>Do we have any room left for innovation in charging ports? Absolutely! The sheer amount of optional features in USB-C cables makes charging - in particular f

>Do we have any room left for innovation in charging ports? Absolutely! The sheer amount of optional features in USB-C cables makes charging - in particular fast charging, and charging tablet/laptop sized devices - a hit-or-miss game. USB-C's design was made to balance of costs with regards to client device complexity: 12 pins in total, three twisted pair signalling pathways, of which two are optional. All this is because both of need for backwards compatibility, and also current limitations on low-power, low-cost USB devices that need compat back to USB 1.1. Two thirds could conceivably be done away, using two pins for power and two for singalling. On a large volume production, a smaller number of pins pays off in costs - once Super Speed-grade transceivers are cheap enough for all devices. Alternatively, once optical interconnect becomes cheap enough, we could return to that technology - two power pins & one optical connector. For example Thunderbolt originally started out as optical connector [1], and was only later shifted to copper due to still costly technology. A phone would also benefit from a contact connector similar to Apple's magsafes (attached via magnets) rather than insertion plug; both due to mechanical concerns and also savings on internal space. That we are stuck with plugs and sockets is largely artifact of requirements for uses other than charging, including pendrives & other USB dongles. Lastly, a clear directionality hint to charging cables would be good: if you connect a phone to a tablet, which should charge which? Some sort of marking or indicator for the (rare) ambiguous case would be nice. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Copper_vs._optical https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Copper...