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>The extra port competes with USB-C. If Apple wants to make USB-C more valuable to users, they must ensure companies make more products for it and, therefore, r

>The extra port competes with USB-C. If Apple wants to make USB-C more valuable to users, they must ensure companies make more products for it and, therefore, remove such redundant ports. The userbase of all tech products is too big for this to be reasonable now. This attitude was only successful during a time when fewer people overall each owned fewer devices individually. USB-A won and it will be around forever. HDMI won and it will be around forever.

oblio 6y ago
HDMI will probably be around for TVs, but with USB 4 I imagine we're 5-10 years from most of the current ports going away completely, except for a collection of USB C ports of different levels (3, 3.x, 4).
- yarcob 6y ago
  Importantly, HDMI will be around for projectors. Almost every meeting room and every class room everywhere in the world has a beamer and an HDMI cable on the desk. I don't think this is going to change in the next 5 years. It took more than 10 years for most of the world to upgrade from VGA to HDMI cables, and HDMI works fine technically, so there's less pressure to upgrade to USB-C. So for the foreseeable future, if you ever do a presentation, and you have a Mac, you are going to bring a dongle. If you're a teacher and you don't want to deal with an unreliable dongle 5 times a day, the most convenient Mac for you is currently the 2015 Macbook Pro with its built-in HDMI port.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    It was like that with VGA and now it's not. It may not change in 5 years - it took longer for VGA to finish dying.
  - Kirby64 6y ago
    Or just do what my company started doing: chain a dongle to the projector. If you have a Type-C port, use the dongle. If you have HDMI, use the direct HDMI cable. This $30 dongle is cheaper than upgrading all the projectors to support Type-C, and still allows older PCs to use HDMI. Not really sure what's unreliable about USB-C to HDMI dongles... sure if you buy a crappy one they have issues, but good ones aren't expensive these days (at least, for projector resolution. YMMV if you're trying to do 4k or something)
- Arainach 6y ago
  Other than storage, no peripherals care about USB 4. We can't get away from USB-A because all of the devices that MATTER use it and its variations. Even today no one that I've seen makes a USB-C to USB-Micro (or USB-Mini - yes, I still have multiple products that use that) cable. I have no interest in having to chain multiple adaptors off all my computers for everything I do. Keyboards, mice, printers, cameras, microphones, audio adapters, gaming controllers, smartwatches, sensors, Arduino boards -- none of these things need any more speed or any more power. They don't want a new connector and they don't want to pay royalty fees for use of a new connector. The only things that might benefit from USB 4 are monitors (and how often to people replace monitors anyway? I ran my U2410s for a decade and only replaced them because I wanted a higher refresh rate) and storage devices (and to be honest I don't use external storage that often since online storage is so simple these days).
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    > Even today no one that I've seen makes a USB-C to USB-Micro (or USB-Mini - yes, I still have multiple products that use that) cable Here. You don't need a special cable - you need a small adapter: https://www.wish.com/product/5ae06f0a7ddb0672b9a704b9?share=web https://www.wish.com/product/5ae06f0a7ddb0672b9a704b9?share=...
    - ProZsolt 6y ago
      Section 2.2 of the USB Type-C Specification[1] explicitly forbids this kind of adapter: USB Type-C receptacle to USB legacy adapters are explicitly not defined or allowed. Such adapters would allow many invalid and potentially unsafe cable connections to be constructed by users. [1]: https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/USB%20Type-C%20Spec%20R2.0%20-%20August%202019.pdf https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/USB%20Type-C%20Spec%...
  - oblio 6y ago
    > Other than storage, no peripherals care about USB 4. Video??? The comparison was with HDMI. Also thanks for missing my main point about USB C...
  - 6y ago
- m463 6y ago
  That's a long time for people to spend extra money on apple equipment and use shitty dongles. (apologies to dongle teams who basically put custom computers inside cables)

oblio 6y ago

HDMI will probably be around for TVs, but with USB 4 I imagine we're 5-10 years from most of the current ports going away completely, except for a collection of USB C ports of different levels (3, 3.x, 4).

yarcob 6y ago
Importantly, HDMI will be around for projectors. Almost every meeting room and every class room everywhere in the world has a beamer and an HDMI cable on the desk. I don't think this is going to change in the next 5 years. It took more than 10 years for most of the world to upgrade from VGA to HDMI cables, and HDMI works fine technically, so there's less pressure to upgrade to USB-C. So for the foreseeable future, if you ever do a presentation, and you have a Mac, you are going to bring a dongle. If you're a teacher and you don't want to deal with an unreliable dongle 5 times a day, the most convenient Mac for you is currently the 2015 Macbook Pro with its built-in HDMI port.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  It was like that with VGA and now it's not. It may not change in 5 years - it took longer for VGA to finish dying.
- Kirby64 6y ago
  Or just do what my company started doing: chain a dongle to the projector. If you have a Type-C port, use the dongle. If you have HDMI, use the direct HDMI cable. This $30 dongle is cheaper than upgrading all the projectors to support Type-C, and still allows older PCs to use HDMI. Not really sure what's unreliable about USB-C to HDMI dongles... sure if you buy a crappy one they have issues, but good ones aren't expensive these days (at least, for projector resolution. YMMV if you're trying to do 4k or something)
Arainach 6y ago
Other than storage, no peripherals care about USB 4. We can't get away from USB-A because all of the devices that MATTER use it and its variations. Even today no one that I've seen makes a USB-C to USB-Micro (or USB-Mini - yes, I still have multiple products that use that) cable. I have no interest in having to chain multiple adaptors off all my computers for everything I do. Keyboards, mice, printers, cameras, microphones, audio adapters, gaming controllers, smartwatches, sensors, Arduino boards -- none of these things need any more speed or any more power. They don't want a new connector and they don't want to pay royalty fees for use of a new connector. The only things that might benefit from USB 4 are monitors (and how often to people replace monitors anyway? I ran my U2410s for a decade and only replaced them because I wanted a higher refresh rate) and storage devices (and to be honest I don't use external storage that often since online storage is so simple these days).
- rbanffy 6y ago
  > Even today no one that I've seen makes a USB-C to USB-Micro (or USB-Mini - yes, I still have multiple products that use that) cable Here. You don't need a special cable - you need a small adapter: https://www.wish.com/product/5ae06f0a7ddb0672b9a704b9?share=web https://www.wish.com/product/5ae06f0a7ddb0672b9a704b9?share=...
  - ProZsolt 6y ago
    Section 2.2 of the USB Type-C Specification[1] explicitly forbids this kind of adapter: USB Type-C receptacle to USB legacy adapters are explicitly not defined or allowed. Such adapters would allow many invalid and potentially unsafe cable connections to be constructed by users. [1]: https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/USB%20Type-C%20Spec%20R2.0%20-%20August%202019.pdf https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/USB%20Type-C%20Spec%...
- oblio 6y ago
  > Other than storage, no peripherals care about USB 4. Video??? The comparison was with HDMI. Also thanks for missing my main point about USB C...
- 6y ago
m463 6y ago
That's a long time for people to spend extra money on apple equipment and use shitty dongles. (apologies to dongle teams who basically put custom computers inside cables)