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Comment by herogreen | Hacker News Reader

mini USB: octobrer 2000 to january 2007 (6 years, 3 months)

micro USB: january 2007 to august 2014 (7 years, 7 months)

USB-C: august 2014 - ? (5+ years)

I hope we keep increasing the lifespan of the "suggested" mobile-device USB form factor, to increase convenience and (slightly) reduce environmental impact.

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It's very likely we'll hit a point where the connector (Type-C) doesn't change, but the cable standards do. Just like how USB Type-A has been very stable, or HDMI, DisplayPort and mini-DP. That said, I don't see USB Micro-B disappearing anytime soon. And everything USB power delivery is an improvement over how we used to do power via randomly-sized DC connectors. I remember spending quite awhile looking for alternative power adapters for my PSP-1000 which did have its own micro USB port. Don't get me started on proprietary cellphone power adapters... or the various 30-pin connectors ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dock_connector

At least Type-C is permanently reversible, where MicroUSB is just destructively reversible.

At least when you had a micro USB or mini USB cable, you knew it would be compatible with everything of the same form factor.

USB-C's form factor might stick around longer, but its compatibility problems are going to be much worse.

Not to mention that software may disable your hardware's USB ports if it thinks they're dirty - a feature in Android 10, if I read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20868164 right

Dock Connector: April 2003 to September 2012 (9 years, 5 months)

Lightning Connector: September 2012 - ???? (7+ years)

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