EU reaches deal to make USB-C a common charger for most electronic devices

Lol. An interesting version of the liars paradox.

On the other hand if you compare USB 1.0 to 1.1 it is quite obvious that real implementation experience and throwing out artifacts of the design by committee was quite important for the success.

This is actually fairly common in Apple-land, now that I look:

- ADB (1986) to PS2 (1987) to USB-A (1996) for HID

- Firewire (1995) to USB 2.0 (2000) to Firewire 800 (2002) to USB 3.0 (2008) for data transfer

- VGA (1987) to ADC (1998) to DVI (1999) for video

A lot of the connectors they proposed are now lost to the mists of time, but I can at least understand the argument that some of these changes were plausibly driven by Apple's rejection of the then-standard in favor of some new benefit (faster speeds, better UX), which lasted only until a new standard was developed to incorporate that benefit, and the process repeats again.

Also missing from this discussion is the fact that even if the law is only about charging it will define he go-to data-connection for smaller devices for a long time, where an additional port will be dimensionally challenging, more costly to add as well as difficult to make water-resistant.

I am sympathetic for reducing e-waste, but I'm unsure where this will lead us. Crypto-mining is also bad for the environment but might hold unknown positive possibilities if explored properly (maybe reduce bureaucracy, avoid monopolies) that could be extinguished by a premature ban.

I am already paying some of the highest taxes on consumer products compared to other countries in the world, I would rather pay even more for a charger, phone etc., remember an adapter when out and about and keep the freedom of choosing which technologies to support.

*Also just wanted to add that even if OP mentioned the committee, I'm unsure how much you can compare that to EU making laws enforceable in 27 countries.

No, I have no problem with the USB-C mandate. But the analogy seems weird.

Why does my next phone need a charger? I’d be happy with wireless charging — especially if I have a 3.5mm socket in the phone too.

Would Raspberry Pi have happened without Linux?

What about the evolution of data centres?

I am sure that there are examples from closed systems, but it is not clear that keeping secrets and strict intellectual property spur innovation

It'd take a pretty strong argument to convince me that this is so much more productive and allows for more innovation than the old days when the spec for things like Email, HTTP, IRC, XMPP allowed for a plethora of different tools unrelated to the company sponsoring the tech and people figured out how to make money USING the interoperable tech instead of OWNING the tech.

Of course it doesn't have to be mandated, and in the past usually wasn’t, but hell, it’s hard to see many good reasons to not standardize on USB-C. It’s got plenty of pins, it’s already mass-manufactured, and outside of only a single product Apple sells, there’s not much competition aside from legacy stuff that can’t handle a lot of today’s data, form factor and power delivery needs.

Were it not for standards and regulations you would have to buy different locks, lightbulbs, and charger adapters depending on the company which built your apartment. It's already annoying enough that these specifications change from one country to another, but it would be a complete nightmare if there were no interoperability regulations at all.

Also, more specifically about computing: the Internet being an open standard brought many advantages for innovation, compared to centralized networks such as MSN or AOL. As for hardware, i don't know about you but i'm pretty happy i can change my CPU/RAM/HDD with any socket-compatible product and i'm not tied to a single vendor... in fact i'm pretty angry when i find a machine where some parts are non-standard and cannot be easily replaced.

To be clear, i'm not saying there's no value in deviating from the standards for innovation. I'm just saying 99% of usecases are better addressed with standard solutions than with halfbaked proprietary "solutions".

Having used a few different models of MacBook over the last decade for work, and owning a few different models of Thinkpads over the same timeframe, I'd take the Thinkpad any day of the week. From the annoyingly either hot or cold all-metal case to the floating ground problem triggering shocks when using the fold-out wall connector, MacBooks are inferior in my book. But that is also only my opinion.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCIo8xGTUX0

I had never had a single cord fray on me except every single Apple supplied white cord for years, until suddenly I no longer had that problem. Don't know what changed but glad it did

https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-clean-iphone-chargin...

Even better, just use the old cable from your old device since they won't be designing a new one every other year.

Hurt like a sod to stand on if the prongs are face up though!

Much of what he describes is e.g. a feature of Schuko plugs/sockets.

The main distinguishing feature of the UK design is a technical workaround for a problem that no longer exists (WWII copper shortage requiring the embedded fuse).

Can't the same safety features fit in a smaller package?

I like them because they're small. I have a nifty little 3-port USB-A/C power supply where the plug folds flush. Europlug would have trouble doing that, and it's outright impossible with Schuko and UK plugs.

https://inews.co.uk/video/lbc-caller-three-pin-plugs-236449

Wonderful! :D

however, extremely few devices ship capable of these data rates, and many USB-C cables ship only supporting 480 mbps data transfer.

> ... Apple could possibly support such speeds without releasing a new backwards-incompatible cable, they would have done so long ago.

Lightning supports USB 3 (superspeed 5gbps) speeds. The lightning USB 3 camera adapter supports it for compatible devices. They did indeed figure this out long ago. They didn't do it because most people don't use lightning cables for data or even understand they _could_ use lightning cables for data.

> If Apple ever wanted to support faster than 40 Gbps, they would have to do so in concert with the rest of the tech industry and release it as an open standard. I'd like to hear somebody try to argue this is a bad thing.

Apple contributed to both thunderbolt iterations and to USB4. They were first adopters of both, as well as shipping the first USB-C laptop. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here.

USB-C becoming standardized for phones will not slow the advancement of USB specs, and if the physical form factor becomes a constraint somehow, they will devise a better one and will standardize it likewise, even if consumer model phones can't ship with them from day 0.

A great example of this is EV charging connectors. The Tesla spec was superior until recently, but because the EU has mandated CCS, as communication/payment has been implemented within the standard, European cars find themselves with a universal plug and a universal charging network that can be unilaterally improved.

Meanwhile in the US we now have 2 charging networks on 2 standards, and no real path to unification.

But the best argument against "what about lightning?" is the fact that Apple themselves don't use it on their higher powered devices like macs, and use USB-C instead.

Calling Lightning superior is blatant Apple fanboyism.

MagSafe on phones is a total joke, and MagSafe on laptops exists _alongside_ USB-C charging.

Notice also that nothing prevents apple from additionally shipping MagSafe on their laptops, the device just needs to be usable with a type-C charger.

On top of that, I feel like USB-C is deliberately engineered to sell more ICs. Which wouldn't be that huge of an issue except as a result, all relevant ICs are sold out (or unsuitable).

CC/PD use a custom transmission standard so you can't implement it without a PHY, which basically means at least one dedicated IC.

E: you also need vRd sensing to determine the available current.

Apple adhered by letter by making chargers USB and the phone not have USB, contrary to what the agreement wanted to achieve in spirit.

The EU approving this directive is simply the logical end conclusion of apple (and some small fish) not playing ball when asked to.

For example, NIST Weights and Measures division regulates the nozzle on the dispenser used for gasoline in the US.

> Each retail dispensing device from which fuel products are sold shall be equipped with a nozzle spout having a diameter that conforms with the latest version of SAE J285, “Dispenser Nozzle Spouts for Liquid Fuel Intended for Use with Spark-Ignition and Compression Ignition Engines.”

https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2019/12/06/00-20...

A metering devices that dispenses electrical power is no different. https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-measures/legal-metrolog...

So you're saying it's quite reasonable when you look at what actually happened?

The law defined a handful of categories. "fish" is actually "fish and miscellaneous". Invertebrates are explicitly part of that miscellaneous.

Society claiming this is wrong and being correct is exactly balanced by society claiming whales aren't fish and being incorrect.

(Whales are fish because they're descendants of fish and are more closely related to salmon than sharks are. The same goes for you. You're also a fish.)

For cars, we have public metering devices that measure units of stuff and charge money. This makes it fall into the category of metering devices used in trade. And we do regulate those almost universally. You can’t just put a different shape nozzle on a gas pump, for instance.

This sentence seems to imply that one cannot charge their non-Tesla car with the Tesla charging network without substantial modifications.

What do you mean by substantial modification? It is already possible for non-Tesla cars, in the United States, to charge at Tesla destination chargers with an adapter: https://qccharge.com/collections/jdapter-stub™-tesla-station...

There isn’t anything particular magic about Tesla Superchargers, either. A simple adapter+some API for the app will open it right up.

I’m not against standardization, btw.

Interoperability sure.

in so far as they are capable of being recharged via wired charging, shall:

so you can have all the funny cables you want, as long as you provide the USB-C plug

If there is no wired charging, there is no problem of funny cables.

but companies are free to experiment all the kinds of wired charging they want, it's just more convenient to have a standard and they'll comply happily I guess, now that they are forced by the law and can stop competing on stupid stuff like charging cables.

In the short term, yes. In the long term however competition between these different standards will cause consolidation and overall technology improvement. The next step will be regulating wireless charging so that all devices have to use/do the same thing, rinse-wash-repeat.

> Europeans don't trust that the industry will always come up with the best solutions for the user, Americans usually don't trust the government doing something well unless it's the military. Let's agree to disagree.

A better way to think about this is that both "groups" can learn from one another. For example you could say that Europeans should be suspicious about USB-C manufacturers and advocates effectively being granted a monopoly in the name of convenience. Americans should better trust that certainly in the case of infrastructure it makes sense to have a single standard "plug" for electric vehicles because we really need as many people driving them as possible in the most convenient way.

It leaves me hoping your economy becomes much smaller so Asia can start ignoring it. Or reform I guess, the vote is yours, not mine.

On the other hand, you're absolutely right that it doesn't help anyone if your car is incompatible with half of the chargers out there. Are adapter cables an option, perhaps?

Most of us are not billionaires.

Consider the opposite of a sparsely-populated region, where the next charging point may be 50 miles away. In that case, having a random hodge-podge of competing connectors could have actual consequences.

In practice though, there is not much of an effect either way. All parties have an interest in interoperability: car owners would have adapter to hand if this was a common problem, and charging stations would make themselves available to as many paying customers as possible.

Democracy is a very blunt tool. Very important when needed, but not good for fine tuning on any reasonable timescale.

Stations would just have two nozzles on their pumps.

- All Teslas have their charging ports at the rear left side. This means that charging cables can be very short. Longer cables would cause tangles, cost more, and be harder to cool.

- Tesla's protocol has built-in payment. You plug in and charge. With CCS it varies. Sometimes you use a credit card. Sometimes you download a mobile app and sign up for some account. Sometimes the planets align and CCS's plug-and-charge works.

- The CCS plug is much bigger. If you look at the connector sizes[1] or adapters[2], the CSS plug is comically huge. Tesla had to redesign the tail lights on the Model S/X to fit CCS Combo 2 ports.

- Every exposed contact is a potential failure point, and CCS exposes more contacts than Tesla's charging port.

- CCS has two different plug dimensions which are used in different regions, so a European CCS vehicle brought to North America will need an adapter (and vice-versa).

- If your vehicle only supports AC charging, you cannot charge with CCS Combo plugs. They won't fit. Since some Teslas were made before the CCS Combo standard took off, older Model S/X's used a CCS Type 2 port. So now every Supercharger in Europe has two plugs: CCS Type 2 & Combo 2.[3]

1. https://teslatap.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/connector_co...

2. https://www.notateslaapp.com/images/news/2021/ccs-adapter.jp...

3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eu-tesla-supercharge...

DC Fast charging has to match pack voltage, so with 400ish volt pack voltage Tesla gets big charging speed by providing extreme amperage. CCS is limited to 500A, so the best way to provide really fast charging is higher pack voltages.

Higher voltage does have some benefits around heat and losses, but also has downsides like cost of electronics and installations over 600V generally require special electrical licensing.

It's hard to deny the tesla connector is a lot nicer to work with (especially V3 with thin, liquid cooled cables), but I still wish my model 3 sr+ had CCS like euro cars. I'd love to be able to have more charging options.

Tesla doesn't have a similar limitation and can do 250-300kw on the existing 400-450V cars.

Or like 1996 when Apple was failing and everyone should have been forced to standardize on Windows.

That's just impossible. Filling a 100 kWh "tank" in one minute requires 6 MW of power, plus all the power that goes into heat. The only solution would be replacing batteries on the fly but Tesla discontinued it.

Moving stuff is inherently faster than chemical reactions (unless you're talking about explosions).

Currently working at a company that makes CCS chargers. Can confirm the standard is an absolute shit show, the cables are heavy, and the plugs are a giant pain in the ass. But hey, it's the standard so that's what we make. Oh, and why TF do we have a PowerLine Communication chip to talk to the vehicle over (non-power) signal wires? A few CAN messages would have done the job. One of the stupidest communication standards ever.

Frankly, I’m expecting the lightning port to be replaced with a purely inductive/magnetic solution eventually, there probably will not even be a receptacle for it, just a wireless contact to the phone from the wire like how the Apple Watch can only charged.

I’m guessing in that case, they would be exempt from providing a usb-c port since the phones would be technically purely wireless by that point. At that point, other vendors will follow and the EU will mandate Qi as the standard wireless charging solution since the USB-C mandate will be obsolete.

I'd be fine with a new USB-D that fixed all these issues. USB-C is just mostly better than the other alternatives for Android and charging laptops. Its far from perfect.

For reference, we need 2-4 lanes of DP HBR3 (depending on compression) + PCIe Gen3x4 for the camera passthrough. TBT3/4 could do it over a single cable.

Feeds into the nightmare that is implementing that entire ecosystem though...

But at this point, USBC is the better mousetrap, they're now just using their market dominance to force a worse mouse trap on everyone to keep milking lucrative patent fees outside of what an efficient market would allow.

So again, fuck em.

Side note, this is why I really hate IP law (or at least the over the top term lengths of it). If they didn't have a monopoly on lightening connectors this wouldn't be a problem and the market would resolve this "problem" on it's own.

You don't get to act like they're just behaving like a free market participant should when they're actively exploiting a different market regulation.

I wonder what the fix here is. Would it be choosing a patent term length that optimises for spurring innovation?

Too short and you make it not worth while. Too long and things stagnate like this. Why does society put up with such suboptimal market parameters?

> With respect to radio equipment capable of being recharged via means other than wired charging, the Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 44 in order to amend Annex Ia in the light of technical progress, and to ensure the minimum common interoperability between radio equipment and their charging devices, by: (a) introducing, modifying, adding or removing categories or classes of radio equipment; (b) introducing, modifying, adding or removing technical specifications, including references and descriptions, in relation to charging interface(s) and charging communication protocol(s), for each category or class of radio equipment concerned.’;

So the commission can adopt new standards trough a much lighter executive process. It does not require new legislation to update the standard.

It seems like wireless charging still falls into that category (they require some form of interoperability by 2026, but do not state the exact form).

"Any technological developments in wired charging can be reflected in a timely adjustment of technical requirements/ specific standards under the Radio Equipment Directive. This would ensure that the technology used is not outdated."

"At the same time, the implementation of any new standards in further revisions of Radio Equipment Directive would need to be developed in a harmonised manner, respecting the objectives of full interoperability. Industry is therefore expected to continue the work already undertaken on the standardised interface, led by the USB-IF organisation, in view of developing new interoperable, open and non-controversial solutions."

Yes, exactly, this is how standardization works.

Who cares about innovation in charging plugs form factor?

Innovations should be innovative enough to get around the plug.

Light bulbs have been the same for at least 80 years and it didn't stop innovation.

Why do people are so scared about things that are only hypothetical, while this solves a real issue?

Not all that many companies are doing work for cable standards to begin with, and personally - as a consumer - I very much welcome the standardization on usb-c.

The companies that are doing work on communication standards aren't normally selling the kind of devices covered here to consumers. It's more business to business and military applications. Further, charging in particular is a different beast than communication in general - you're not doing anything other than sending current down the line to fill a battery. there's only so many ways to do that, and I think it makes sense to consolidate them.

Finally - the requirement only states that the device must include a usb-c port for charging. It makes no limitations on manufacturers including additional ports. So even if a direct to consumer device wanted to include a new port - they absolutely could, they just still have to allow filling the battery from usb-c.

This is no different than any other customer - they are just representing the overall customers who would otherwise not have enough power or voice to achieve what they want.

Also - if you don't want your industry regulated, maybe don't make a mess of it?

Regulators rarely pay attention to things that are working super-well.

"the devices should incorporate the USB Power Delivery (USB PD) standard (as described in the European standard EN IEC 62680-1-2:2021) and ensure that any additional charging protocols allow for full USB PD functionality (new annex Ia, part I)."

Then the referenced: "EN IEC 62680-1-2:2021" standard specifies

"To facilitate optimum charging, the specification defines two mechanisms a USB Charger can advertise for the Device to use: 1. A list of fixed voltages each with a maximum current. 2. A list of programmable voltage ranges each with a maximum current (PPS). The Device requests a voltage (in 20 mV increments) that is within the advertised range and a maximum current."

But those regs get over my head quickly, so someone else may have better luck interpreting them.

https://www.ranker.com/list/list-of-all-cars-made-in-1966/re...

I feel like you see one car from 1966 then notice how most cars today are similar, and use that difference.

Yeah. we understood that they not only pollute the environment and it's stupid to build cars the size of a starship, but also by 1973 the World (except the US) understood that oil is not for granted and fuel efficiency should be a thing.

Also safety while we are at it, doesn't sound so bad...

The most obvious examples that come to mind:

- Small cars aren't that small anymore to stop them from being blatant death traps.

- A lot of the edges have been smoothed and curved to make impact with pedestrians less deadly (also killed pop-up lights and hood ornaments, which is kinda funny considering the Mercedes Benz hood ornament was sometimes jokingly described as a sight to aim for pedestrians)

- Thick A pillars due to crash tests regulations

While I can blame these for killing out novel or even trademark features of some vehicles lineups, I don't think alone they made everyone homogenize their design, it's just what the industry eventually converged on by themselves.

Look at phones, there's no regulation on what a phone should look like, yet today phones are just a fancy screen, nothing like the incredible variety that Nokia alone sported back in the late 90s/early 2000s.

A 2021 Mustang Mach E has a wheelbase of 107" and is 188.5" long.

Which one is humongous?

Even if you looked at the original 1964 Mustang, its not that much smaller than the Mach E which is a 5-door crossover. The '64 had a wheelbase of 108" and an overall length of 181.6", just 7 inches shorter for a coupe.

Older American cars were often land yachts. The old family sedan of the 1960s are often larger than crossovers of today, they just don't sit as high.

cars look boring is like saying it's a bummer cancer isn't cool.

Apple's phones are quite locked down, and I think a big reason why is that proprietary lightning connector. When you have a usb port for charging, there is no excuse for not implementing the full standard software-side.

He couldn't use it.

Of course, not being an iphone user, I did not have an adapter. Neither did he, considering he forgot his charger.

The iphone and the usbc charger did not work together.

Yes they are, with a directive from 2019. See for example https://grunecker.de/en/blog/sales-of-goods-directive-and-di..., search for “Update Obligations”.

To be fair, 100 W may not seem like a lot when you're used to plugging in to the national power grid, but it's a lot to ask for a non-essential system supplied by an off-grid generator shared by hundreds of passengers. And 100 W is the maximum allowance for In-Seat Power Support Systems according to the FAA, before any conversion losses in your power adapter; the actual amount available to you may be much less.

I don’t trust random cables to plug into my phone because I’m paranoid about getting hacked. I access some systems with sensitive data via my phone and I don’t want to be the route of compromise.

I don’t trust random chargers not to set my house on fire while I sleep, or - worse - fail to charge properly and I don’t have enough charge left to run the crossword app on my phone.

Should complex things not have a spec?

In USB-A this was accomplished through a hodge-podge of different resistances applied across data lines, not officially part of the standard but just done by manufacturers. USB-C is a huge improvement on this.

I do agree however that the cable-labelling situation is awful. Maybe some kinda tier system could help. Every charger, cable and device could have a class. The charging rate is the lowest of the three. E.g. a "Class 5 cable will charge up to 200 watts and has a pink end". If you pair that with a Class 2 charger (say, 50 watts) and a class 3 laptop (100 watts) you'll be limited to charging your laptop at 50 watts.

People and companies can screw thing up royally regardless of spec complexity when there's no review/oversight involved. That's not a valid argument.

If you want to force and check adherence to a spec you need to involve certification authorities (TÜV, SGS, UL, etc.) but then widget prices would increase dramatically.

Edit: to address the child comments below: who gets to be the judge of the complexity of the spec? If Nintendo fucked it up but some EE students can get it right through side projects on github, does that make the spec complex or does that make Nintendo incompetent (lacks a HW review/qualification process)?

The spec could be as simple as "white wire goes to positive terminal, black wire goes to negative terminal" and there's still the chance of an implementation fuckup in the design pipeline, especially in large projects/companies with distributed siloed teams like Nintendo due to poor internal communication, if there is no proper internal review/qualification process in the design loop.

Edit 2: I looked at the USB-C charging specs and they're easy enough to understand for any graduate EE and for any company who's had some basic experience with USB as a whole, let alone 100 year old multi-billion HW conglomerates like Nintendo.

IMHO, Nintendo's USB-C charging fuckup is 100% on them. I wish people would stop needlessly defending them here.

Edit 3: Also, what if Nintendo intentionally chose not to follow the spec in order to force the users to use and buy only original parts from them? Either way, incompetence or malice, you really can't blame the spec here.

The minimum requirements are that you have to support the USB 2.0 protocol:

> While BC1.2 is still supported over USB Type-C because it depends on the USB2.0 lane, a significantly simplified and higher power current capability mechanism is also implemented. This simplified approach involves resistor pull-down/ pull-up relationships. These pull-down/pull-up resistors are connected to the CC wire and the upstream facing port (UFP) must monitor the voltage on the CC1 and CC2 pins in order to detect the current sourcing capability of the down- stream facing port (DFP) it is connected to. This is a substantial improvement over the complicated handshake mech- anisms involved with USB BC1.2.

> The basic USB Type-C current capabilities are Default USB (500mA for USB2.0 and 900mA for USB3.0), 1.5A@5V, and 3A@5V.

* https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/appnotes/00001953a.pd...

(This is distinct from the "fast charging" mode(s?), which does seem to have compatibility problems. But in that case, the failure mode is that device charges slowly, which is probably not a big issue for the kind of small phones/gadgets that the EU regulation targets. The previous standard was micro-USB, which can't do fast-charging anyway.)

Nintendo will have to get its crap together and properly support Power Delivery, the burden is not on you.

- New, more secure boot sequence

- Updated Nvidia Tegra board

- ~20% better battery life

- Reinforced chassis design

It seems likely that they took the opportunity with Mariko to redesign their charging ICs to be more tolerant. I heartily recommend looking up some of the more subtle differences between the models too, it's really interesting to see how Nintendo updated a mass-market product without anyone really noticing.

Really? You've never seen a power only micro-usb cable (missing 2 bus lines)? I have dozens from all types of devices that use USB as a charging only connector.

This has been a problem with every USB iteration (hard to have the U in USB if you aren't able to handle a wide variety of applications), but I vastly prefer it to the early 00s when you might have 5 different cables to each "specialty" application.

Afaik if you don't need these you can just implement the parts you need e.g. charging.

No, that was already not the case with USB 3 devices not working when plugged in a USB 1 slot. Not made easy when some computer or hub have both USB 3 and USB 1 port on the same machine and you must remember the color code.

I recall that one time when I tried to configure the bios of a computer and the keyboard wouldn't work in the bios because it was connected to the "wrong" usb port that was not powered in that stage of the boot

In my experience, this wasn't true. I had both a tablet and a phone that had the charging port fail. If I didn't apply a constant sideways force on the cable, it wouldn't charge. Tried other cables to make sure it wasn't a bad cable, but still had the same problem.

https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-Supply-Adapter-List...

I have several chargers with a brick and a permanently attached micro-USB cable that came with devices. One from Samsung; a couple from Grandcentral; a few for Raspberry Pis.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=microusb+AC+adapter&t=ffab&iar=ima...

I've fried at least one USB-C device, a high-end wireless headset, seemingly by connecting it to a name-brand USB-C charger that had some kind of incompatibility with the headset.

Plus, even among Apple chargers, some USB-C chargers will support fast charging, and some won't, regardless of their rated wattage. Plus some will and will not support fast charging via a wireless charger (either a MagSafe wireless charger or an Apple Watch charger). There are a lot of charging incompatibilities in the current state of USB-C, even among devices from a single manufacturer.

And all I gained from this is that I will have to buy a cable separately from the device itself now.

But hey, at least I'll only get 5 new cables in a decade instead of 10! Such incredible savings.

The EU seems perfectly willing to adopt new standards if you look at what has been happening in mobile standards (e.g. despite 3G being standardized we got 4G, despite 4G being standardized we got 5G)

Except that's basically what happened with USB-C. Micro-B was the standard for the EU, USB-C was developed and got approved, and now it's replacing micro-b as the standard.

What kind of mindset is this? Sometimes Apple prefers aesthetics over practicality, but they are not a spiteful company (unless you are Nvidia), particularly when it hurts customers.