In practical terms that doesn't really happen. People still use device specific cables. If I have 4 USB-C devices and one lightning device I have 5 cables. If I replace the lightning device with a USB-C device, I still have 5 cables. The only time "cable consolidation" matters is when traveling or in a backpack.
My USB-C security cameras need their dedicated cables, my Oculus Quest needs a dedicated 16 ft cable, my random amazon junk device cables don't support the PD that my laptop requires, etc. By forcing everyone to use the same tips without enforcing featuresets all its doing is confusing consumers even more. To all my older relatives and non-tech savvy friends, an iPhone cable is an iPhone cable. It's way less confusing than figuring out the right power brick wattage and cable combination and wondering why this USB-C cable doesn't transmit video to that monitor.
YMMV, I guess? My portable devices float around with one USB-C cable per room just fine. Granted, that's mostly lower-power devices and I prefer to trickle-charge, but if I started running power-hungry machines then I'd move everything to nice beefy PD bricks and it'd still work.
Its far too early to claim USB-C will be the final version of USB cabling? Looking around, I have devices that use
USB Type B (Scanner)
USB Mini B (charging wireless keyboard),
USB Micro B (PS4 controller, Fire Tablet, Arduinos/Raspi),
USB 3.0 Type A (Flash Drives),
USB 3.0 Type B (Astro camera),
USB 3.0 Micro B (SATA->USB device),
Many of these end with a USB Type A, but not all.
And of course, the "final version", USB-C (Oculus, Pixel, Macbook). And I have a bunch of USBA-USB-C cables and converting plugs.
And of course I have lightning devices, some older than the USB Type B Scanner.
I have a shitton of hardware and cables that I'm not going to throw away just for some connector that will be phased out in ten years.
>You would want Gecko if you like arbitrary extensions
On my desktop, sure. On my phone? Why bother?
>And you'd want to run arbitrary code on a machine you own because phones are computers
Disagree.
Most people already have USB-C cables. Apple people often have them b/c of a MacBook or w/e.
> On my desktop, sure. On my phone? Why bother?
Dark Mode, Ad Blocking, etc.
> Disagree
Freedom is important, even if you don't need it now. Someone else, maybe you in the future, may need it.
I will switch to Android if I ever need the ability to use my phone like a PC. So far (10-ish years), that hasn't happened.
1. If no-one uses the free version until it's necessary, it might decline and die, and then won't be around to save you. I'd say this is the Firefox / Chrome dynamic currently.
2. If you don't have the freesom to do something, you might not know what you're missing. Re: your comment in another branch, I have done all of "moving stuff around a file browser, installing ad-hoc apps, opening a command line, etc" on my phone in the past 24 hours, and had a great time doing it.
2. I hardly even use the feature set the iPhone already gives me. I used to jailbreak my iPhone too, just for fun, but that was a long time ago. There's a reason phones aren't centered around a graphical file system. I'm a power user on my Mac and my Linux servers, that's enough for me.
While you don't use your phone like a PC, I think there's a strong case to be made for allowing for that kind of functionality. However, like you said - you don't need to switch if you don't need that capability. I personally install a lot of apps from FDroid or straight from APK files, but I don't use my phone like a PC like I just described. The range varies, and having that flexibility is nice.
I mean sure it would be slightly nicer to have my iPhone and iPods use the same USB-C charging port but I wouldn't choose Android and give up all of convenience of 'just works' wireless interop with all my devices.
It's shyte like this that makes me giggle at the Apple boys and girls they swear up an down when Apple does something android does its "revolutionary" for all... fuck out of here wit that shyte.
Despite what some may think, there are more Android developers [Hardware/Software] then apple developers in this world. That is why Android will always be ahead of the game regardless what Apple does.
Old wise tail: You can polish a turd with bells and whistles, however it's still a turd no matter how you present it. Fin.
My car has a lightning dock. Guess I should throw the car away. That's the easy thing, right?