This is why. Ignoring the momentum Lightning had from being a few years older, this is a great reason not to switch.
Sadly I know this has become a big problem for people on the new Macs. Plug a USB-C hub in? Now that port doesn’t do Thunderbolt or Display Port. How do you know that? Trial and error.
Very un-Appley.
Your concern is totally valid, but that it’s more about design/manufacturing quality rather than lightning versus USB.
it's hard to use a laptop as a laptop when it has to remain still to be plugged in.
It does seem like with USB C both the plug and the port are fragile. The plug can easily be crushed and the port, like Micro USB, has the weird plastic tab with pins that can be smashed. That being said the only mechanical failures I ever witnessed with a Micro USB Port were when a cable was forced in the wrong way, I would definitely chalk those up to the user (ex-mother-in-law) being a supreme idiot and not necessarily a flaw in the port.
> Lighting also does a nice "click" when connected.
All of the USB C Cables and devices I own give a very nice thunk when plugged-in, almost like going over a speed bump in a car. There's no question that a connection is made.
I think the biggest issue over all is dodgy cables and I had my fair share of those with Lightning and Micro USB. I've only bought ISB C cables off Benson Leung's recommended lists so I have yet to get a bad one yet though I have no doubt the problem is as bad or worse than with Micro USB.
OTOH, all my USB-C devices, quite a few at this point and some I've had for years, have always worked flawlessly with regard to the port.
Also, all other things being equal, I would rather have the contact springs on the connector rather than the port so that if they go bad I can just replace the cable. I suspect this is what kept happening with my Lightning devices.
At the same time my nearly 4 year old Samsung Galaxy is holding strong without any wiggle room on the USB port.
Be careful, stick something sharp in (avoiding the middle pins!), and get the lint out, and it'll be fine.
So does USB-C, at least on every device with which I've used it. That stops being the case if the port gets clogged up with dust (which is unfortunately as common and annoying as it is for USB-micro-B), but until then the click is quite satisfying.
For example, Air buds headphones (Bluetooth) work fine with Android phones. But Bluetooth has been a pain in peoples ass for a decade, and Apple went through a lot of trouble to make the experience very nice when used within its own ecosystem. without abandoning compatibility.
USB-C corrects this by placing more of the mechanical complexity in the plug again - though I’m wary of the thin plastic “tongue” in the socket.
Do you have a source?
Older micro-USB devices suffered the same problems.
You label the damn thing.
The idea behind Type-C is that you don't need a million different cables because everything uses a different physical port. Now you can have fewer cables, and even fewer ports, because the physical ports are consistent. That doesn't mean anything else is consistent! It doesn't need to be!
Users only need to know what ends are what. That isn't hard at all.
I use my computer in a metal shop and my magsafe gathers iron filings, shorts itself and catches fire. I've gone through so many chargers. I've vowed that the next time it happens, I'm going to mill away part of this laptop's case and solder in a DC barrel jack. So much of apple design is about sleekness and cool factor, not actual robustness or effectiveness. I suppose this isn't the intended use case, but I feel like the use case apple has in mind is unrealistically safe and ideal. And rich.
I still like using a mac, as well as a windows machine and several linux distros. If you have a collection of tools in your tool shed, you want to have all sorts of different tools. Not just rows and rows of the same flat-head screwdriver.
Which voltage, and how much current? Put 20V down the wire and you'd blow up a device expecting 5V. Pull 100W through a cable rated for 5W and you'd burn your house down.
As soon as USB-C became the catch-all standard to do all of the things, the complexity was inevitable. It could have been communicated better to the user (proper symbology, color-coded ports, etc) but unless all the devices support all the modes, you are mostly going to be dealing with the minimum standard. And making every device capable of dealing with the full extent of Type-C capabilities (DisplayPort, PCIe channels, etc) is going to get expensive.
If it fits, it sits. If I should only be using one cable for one port then they should be the only ones matching. And, if that one cable happens to lead to a plug in the wall somewhere then having MagSafe or comparable solutions is a lifesaver.
Removing these is beyond comprehension.
It may “just work” for Apple but it certainly does not for me.
Those aren't really cable issues. All USB-C cables support 20 volts and 60 watts. The only cable permutation is whether it's 3 or 5 amps, which isn't a fire-hazard-level distinction, just a small annoyance.