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Comment by sumuyuda | Hacker News Reader

There’s still no USB-A support, so the dongle book was never truly fixed.

I haven't used USB-A single time since 2018... My USB-C display has it on its hub, but who cares...

The vast majority of peripherals available at ordinary stores are still usb-a. If you just run into Target to grab [some peripheral] most or all options in that category will be usb-a.

Yeah but does anybody buy it? In my store the peripherals are covered in dust... And it's some cheap Chinese knockoff, nothing like the old high quality ones.

Yes?

My company’s mostly Windows and the peripherals issued are all brand new and are all usb-a. We Mac weirdos have to dongle constantly or not use them. Even the non-Apple major brand Bluetooth wireless earbuds they issue have a usb-a plug on the end of the charging cable for the case.

I was scared of getting a Mac for years because of the dongles. Then I got one from work (they even gave me the dongle and I made fun of it) and turns out I never use any of it. And then I realized the USB-A port on my desktop front panel has been broken probably for years and I didn't notice.

Oh, so you just don't use peripherals at all. That is not a very common scenario.

I do, but it's all wireless. My laptop and desktop both have Bluetooth.

Not even just to plug in a joke gift? I got a gigantic Escape key once, which connected on a usb-A port. Most of that peripheral stuff still uses it.

Hahaha, that's a cool one. But yeah I never got something like that.

Given that the industry is trying to retire USB-A for good, this doesn't seem likely.

USB-A is, in fact, the thing that drove me off of Apple for good.

There is a decent minority of people for whom USB-A eventually stops working and requires a reboot to restore.

The dongle doesn't matter. The dock doesn't matter. The device doesn't matter. Software updates do not fix it. The thread on it is 40+ pages when Apple closes it and then another 40+ page thread on it reappaears.

The problem is an OS problem. I can pinpoint precisely the OS update that caused it. Apple does not care and will not fix it.

Fine, I get it. So I left for Linux and never looked back.

I blame perhipheral manufacturers for clinging to USB-A for no reason. It's been 8 years, please let this connector die already.

The chain of blame can be pushed further. Peripheral manufacturers laergely targrt desktop users, of which almost no motherboards support USB-C.

It's a chicken and egg scenario. Motherboard manufacturers load up their I/O panels with USB A ports because people demand them. People demand them because all their perhipherals, like the dongle for their wireless mouse, are USB-A.

Logitech recently released an updated version of my mouse, the G Pro Superlight 2, and the damn thing still ships with a USB-A dongle.

With how many ports modern motherboards often ship with, I would think they could at least split the difference and give me 1/2 USB-C and 1/2 USB-A. but nope, my 2 year old motherboard only has 1 USB-C port on the back and a dozen USB-A. Then at least we would have a path forward.

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