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Comment by jeswin | Hacker News Reader

> Personally, I'm very glad it wasn't micro or mini USB.

Why is the 30-pin connector better than a well-made micro USB connector? As a consumer, I can think of a number of advantages going with the standard USB port.

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It did predate it by over 5 years. If you're talking about tech features the 30-pin supported (at various points) Firewire, USB, play controls, line-level analog audio and video--for example there was a 30-pin to VGA. AFAIK USB isn't capable of almost any of these things. I believe things like USB audio came later and the 30-pin cable supported that, too.

Even though the connector is much wider I found it way more reliable and easier to plug in without looking at the bottom of the device. It also seems way sturdier when jamming your player into a speaker dock. You mention "well-made" cables. Micro USB is now 14 years old and I don't know of a reliable brand (maybe Anker?). I still constantly throw out cables not knowing if they're broken, not rated for use, or what.

I love standards. I don't know why it took decades to come up with a reversible connector. I've been waiting for USB-C to take off for awhile. Sadly, cable compatibility seems to be a mess (between power, speed, thunderbolt compatibility, etc).

I absolutely loathe micro USB. I am constantly having to throw away cables that are a few months old because they no longer reliably charge my devices (PS4 controllers, Fire tablets, Bose headphones), and that's with me buying the most reliable cables I can find (Anker). Micro USB really is terrible...

I never ever had a micro usb cable fail.

I often had problems with USB C in my previous phone on the phone side.

Apple cables fray almost immediately.

My issues have never been the Micro USB cables, but the ports. They seem to often not be solidly secured into the device. (Amazon's Kindles' ports are pretty rock solid, to their credit.)

IIRC the major innovation for USB-C is to put the spring loaded component into the cable rather than the device. This is brilliant, since springs wear out over time and it’s much easier to replace a cable than a device in most (all?) situations.

Micro-USB-A also has the movable part in the cable (the two little teeth on the flat side). You might be thinking of Mini-USB-A.

Yes I was wrong. I assumed that micro usb A and B did not spring components in the cable. It’s only the pre-micro usb cables lack this improvement.

The problem with the ports isn't (in in my experience) with spring-loaded components wearing out: rather, like ceejayoz said, I've seen a number of cases where the port just...moves around inside the device, so that you can't plug the cable in properly. Either it gets offset, so that the port is simply inaccessible through the slot in the case, or pushing in on it just makes the port itself push further into the case. (In that case, one can generally force it in a few times before things start to really break within the case.)

I know of no specific reason why this should be more common with micro-USB than with other connectors, but I've only seen it happen with micro-USB in person.

It's more likely the solder is cracking off the PCB. Jiggling the port around forces it back into good contact and it'll sporadically work.

The real problem is we don't bolt the ports to the chassis in most cases, we just put them on the PCB with little bracing them in the direction of applied force.

As it turns out, this is addressed in the class specification. I wonder if it’s the spec that’s deficient or whether the devices in question are non compliant.

See page 40: https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/CabConn20.pdf

My first "hack" as a teenager was soldering a USB cable into the place the USB mini port was on a palm I was using as an ereader. The port would just become detached from the board if you looked at it funny; so this worked pretty well. I could just plug the whole device in to charge from then on.

Then I realized that the three volts that were supplied from a pair of AA batteries was really more of a suggestion. That summer, lots of gadgets I had became "USB powered"

Apple cables used to be the worst cables when it comes to fraying. I had never had a cable fray except apple cables, but I also haven't had an apple cable fray in a few years now. It seems like whatever terrible way they used to make the cables has been fixed

> Why is the 30-pin connector better than a well-made micro USB connector?

Apple's 30-pin connector was released in 2003. And was undoubtedly in development for at least a year or two before that. It served Apple for nine years until 2012. It carried audio, video, FireWire, USB, and also charged connected devices.

In the span of those nine years, USB:

- didn't have a batter charging specification until 2007

- didn't have a power delivery specification until 2012

- deprecated mini-A and mini-B in 2007

- introduced a new connector in 2007

USB has always been a mess. Apple's connectors are the stability that people should strive for, not deride.

Except in the hands of kids who manage to destroy cables readily. The original iPad one and even lightning. USB-c is way better.

My kids have destroyed countless lightning cables and usb micro cables. They have also destroyed 3 amazon fire tablets and a nexus tablet by yanking on the cable but they’ve never destroyed any apple devices this way. Thats why the lightning connector is a better design.

I thought the lighting adapter was a big improvement but my kids have managed to break the tip off multiple times in multiple ipads... fortunately I've been able to get the pieces out. The other issue is that for some reason after too much use, they fail to connect/charge which isn't always a cable issue but something intrinsic to the port. The other thing I found is my kids have plugged the lighting adapter into an electrical outlet on a surge protector... they did with with usb-c too so there's some confusion there too.

USB-C seems more robust but it may have other issues I haven't discovered yet.

Breaking the tip of the cable is better than breaking the port.

As you have proven, it is usually possible to get those parts back out of the port, which is hopefully undamaged, even though the tip of the cable broke off inside.

> The other thing I found is my kids have plugged the lighting adapter into an electrical outlet on a surge protector...

Yikes! Oh well at least they are protected from power surges...

USB-C was finalised in 2014, two years after Lightning was shipped (so possibly up to four years after Apple had started development of Lightning).

It also requires a larger port than Lightning, so you can see why Apple would be okay with adding it to iPads, but not to iPhones.

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