than hang them all off the same hub.
In a perfect world we'd have a wider choice of port configurations for desktop systems and hubs. Or something to replace the "good old days" when you could plug in PCIe cards (or even ExpressCards - used that for USB 3 on an old MBP for a while) to get all of the ports you could eat.
The Framework Laptop is quite interesting in that it has a modular system for ports - with 4 recessed USB-C ports that accept plug-in USB-C-to-Whatever (USB-C, USB-A, Ethernet, HDMI, DIsplayPort, SSDs) "expansion cards" that fit flush with the case. (No Thunderbolt last time I looked) so you can customise the ports.
So a practical limit on the number of working TB 4/5 ports that one of your Mac's TB ports can be extended to support is limited. From my understanding, you run a cable from your Mac to the hub's TB in port, the hub (dock whatever) can offer at most 3 TB out ports, so you net an added 2 TB ports.
Is there a similar practical limit on non-TB USB-C ports? For example, let's say I take one of these little 'dongles' with multiple USB-C ports, and plug that dongle into one of a CalDigit TS4's USB-C ports. I get that they have to share bandwidth, so if the CalDigit's port is 10-Gpbs max. that limit applies to all downstream devices flowing through it, but what I'm asking is, what is the limit of non-TB USB-C port devices that can be daisy chained off one port? On the Mac or dock/hub?
@drrich2 "...so if the CalDigit's port is 10-Gpbs max. that limit applies to all downstream devices flowing through it, but what I'm asking is, what is the limit of non-TB USB-C port devices that can be daisy chained off one port?"
The good news is that the numerical USB 3 port limit is (theoretically) 127...
Any USB 2 ports/connections are additional as they are connected separately.
The bad news is it seems Caldigit's TB4 (and 5?) docks only uses 4-port USB 3.* hub chips, so the ~10Gbps shared bandwidth is firstly shared by the three ports on one side, and any ports on the other side are connected via a second hub to the fourth port on the first hub, which is sharing the smaller fraction of the remaining bandwidth from the last port on the first hub....
It's quite likely Ethernet and or SD cards may also be using the same USB bandwidth, although audio is usual fed from USB 2.
The good news is that the numerical USB 3 port limit is (theoretically) 127...
Any USB 2 ports/connections are additional as they are connected separately.
The bad news is it seems Caldigit's TB4 (and 5?) docks only uses 4-port USB 3.* hub chips, so the ~10Gbps shared bandwidth is firstly shared by the three ports on one side, and any ports on the other side are connected via a second hub to the fourth port on the first hub, which is sharing the smaller fraction of the remaining bandwidth from the last port on the first hub....
It's quite likely Ethernet and or SD cards may also be using the same USB bandwidth, although audio is usual fed from USB 2.
Floppy drives, ZIP drives, SCSI, ATA, Serial ports, … also! 🤪
Zip drives were cool. Their time in the spotlight was far too short.
They really were, but it soon became too cheap and easy to burn CDs. Those were the days!
What percentage of Mac and Windows users likely still use USB-A peripherals, and would use one or more USB-A ports?
What percentage would use floppy drives, Zip drives, SCSI, ATA or serial ports now?
If any of those were as small as a USB-A port, as easily implemented and as prevalent in current usage, it would make sense to include such.
Otherwise, it's a false equivalence.
Recent Intel (now Asus) NUCs have an interesting approach to this: A pre-boot BT pairing capability.
And now Asus basically owns the joint, there's a good chance it'll roll out to other Asus mobos.
The difference in approach even more visible here, perhaps.
My floppy drive, Zip drive and SATA HD dock all plug into USB-A ports thanks!
Although I have just thrown out my last FireWire device (it also had USB B) and most of my VGA cables (apart from one DVI to VGA cable that I still need)…The other question is what percentage have USB-C devices or displays that only use USB 3.1 and could run just as well on a USB-A port with a suitable cable or adapter (which many USB-C peripherals include in the box)?
Even the couple of USB-C memory sticks I have are double-ended USB C/USB A ones (with most of the actual workings in the USB A plug), so a type A socket or two isn’t going to go to waste.
Most of my USB devices are USB 2 (including a 16 channel audio interface - USB 2 goes a long way) including some bought in the last 2-3 years. Some have captive cables, and I’ve bought extra-long and/or right-angle A to B cables for others which would be a pain to replace…
I don't think Apple is worried about dongle sales.
Penny-pinching - yes.
Also, form-over-function and Apple's obsession with keeping a limited range of models.
Apple could have made a truly Apple TV-sized Mini with maybe 2 TB ports, and people who really did just want a cheap, basic, bring-your-own-keyboard-and-display Mac would have been happy... if they'd also kept a more traditional-sized Mac Mini (or maybe a M4 Pro Studio) with plenty of connectivity.
Instead, we've got daftness like the bottom-facing power button (mixture of penny pinching and form-over-function) and fewer ports (on the M4 Pro) plus fewer rear ports (on both M4 and M4 Pro). Even if you want more USB-C and welcome the 2xUSB-A of the old Mini morphing into 2xUSB-C, those ports have now been moved to the front so any cables now trail over the desk. Just to be clear: extra front-facing ports for frequently plugged/unplugged devices: good. front-facing ports at the expense of rear ports for permanently attached devices: not good.
But, hey, it looks so cute when a blogger holds it up (before attaching cables, dongles, external drives and hubs) so that's all right then.
No, I don't at all think poorly of these people, I think a lot about them in fact and how a cable that is the exact same at both ends is by absolute definition better and simpler to use than a cable with differing ends. Maybe you don't consider much the "best" design for any given object but I'm always thinking like this. The simplest cable is the one that doesn't exist, however since we're not there in every regard, the second best cable is fast, small, tough, interchangeable in all ways and reliable and that's exactly what I find with USB-C.
Why hold on to something more complex when a simpler, more advanced version is available? And I mean that from the point of view of the industry, not us end-users (we'll still have a mix of cables at home for different devices for a while), but the industry should standardise to one type and USB-C on both ends is an absolute no-brainer. Its simplicity helps everyone from power users who want fast charging and fast transfer speeds to technologically inept people who barely know what USB is and think a port is where ships go.
Actually, the absolute best cable is the one that you already have and which fits the devices you already have. Meanwhile, USB-C has swapped the complexity of visibly different cable ends for the complexity of visibly indistinguishable ports and cables with different capabilities.
Using adapters is possible - but not simpler.
Getting USB-C to (various) type B connectors is possible - but, hey, that’s back to cables with different ends.
I’ve got devices like a flatbed scanner, optical drive and even a floppy drive that are still occasionally useful to me - but aren’t going to be replaced with shiny new USB-C versions anytime. Yeah, I can use adapters, but it is far simpler just to plug them into a USB A port.
They pretty much have - for new devices, but USB A/B was so prevalent that there are going to be existing devices around for years - and there are a few areas where it is actually better - e.g. low-profile wireless dongles & memory sticks, cheap multi-port USB hubs.
We’re not talking about stopping the rollout of USB-C - that’s happening, and essential for ultra-portable laptops and tablets (and it’s daft that Apple took so long to adopt it on iDevices and peripherals, which desperately needed a standard replacement for Mini/microUSB and Lightning) - we’re talking about devices like desktop Macs and TB hubs, with plenty of space for extra ports & enough spare I/O lanes left over - after all the full-fat TB ports have been equipped - to provide one or two type A ports.
>>hould standardise to one type and USB-C on both ends is an absolute
The problem with USB-C is that it only has a mobile form factor, which is small and flimsy and falls apart after a year of heavy use and has poor contact. I already fixed those usb-c connectors in old MacBook.
The transition from mini-USB and micro-USB to USB-C was quick and uncontroversial, because the new connector is better in every way than its predecessors. The cables also changed, but there were practically no disputes. But when switching from USB to USB-C, the situation is different.
If there was a durable full-size USB-C for everyday use, everyone would have switched to it. And long ago.
But there is no affordable USB-C* connector, for a “desktop computer”, durable, oval and double-sided, the size of USB-A. Today, a non-mobile device without normal USB connectors looks frivolous, inconvenient, third-class.
Users have no desire to switch to a low-quality replacement, although it is better in some ways, but has its drawbacks.
The problem with USB-C is that it only has a mobile form factor, which is small and flimsy and falls apart after a year of heavy use and has poor contact. I already fixed those usb-c connectors in old MacBook.
The transition from mini-USB and micro-USB to USB-C was quick and uncontroversial, because the new connector is better in every way than its predecessors. The cables also changed, but there were practically no disputes. But when switching from USB to USB-C, the situation is different.
If there was a durable full-size USB-C for everyday use, everyone would have switched to it. And long ago.
But there is no affordable USB-C* connector, for a “desktop computer”, durable, oval and double-sided, the size of USB-A. Today, a non-mobile device without normal USB connectors looks frivolous, inconvenient, third-class.
Users have no desire to switch to a low-quality replacement, although it is better in some ways, but has its drawbacks.
CD burning was great, but what killed ZIP drives was the advent of USB-A flash drives with tiny dimensions, no sensitivity to magnets, and no moving parts. Once you could put one of those with a similar capacity onto your keychain, it was pretty much game over for ZIP.
I think CD-R killed zips before flash drives. One problem with Zips was that the discs never got down to floppy-like prices - unlike CD-R/s which ended up a lot cheaper for a lot more storage. You didn’t have to think twice before burning some files to CD and giving/sending them to someone.
The other thing that killed removable discs in general was the demise of IBM as a PC manufacturer- when the good old 3.5” Floppy came out in the 80s, Apple adopted it for the Mac and IBM adopted it for the PS/2 and that was the end of the 2-3 other ~3” drives that were around at the time. Come the 90s, the floppy needed an update, but IBM had been mostly driven out of the PC market by a hoard of competing clone-makers, and Apple had also lost a lot of influence. There was no king-maker to pick Zip, Syquest, LS120 or one of Sony’s offerings out of the crowd so it all stayed fragmented.