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Why was Mini USB deprecated in favor of Micro USB?

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Re: Why was Mini USB deprecated in favor of Micro USB?

#21

Post by lucian1900 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #15
lucian1900 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's yet another proprietary connector. We've really had enough of those.

Yes, let's just limit ourselves to standardized connectors, innovations sucks and we are tired of change. Now please get off my lawn. /sarcasm Just let the free market decide things like this, it is extremely efficient at that. Right now, Apple still sells loads of iPhones without using a standard connector. And frankly, I think my wife's iPhone 5 plugs in a much better way than my more standard Nokia 925 does.

Yes, it is a nice plug. No, it should not be proprietary. While Apple are entirely within their rights to keep it proprietary, it is in everyone else's disfavour, particularly their customers.

Re: Why was Mini USB deprecated in favor of Micro USB?

#22

Post by jzwinck »

ars wrote: post #17
keeperofdakeys wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning has one specific feature that allows it to easily be bidirectional. The pinout can be changed via software, to adapt to any occasion, and essentially manufacture a new plug with a firmware update. This means orientation doesn't matter (without duplicating pins). This is a bit harder with USB, which has specific purposes for each pin.

It's not that hard to simply swap all the pins in hardware if the connector is reversed. You don't need to able to reassign every single pin to make that possible. Lightning is overdesigned which makes it expensive.

You could say that the previous iPod dock connector was over-designed. But it wasn't, because it survived many years and many devices, with only a handful in between (like some iPod nanos) not being amenable to it years after its creation. We do not yet know what fate awaits Lightning. The odds are certainly tilted against it. Not only is Android popular and universally using Micro-USB (unlike when the first iPhone came out and phones had all kinds of plugs), but "smart wires" are increasingly antiquated: if you want to pipe music from your phone to your car, wouldn't you rather use WiFi than a cord? Sure, you need to plug in to charge much of the time, but now you can hand the thing to someone in the backseat and let them change songs. And any dumb USB port will charge any phone these days, which is good enough.

Re: Why was Mini USB deprecated in favor of Micro USB?

#23

Post by simias »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #6
simias wrote: post #2

This is a great answer, but IIRC there's an other reason to prefer micro over mini: the moving parts in the micro-USB connection are in the male plug, not the female one like the mini. Since those parts tend to break easily, it's cheaper to replace the cable rather than the smartphone/device having the female port. That being said I'm still a bit mad at Apple for ditching their old large port, only to replace it with…

Apple's port, which doesn't have an up/down direction, is much easier to plug in than the micro USB port, which does. It is an innovation, like it or not, that USB doesn't have.

It is a good innovation indeed. That being said, I'd rather deal with the minor annoyance of having to figure out which way to plug my USB cable than having to carry two sets of cables/adapters to accommodate all my devices.

Re: Why was Mini USB deprecated in favor of Micro USB?

#24

Post by ydant »

sspiff wrote: post #20
mistercow wrote: post #4

I only ever had one mini USB cord go bad, and that was a minor pain. But I have had the micro USB port on a cell phone become unreliable, which is insanely frustrating. The post holding the contacts no longer wants to push them against the cord, so it frequently loses the connection. I can solve the problem temporarily by pushing the post back with a small screw driver, but "temporarily" here is measured in minutes o…

Exactly the same experience here, except that I never had a mini-USB failure. After roughly 6 months of use, the USB receptacle of my LG smartphone was just not holding on to any cable anymore. I sent it back to LG, and they replaced the part containing the mirco-USB port. On an unrelated note: LG noticed that I was running a custom ROM but didn't make any problem of it, while technically they can claim that such an…

I'm not clear on the specifics of the actual law, but this seems like what the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act was trying to protect.

There's no link between a physical hardware failure and flashing an aftermarket ROM, and as such they would be really hard pressed to have a legally valid reason to deny you coverage for the micro-USB port being defective.

There's a lot of grey area - if your display goes out, maybe it's because of software - but something purely physical is pretty clear cut.

Re: Why was Mini USB deprecated in favor of Micro USB?

#25

Post by freehunter »

sspiff wrote: post #20
mistercow wrote: post #4

I only ever had one mini USB cord go bad, and that was a minor pain. But I have had the micro USB port on a cell phone become unreliable, which is insanely frustrating. The post holding the contacts no longer wants to push them against the cord, so it frequently loses the connection. I can solve the problem temporarily by pushing the post back with a small screw driver, but "temporarily" here is measured in minutes o…

Exactly the same experience here, except that I never had a mini-USB failure. After roughly 6 months of use, the USB receptacle of my LG smartphone was just not holding on to any cable anymore. I sent it back to LG, and they replaced the part containing the mirco-USB port. On an unrelated note: LG noticed that I was running a custom ROM but didn't make any problem of it, while technically they can claim that such an…

Actually, if you're in the US the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act covers you in the case of customizations [1]. Under this law, manufacturers are only able to claim your warranty as void if the modifications are what caused your warranty claim. I doubt they would be able to claim that your custom ROM caused your hardware failure on the USB port, so legally they had to fix it. More info on this FTC law [2].

[1] http://www.examiner.com/article/what-modifications-will-void...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_...

Re: Why was Mini USB deprecated in favor of Micro USB?

#26

Post by claudius »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #15
lucian1900 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's yet another proprietary connector. We've really had enough of those.

Yes, let's just limit ourselves to standardized connectors, innovations sucks and we are tired of change. Now please get off my lawn. /sarcasm Just let the free market decide things like this, it is extremely efficient at that. Right now, Apple still sells loads of iPhones without using a standard connector. And frankly, I think my wife's iPhone 5 plugs in a much better way than my more standard Nokia 925 does.

> Just let the free market decide things like this, it is extremely efficient at that.

Yes, it absolutely did not take an EU intervention to standardise mobile phone chargers on Micro USB, instead, the manufacturers recognised that it is a good thing to get rid off proprietary chargers as consumers all only bought the phones with the standardised chargers.

Or are you saying that needing a new, different, charger for your phone is actually a good thing™?

Re: Why was Mini USB deprecated in favor of Micro USB?

#27

Post by claudius »

ivix wrote: post #11
mistercow wrote: post #4

I only ever had one mini USB cord go bad, and that was a minor pain. But I have had the micro USB port on a cell phone become unreliable, which is insanely frustrating. The post holding the contacts no longer wants to push them against the cord, so it frequently loses the connection. I can solve the problem temporarily by pushing the post back with a small screw driver, but "temporarily" here is measured in minutes o…

Same here. Also I find it much more difficult to insert the micro plugs. I'd like to know the real reason for the change. After all, RJ45 plus are notoriously bad, but no one has ever changed them in decades.

Probably because by the time it became usual to plug them in often (read: portable computers), they were already commonplace to a degree that made it impractical to replace them.

And nowadays there’s Wifi/UMTS available for most such usecases – I have a docking station at home and use the Thinkpad’s internal Ethernet port maybe twice a year; mostly relying on wireless data transfers when not at home.

Re: Why was Mini USB deprecated in favor of Micro USB?

#28

Post by pessimizer »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #15
lucian1900 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's yet another proprietary connector. We've really had enough of those.

Yes, let's just limit ourselves to standardized connectors, innovations sucks and we are tired of change. Now please get off my lawn. /sarcasm Just let the free market decide things like this, it is extremely efficient at that. Right now, Apple still sells loads of iPhones without using a standard connector. And frankly, I think my wife's iPhone 5 plugs in a much better way than my more standard Nokia 925 does.

Even better, lets create a new proprietary system for every innovation (or arbitrary change), because the market is great at forcing interoperability between proprietary systems. Why wouldn't it be? The alternative would be a monopoly, or a broken, inefficient industry - and avoiding that is always primary in each individual actors' mind.

And frankly, the picture on my eTeeVee(TM) is much better than the picture on my Samsung, even though it isn't compatible with OTA or cable standards.

Re: Why was Mini USB deprecated in favor of Micro USB?

#29

Post by ronaldx »

moreentropy wrote: post #3

Another point: AFAIK the Mico USB connector is designed so that if you apply force from the side to a plugged in connector, the plug will deliberately break and the socket/pcb will stay functional. Edit: I can't relate to those who say Mini USB is more reliable than Micro USB. I've had a lot of trouble with Mini USB connectors and especially cables, especially if I move a connected device i've had lots of short disco…

Yep, I have had several mini USB ports quickly destroy themselves, to the point that it affected my buying decisions. The accepted answer in the link perfectly explains why.

Re: Why was Mini USB deprecated in favor of Micro USB?

#30

Post by ars »

jzwinck wrote: post #22
ars wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard to simply swap all the pins in hardware if the connector is reversed. You don't need to able to reassign every single pin to make that possible. Lightning is overdesigned which makes it expensive.

You could say that the previous iPod dock connector was over-designed. But it wasn't, because it survived many years and many devices, with only a handful in between (like some iPod nanos) not being amenable to it years after its creation. We do not yet know what fate awaits Lightning. The odds are certainly tilted against it. Not only is Android popular and universally using Micro-USB (unlike when the first iPhone c…

> You could say that the previous iPod dock connector was over-designed. But it wasn't, because it survived many years and many devices

That's not the test of overdesigned. It's overdesigned if the cost doesn't provide sufficient benefit - and it clearly didn't.

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