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Comment by makeitdouble | Hacker News Reader

Is charging port technology something we want to be the wild wild west and have companies quickly push random designs ?

Up until now the real nightmare has been every company coming up with their own crappy connector and sticking with it for decades.

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USB-C is not the final form of charger ports. I’d rather the debate on the next evolution happen within industry, and maybe even play out competitively in the market. If a clear victor emerged and there’s another large, abusive hold out like Apple, then just pass a similar time-limited law.

This is way too dismissive of the govs attitude, which is to reevaluate the situation every X years, and way too optimistic toward the industry, which couldn’t converge to anything without getting forced to do it. The “clear victor” only emerged because of the law passed.

For crying out loud, USB-C was created by Apple and look at the situation we’re still in.

What? USB-C won aside from one holdout. Apple wasn’t even trying to get other companies to adopt Lightning.

It won because the legislative interfered. Apple just couldn't be bothered to play ball while it wasn't outright mandated, which is why we're now in this shitty situation.

And as mkbhd said a while ago, it's extremely unlikely that apple will introduce USB-C now as well. They'll likely pivot to wireless charging exclusively and get rid of all external connectors.

Apple have already said they’ll introduce it

You’re misinformed. they said they’ll adhere to the regulation, and the regulation only requires usb-c if a physical charging port is available.

A lot of news outlets took that as confirmation, but it was never explicitly stated.

We’ll see in 2024 if Apple chooses to remove the connector altogether or switch to usb-c. My money is on the removal.

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