Let's be clear - the only reason Apple cares about this is they're assholes.

- Apple went hard into "firewire" (IEEE-1394) when nobody else did because it was pretty obvious that USB2 solved all the USB problems. Do you... really need eight channels of synchronous uncompressed digital audio out of your two-channel MP3 iPod? Well guess what sparky that's how you charge it anyway. At a time when an Archos Mini Jukebox had a USB-mini, Apple put fucking Firewire plugs on their smallest devices... because they're assholes.

- 'member how MagSafe was dope and kept you from tearing the power plug out of your computer? And how Apple changed it three times, just because, while also being so fiercely protective of their patents that nobody else could do it? And then they just fucking abandoned it for - wait for it - USB-C? I've got "mag-safe" chargers for all my tablets'n'shit (including Apple's!) that are made illegally in China. Thing of it is, you can't slap a chip in the charging connector of a MagSafe to make it a proprietary must-pay-ten-percent-to-Apple "iDevice." So MagSafe had to go.

- Apple has limited the Lightning connector to the iPhone and iPad because really, it's an utterly worthless piece of shit for anything real. It charges. It transmits data at USB-2 speed. Yeah you can get "audio" out of it... by buying a tiny Apple-compliant USB-audio adapter. You can get "video" out of it, by buying a tiny Apple-compliant USB-video adapter (tops out at 1920x1080/60). Meanwhile I have a Quadro laptop with a USB-C port on it that is driving video AND audio AND data AND USB which is - wait for it - why Apple puts USB-C ports on everything but phones and iPads.

- Let's not forget what Apple switched to the Lightning port FROM:

...I mean, let's talk "fuck-you" connectors. Luminance and Chroma? dafuq your iPod needs S-video for? SERIAL? What is this fucking thing a dial-up modem? Here's the thing tho - it's a 30-pin connector yet Apple only ever used 15 pins on the fucker. The other 15 were "reserved for future use" like, I dunno, hooking up a Simon Says or some shit.

And let's not forget that every single proprietary plug Apple has ever used is fragile as fuck. Jonny Ive hates strain relief. Apple brand language has been "ignore all connectors" since the fucking Bondi Blue iMac, unless it's some proprietary garbage that they'll be able to RDF you into believing is superior for exactly one and a half Keynote addresses. Look at this shit. LOOK AT IT! "Let's do our own dumb-ass version of DVI only with radically worse specs and almost but not quite enough power to drive our displays! yeah! That's a great idea! We'll put CRT power... on our video cards! GENIUS!

'cuz here's the thing any professional will tell you: iDevices of all kinds suck donkey balls. Ever go to a conference and the speaker is sitting there embarrassed because his laptop won't make the room's projector work and everyone sighs and complains about how shitty Windows is or some shit? It's not windows. Apple's audio and video standards are always between 80% and 85% of spec. They NEVER kick out enough signal to actually meet the requirements of the protocol because if they had to size their connectors to actually meet UL and CE listing for the standards they'd look like everyone else's. So they undersize everything and tell the regulating bodies "no no it's a proprietary signal" and then at the Apple Store they tell you it'll work everywhere look we'll sell you a dongle for $59 and it is

utter

premeditated

bullshit.

I've got two fucking plugs IN MY CAR because Apple needs a special USB port to run carplay. Android? Either. Apple? BETTER BE THE GRAY ONE!

And they're allowed to get away with this because people go "oh, well but Apple needs room to innovate" without recognizing that left to their own devices, Apple would populate the world with G4 Cubes.