When Apple announced the new 12-inch Retina MacBook, many were surprised by the lack of ports save for the single USB Type-C (Apple calls it USB-C) port on the computer. It was surprising because not only will this take users a lot of getting used to, but it also seemed to have done away with Apple’s proprietary MagSafe charger and given Apple’s fondness for proprietary connectors, this was a somewhat surprising move.
However it turns out that it might not be so surprising after all. John Gruber, a famed Apple insider, recently revealed (via MacRumors) during his latest podcast that Apple was the one who invented USB-C, so in some ways it isn’t so much Apple giving way to industry standards, but Apple giving their invention to the standard bodies to make it a universal standard.
Gruber goes on to state that due to the political nature of the situation, Apple is not really in a position to come out in public and claim credit for it, and that there are circumstances in which Apple would want users to have a standard port, and other times when a proprietary port would make more sense. Gruber’s claims was backed by TechCrunch’s Matthew Panzarino who states that such a move from Apple would not come as a surprise.
The USB Type-C connector was originally announced towards the end of 2013 where it shared similarities to Apple’s Lightning connector in the sense that it was reversible, meaning that it would be able to fit into the port regardless of which way it was facing up. While it is unclear if future iOS devices would adopt the standard, Google’s new Chromebook Pixel has and the company confirmed that future Android devices would support it as well.
It’s a rather interesting claim but what do you guys think? Are there any merits to it? After all Apple has invented and patented a number of things, would it really be that surprising if the USB Type-C standard was created by them?
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