Going USB-C on their phones and tablets while also swapping the Thunderbolt ports and maybe the power ports on their computers for USB-C, then leaving it that way for three years or so before removing the other ports, seems like it would have been a much better lead-in if they really had to do it. At least then we'd have been able to slowly accumulate USB-C dongles without feeling bitter about it, since they'd work on i-devices too so feel like they're providing some kind of benefit or future-proofness. As it is it's 2020 and I still feel like I'm wasting money buying either USB-C or Lightning dongles—the former because I don't need them for anything but very new Macbooks, and the latter because surely they're going to switch those to USB-C eventually (surely... right?) so those thunderbolt cables and adapters will become junk long before they should.

[EDIT] go figure, my wife just today bought a new iphone, wants to put some music from her 2019 Macbook Air onto it, needs to plug it in at least once in order to do that (have to plug in first to enable wifi sync), and can't because the phone shipped with a fucking USB-A cable and the single lightning-to-usb cable we have in our house is missing. This is going down right now. So much for not needing USB-A ports on a laptop in 2020 even if you're fully in the Apple ecosystem. She's so annoyed I wouldn't be surprised if she returns the phone. I mean granted the phone isn't the latest model but it came out way after they made the all-USB-C switch on their laptops.