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It's late 2021, is USB-A still relevant for Macs with Apple Silicon?

A

Adarna

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Jan 1, 2015
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USB-A is the original USB physical shape that came out in the original 1998 iMac G3.

This was decades before USB-C came out.

Does it have a place on the Mac as we enter 2022?

In my mind each Mac should have at most 1 USB 3.1 10Gbps port until 2022 because it is so ubiquitous.

When Apple moved to an all USB-C 2016 MBP it caused so much problems for end users.

This would be my ideal I/O for the 2016 MBP
  • MagSafe
  • one TB3 40Gbps with USB PD
  • one TB2 20Gbps
  • two USB 3.1 10Gbps
  • 3.5mm Headphone
  • SDXC slot
  • HDMI
 
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USB-A has been deprecated by the USB consortium in 2017. Just because it's still ubiquitous it is no reason to drag around an inferior piece of technology that will take place of something much more useful. It's exactly this mentality (let's include an USB-A port because so many mice still have an USB-A port) why we can't have good things.
 
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leman said:
USB-A has been deprecated by the USB consortium in 2017. Just because it's still ubiquitous it is no reason to drag around an inferior piece of technology that will take place of something much more useful. It's exactly this mentality (let's include an USB-A port because so many mice still have an USB-A port) why we can't have good things.
Click to expand...
We had a lot of nice things from 2016-2021 when we went on an all USB-C design and people hated dongles.
 
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leman said:
USB-A has been deprecated by the USB consortium in 2017. Just because it's still ubiquitous it is no reason to drag around an inferior piece of technology that will take place of something much more useful. It's exactly this mentality (let's include an USB-A port because so many mice still have an USB-A port) why we can't have good things.
Click to expand...
depreciated doesnt mean a lot of customer dont use .
 
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Andropov said:
Also why would you want a SLOWER thunderbolt port?
Click to expand...
Slow port transition was the hallmark of Apple pre-2016. There would be a lot of people who still had TB2 devices in 2016 and would be open to upgrading from them by 2019 when more TB3 devices came out.

Example would be the transition from FireWire400 to FireWire800. I believe it took Apple about at least 4 years between an all FW400 Mac to an all FW800 Mac. Then a few years more to abandon FW entirely.

Keeping MagSafe, Headphone, HDMI & SDXC slot "as is" this is how I would have done the USB of the 2016 to today's MBP
  • 2016 - one TB3, one TB2 & two USB 3.1 10Gbps (introduce USB-C charger & USB-C to MagSafe cable)
  • 2018 - two TB3, one TB2 & one USB 3.1 10Gbps
  • 2020 - three TB4 & one USB 3.1 10Gbps
  • 2022 - three TB4 or more
A gradual transition was how Apple switched from FireWire 400 to FireWire 800. The sudden switch to USB-C ports in 2016 was too jarring. By 2022 I'd be hard pressed to find any new Mac owner who wouldn't have upgraded away from USB-A due to wear & tear or changed use case.
 
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ponzicoinbro said:
So many USB-A devices new and second hand are useful for ages. Cheap reliable back up hard drives can’t even use the bandwidth of Thunderbolt is the main one. Tons of those on the market.
Click to expand...
A USB 1.0 device from 1998 should in theory still work with a USB 3.1 10Gbps port.

Giving a 6 year transition from USB-A to USB-C would allow peripheral makers enough time to create USB-C cables & devices and not give end users headaches with dongles.

The only acceptable dongle in my mind would be the Ethernet port and Apple has shown the ability to put it in a power brick like those of the iMac 24" M1.

Wouldn't it be awesome if Apple engineer MagSafe 3 to allow I/O on the USB-C charger? It would be able to act like a multiport charger like those from Satechi
 
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Adarna said:
That's why I think USB-A should be on all Macs until 2022 when Apple phases it all out.
Click to expand...
yes , when you deal with some customer with vga projector , usb c .

E.g last year , client give me phamplet on usb a but i only brought the ipad mini,macbook 2011and the ipad mini need dongle but suddenly dont support . Open the pdf in macbook 2011 but dont have airdrop so cannot view direct so need to send to internet then can see back in ipad mini.

last 2 year , client only has vga projector .. so need dongle : ( so brought the apple tv sync to tv to explain..

** dongle life is hard on apple product .
 
leman said:
USB-A has been deprecated by the USB consortium in 2017. Just because it's still ubiquitous it is no reason to drag around an inferior piece of technology that will take place of something much more useful. It's exactly this mentality (let's include an USB-A port because so many mice still have an USB-A port) why we can't have good things.
Click to expand...
If you really need usb A, you can use cheap compact adapters like this:
F87C99CB-27F0-4144-82ED-8D994911D746.jpeg
 
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I’m not going to lie, there have been countless times where I missed an USB-A on my MacBook Pro’s since 2016 whereas the loss of the HDMI and SDCard reader have been a non-issue for me to be honest. USB drives with USB-A are still all over the place and some devices still comes with cables with USB-A connections etc.

Yes, I have dongles to deal with it, but then you are out and about, have forgotten the dongles at home or the office and somebody important is just going to handle you an USB drive with USB-A, right?! :p
 
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alien3dx said:
yes , when you deal with some customer with vga projector , usb c .

E.g last year , client give me phamplet on usb a but i only brought the ipad mini,macbook 2011and the ipad mini need dongle but suddenly dont support . Open the pdf in macbook 2011 but dont have airdrop so cannot view direct so need to send to internet then can see back in ipad mini.

last 2 year , client only has vga projector .. so need dongle : ( so brought the apple tv sync to tv to explain..

** dongle life is hard on apple product .
Click to expand...
r/Apple and this forum has a lot of users who appear to not circulate themselves outside their homes or offices.

This week someone wrote that there are USB-C TVs already. I searched online and I could not think of the correct keywords to show me any TV with USB-C. There are projectors with USB-C that allow for video but these generally are very high end and came our in the last few months.

HDMI's been out for nearly 18 years and it is a unified A/V port. HDMI 2.1 came out as early as 2017 but I've yet to identify any mass market TV or projector with it so 2.0 is suffice until the next MBP comes out.

If you're going to a venue with only VGA projectors then I'd urge them to upgrade once the lamp conks out.
 
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I expect that USB-A will remain relevant until at least 2030, because the replacement cycle for many devices is 10-15 years. There is even a chance that it will outlive USB-C, because it's an older design. Much in the same way as vinyl records outsell CDs these days.

Low-bandwidth devices still ship with USB-A-to-whatever cables, because that's what you can reliably find in various computers, consoles, TVs, and chargers. Outside mobile devices, USB-C is mostly used as a special-purpose port for high-bandwidth devices such as monitors, external SSDs, and docking stations. Users expect so much bandwidth from a USB-C port that no device ever has more than a handful of them.

That said, I don't see much point in having just one USB-A port in a laptop. If you need USB-A, you will likely need several ports, so you'll have to get a multi-port dongle anyway. The 4 USB-A ports in an iMac are usually enough, while the 2 ports in old MBPs weren't.
 
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JouniS said:
I expect that USB-A will remain relevant until at least 2030, because the replacement cycle for many devices is 10-15 years. There is even a chance that it will outlive USB-C, because it's an older design. Much in the same way as vinyl records outsell CDs these days.

Low-bandwidth devices still ship with USB-A-to-whatever cables, because that's what you can reliably find in various computers, consoles, TVs, and chargers. Outside mobile devices, USB-C is mostly used as a special-purpose port for high-bandwidth devices such as monitors, external SSDs, and docking stations. Users expect so much bandwidth from a USB-C port that no device ever has more than a handful of them.

That said, I don't see much point in having just one USB-A port in a laptop. If you need USB-A, you will likely need several ports, so you'll have to get a multi-port dongle anyway. The 4 USB-A ports in an iMac are usually enough, while the 2 ports in old MBPs weren't.
Click to expand...
2017 only usb c . i had few dongle blown out and have to resort to apple tv for extension.

Now got two hub if one fail ,another backup
 
leman said:
USB-A has been deprecated by the USB consortium in 2017. Just because it's still ubiquitous it is no reason to drag around an inferior piece of technology that will take place of something much more useful. It's exactly this mentality (let's include an USB-A port because so many mice still have an USB-A port) why we can't have good things.
Click to expand...
Tell Apple that. I bought an Apple Watch 6 in 2021. It came with a USB-A charger.

Would I have preferred a USB-A port on the new MBPs? Yes. But it's not going to stop me from buying it.
 
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JouniS said:
I expect that USB-A will remain relevant until at least 2030, because the replacement cycle for many devices is 10-15 years. There is even a chance that it will outlive USB-C, because it's an older design. Much in the same way as vinyl records outsell CDs these days.

Low-bandwidth devices still ship with USB-A-to-whatever cables, because that's what you can reliably find in various computers, consoles, TVs, and chargers. Outside mobile devices, USB-C is mostly used as a special-purpose port for high-bandwidth devices such as monitors, external SSDs, and docking stations. Users expect so much bandwidth from a USB-C port that no device ever has more than a handful of them.

That said, I don't see much point in having just one USB-A port in a laptop. If you need USB-A, you will likely need several ports, so you'll have to get a multi-port dongle anyway. The 4 USB-A ports in an iMac are usually enough, while the 2 ports in old MBPs weren't.
Click to expand...
All good points but I'd argue that Mac are positioned as $999 & higher desktop/laptops and as such tend to have users who do not mind gradually/slowly transition from one port to another.

By 2022 if you still need USB-A & VGA ports then you're part of the minority that needs dongles.

The transition I showed above is relatively benign considering its 6 years total with adjustments every 2 years from one USB-C port to an all USB-C port Mac.

It could be lengthened to 9 years with adjustments every 3 years.
  • 2016 - one TB3, one TB2 & two USB 3.1 10Gbps (introduce USB-C charger & USB-C to MagSafe cable)
  • 2019 - two TB3, one TB2 & one USB 3.1 10Gbps
  • 2022 - three TB4 & one USB 3.1 10Gbps
  • 2025 - three TB4 or more
 
ponzicoinbro said:
So many USB-A devices new and second hand are useful for ages. Cheap reliable back up hard drives can’t even use the bandwidth of Thunderbolt is the main one. Tons of those on the market.
Click to expand...

Then get a USB-C cable. What's the problem? Your HDD comes with a detachable cable anyway, right? I have moved all my existing HDDs to USB-C back in 2016.
 
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Adarna said:
Slow port transition was the hallmark of Apple pre-2016. There would be a lot of people who still had TB2 devices in 2016 and would be open to upgrading from them by 2019 when more TB3 devices came out.
Click to expand...
A hallmark of Apple pre-2016? What? Like when they were all-in on the ADC conector, then presented new Cinema Displays with DVI instead of ADC (June 2004) and seven months later they stopped selling the last Mac with an ADC connector (April 2005)? Was that gradual?

Or when they dropped the VGA port from the PowerBook lineup, in 2002 no less. Or the floppy disk on 1998, the CD drive in 2013, iPhone's headphone jack in 2016, built-in ethernet on MacBooks in 2012...

And, besides the FW400/FW800 case, Apple *never* sold a Mac with an older version of the same standard. There never was a Mac with USB 3.1 + USB 2.0 side by side, nor USB 2.0 and 1.1, nor Thunderbolt 3 and 2, nor Thunderbolt 3 and 4... And even for the FireWire case, laptops with FW400 + FW800 only lasted for one year, and then went to FW800 only.
 
Andropov said:
Or when they dropped the VGA port from the PowerBook lineup, in 2002 no less. Or the floppy disk on 1998, the CD drive in 2013, iPhone's headphone jack in 2016, built-in ethernet on MacBooks in 2012...

And, besides the FW400/FW800 case, Apple *never* sold a Mac with an older version of the same standard. There never was a Mac with USB 3.1 + USB 2.0 side by side, nor USB 2.0 and 1.1, nor Thunderbolt 3 and 2, nor Thunderbolt 3 and 4... And even for the FireWire case, laptops with FW400 + FW800 only lasted for one year, and then went to FW800 only.
Click to expand...
You write in a very angry tone and reframe my statement for differing products with differing use cases and markets.

There was overlap on these I/O.

I'm not that old to know what occurred pre-2000 and I have no interest to dispute all your points so I'll only address what I know.

When they removed the SuperDrive they provided the SD slot. From one type of physical media to a different type

On the iPhone & some iPads the 3.5 headphone jack was substituted by the Lightning or USB-C port. From one audio port to another audio port

GbE port was substituted by the dongle or WiFi. Apple must have noticed that most use case do not have certain market segment using the GbE port and much preferring WiFi. So why include in the bill of material a feature rarely if ever used?

USB 3.1 + USB 2.0 have the same physical form factor. We both know that and its silly to use this as an example of overlap or transition. If TB1 & TB2 had the same form factor as TB3 then odds are they'll sit side by side like FW400 & FW800.

From 2000-2016 Apple did gradual transitions. People who made design decisions prior to 2000 are probably dead or retired from Apple by 2016.
 
Bob_DM said:
If you really need usb A, you can use cheap compact adapters like this:
View attachment 1875518
Click to expand...
I've learned the hard way that these things, from many different brands, are quite problematic. You need to be very selective in what you buy, and sometimes it's just trial and error. A lot of them will cause the Mac to downstep the speed to USB 2.

It's a lot easier just to have the USB-A port on your machine.
 
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