The ABCs of USB

There are a lot of different types of USB connectors and cords, and generally speaking, they have all worked pretty good. Most phone companies, in the early days, went with proprietary connectors, so you had to get a very specific cable that would only ever work for that brand of phone. The only manufacturer to truly make its proprietary connector type mainstream was Apple. Unfortunately, if your hardware doesn't sport a piece of fruit on the back, and you have a phone that requires a specific cord, it ends up being very annoying if you lose a cable and have to special order one.

Nowadays, most phone and tablet hardware could be found with micro-usb ports. Every major phone manufacturer (except, of course, Apple) make use of micro usb. But there has always been one glaring problem. The port in not uni-directional. So, if you try to force the plug in upside down, which is commonly done by the very young or the very drunk, you'll end up with a busted charging port. Apple's older 30 pin charger was prone to this as well, and made a huge leap forward with it's lightning cable, which could fit no matter which way it was plugged in. However, the lightning cable in famous for being unreliable and after market cables seem to just stop working after a few days. Apple really does want you to fork out the $40 to buy an official one from them.

There is a new connect on the horizon of mass acceptance and it's pretty sweet! It's called USB Type-C, and it will change how we charge our devices. This will slowly but surely replace the industry standard Micro-USB and it's main feature is that it can be connected in either orientation. It will also sport up to 10Gbps and a much high power output up to 20V and 5A. Compare that to most standard chargers at 5V and 2A. So if your new device has fast charging capabilities, you are going to notice a big improvement!

Thankfully, the micro side of the USB isn't the only one getting the C-Type treatment, with plans to finally upgrade the infamously omni-directional USB port (that where you have to plug it in the wrong way, turn it over and it's still wrong, and turn it over again to finally get it to plug into your computer). Oh what a time to be alive!