> They probably considered Lightning to be superior but couldn't make it the industry standard without loosing their ability to charge absurd amounts of licensing fees for it.

I don't think it's this. Lightning was superior to micro-USB, but it's certainly not superior to USB-C.

I think the problem is that everyone remembers the transition from the 30 pin dock connector to Lightning. Apple has a huge reputation for just changing their cables all the time.

This is largely unwarranted. For the portable devices they had 30-pin for ~10 years, then lightning for ~10 years, and it looks like it's on its way out soon. I think 10 years is a fairly reasonable time to keep ecosystems the same. People don't have 10 year old cables and chargers around.

This reputation is pervasive though. I think they're holding off until they can drop the cable entirely in 1-2 years.

> People don't have 10 year old cables and chargers around.

Yes they do, why wouldn't they? I have mini/micro USB chargers and cables that are older, same for USB A/B cables, same for network cables.

Only cables that get tossed are Apple lightning cables because they are crap quality and fray within 2-3 years, and other non-standard crap (pre-2010 proprietary phone/camera chargers like 30-pin and the like)

> People don't have 10 year old cables and chargers around.

Just looking in my cable drawer I have USB types A, B, mini-A, mini-B, micro-A, micro-B, and C. I also have lightening and apple dock from the original iPhone. I have some weird Chinese cable that looks like USB micro-A and micro-B but doesn't fit either. There are a few barrel connectors from my old Nokia phones. A couple of my wife's old Samsung phone cables. This is just from the stuff I've owned.

Just curious, why do you keep all that stuff around?

So I don’t have to pay for a new ones next time I need one. My headphones need micro-b, my gps uses mini-a for data and mini-b for power, my China phones might use any of the mini or micro connectors - whatever they had a lot of that month, usb-a is the most common connector I find while traveling, raspberry pi uses micro b, etc.

Thanks for your answer! I understand the USB "estandards" going around, but what surprised me was that you kept old Nokia and Samsung charging cables. I got rid of all of them in my last moving.

If Lightning was superior, the new iPad Mini and new (and previous) iPad Pros wouldn't be using USB-C rather than Lightning.

I think that the idea of the USB-C port on the iPads is to connect external devices. These are more likely to have a USB-C <-> something (e.g. USB-C -> USB-[micro|C|A]) cable that people already have lying around, as opposed to lightning -> something cable.

From the perspective of Apple though, that's another adapter for them to sell. They already make a lightning -> USB-A adapter.

And the idea of a common, readily available for most people, port is exactly what this legislation is about. It should apply to charging cables for phones too.