Why Was Mini USB Deprecated in Favor of Micro USB?

This is a great answer, but for some reason the author left out the most obvious of reasons. Mini-USB put the mechanical strain of the connection on the socket side, while Micro-USB puts that strain on the cable side. Since its much easier to toss a cable vs remove and solder in a new socket connector the average cycle lifetime became much less critical in general.

And for those who disbelieve the &#x27;it isn&#x27;t reliable&#x27; story, I&#x27;ve got some worthless evaluation boards you can have where the mini-USB plug will no longer reliably hold on to a USB cable. Not a data set I realize, but I was glad when people switched to micro which has proven more reliable for me.<p>Of course lightning was better still but alas Apple wasn&#x27;t going to share that with the world so we have USB C.

Mini&#x2F;Micro USB also suffers from a superposition rule* much like the A connector: whenever you need a mini or micro cable, your drawer will be completely full of the opposite type.<p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;gallery&#x2F;kYGTLjc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;gallery&#x2F;kYGTLjc</a>

Strange. My PS3 has been in regular use since 2011 or so (the console itself being a used launch model from 2008), and I don&#x27;t recall the mini-USB port on the controller ever failing to charge. I suppose I&#x27;d have to check the serial number on the controller, though, to see if it&#x27;s actually <i>that</i> one that came with the console--I may have switched it out with one that I bought later for multiplayer purposes without realizing it.<p>The controller only gets charged once every three weeks or so, now that I think about it, so it could well still be under that failure threshold.

I&#x27;m skeptical. Hands up anyone who hasn&#x27;t had dozens of micro USB cables fail on them because of the connector?

Broken mini USB connectors are a pet peeve of mine. I literaly threw away my last three phones for the single reason the mini USB port wouldn&#x27;t hold on to any cable anymore.<p>This doesn&#x27;t bother most other people, but I like to use my phone for longer than 2-3 years. I really don&#x27;t see the point in buying a marginally faster phone every other year. It&#x27;s wasteful for the environment and costs a lot of money.

I&#x27;ve heard this many times. I have never had a mini USB plug or cable fail. I&#x27;ve had a couple micros fail on me in cheap devices.<p>The future I fear is far worse, my current phone, OnePlus 5t has the second failed USB-C port, my previous being a Google Pixel. USB-C cables connections in my experience become weak after maybe 50-100 uses.<p>I never had a single problem with a long line of micro phones.

<i>I was involved in discussions and part of the decision loop. Then a very big and leading mobile phone maker asked for it, even designed most part with a leading connector maker. USB IF eventually bite the bullet and accepted. Probably 2B+ of these connectors are shipped to date.</i><p>Frank&#x27;s answer, given in 2011, seemed most interesting to me. Scroll a little further and he names Nokia as the driving force.

USB-C has its issues, but it is clearly better than any previous connector.

Can we have a roundup of worst-ever computer connectors? I&#x27;ll open with the stupefyingly bad SCSI VHDCI connector, which was a teensy little thing with a couple of tiny screws usually attached to a gigantic cable that weighed at least a kilogram. These things never worked right without extra mechanical supports.

No such thing as one standard Mini USB. I worked at PC parts&amp;accessories supplier pre 2007 and we carried something like 5 proprietary variants of mini USB.<p>The only way to match &quot;mini&quot; USB was to ask for particular brand or make client bring the device with him. 5-pin, 4-pin, 8pin Nikon, 4pin Sony, etc. It was a mess.

Slightly OT: why did it take so many iterations to get to USB-C?

&gt; The micro-USB connector was designed with these past failings in mind and has a rated lifetime of about 10,000 insertion cycles<p>I find it hard to believe that. Micro-USB in my experience has been the most unreliable cable type I&#x27;ve ever had. Doesn&#x27;t matter if it&#x27;s an expensive one that came with your premium phone or a chinese one from alibaba - something breaks with then within a year of casual use.

I can only speak from personal experience, but Mini-B female connectors had a truly incredible propensity for breaking loose off the board they were soldered to, and the male connectors bent inward at the slightest pressure.<p>Granted type-C isn&#x27;t much better in the latter regard, I&#x27;ve thrown out multiple cables after finding they somehow got squished flat.

Apple isn&#x27;t always that kind of company, but would lightning have been a mechanically simpler cable than USB-C? (I mean, wouldn&#x27;t have given up the market and patent dominance in the interests of an industry wide non-discriminatory standard. They did some things as sensible cross patents but I don&#x27;t think they always do)

How likely is it to accidentally rip off the inner part of sockets?<p>It happens, I know that from personal experience. But how does compare with the wear during normal use?<p>Type C and Lightning nearly look like plug &amp; socket components. I understand type C moved the springs to the plug. But how often do people rip out the socket?

Scroll down past the accepted answer and you see what is likely the real one. A manufacturer came to the standardization board with a new design, asked for it, probably lobbied them for it greatly, and they eventually accepted it. Reasons for why the manufacturer wanted this aren&#x27;t stated, I&#x27;m sure its a mix of engineering ideas, wishes, dreams and some mix of gaining an upper-hand in whatever market was there at the time.<p>Obligatory XKCD: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;927&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;927&#x2F;</a>

I have an alternate theory, based on something the comments over there reminded me of:<p>Back in the mini-usb era, most of my family bought Razr phones. All of them broke in various ways in under a year (one actually snapped in half), because they weren&#x27;t very careful about handling the phones. Nowadays, new phones last several years and are usually upgraded instead of needing replacement after breaking.<p>For most of my family, those phones were the first small electronics they had that they kept on them. But my dad had a Blackberry before that, and I had a GBA - we never had issues breaking our &quot;fragile&quot; phones.<p>I think mini-usb was deemed fragile compared to micro-usb because a significantly larger proportion of the population didn&#x27;t know how to handle them, and the manufacturers&#x2F;etc identified the wrong problem.

After having two phones fail due to the mini connector I switched to only wireless charging and I love it.<p>I understand the charging performance hit, but that&#x27;s much more easily mitigated than sketchy cords&#x2F;ports.

A lot of my old devices have mini connectors, they work, as does micro. I think when the original iphone was released they just wanted something thinner, anticipating future thin smart phones.

My phones&#x27; micro-b ports pretty much become worn out in 1 year 10 months +&#x2F;- every time. I hate to imagine how much worse it&#x27;d be.

Mini&#x27;s still on my TI-84+ and I can only speak anecdotally but I&#x27;ve never had a single cable die or have a socket go loose. I plugged and unplugged it probably ten times a day last year for six months so I could work on making my first calculator game.<p>I go through a micro-USB cable once a month. I buy them in bulk. I hate the standard with a passion. I don&#x27;t <i>like</i> thin devices- if they could make thicker phones that have mini I&#x27;d buy them instead.

If you replace Mini USB with Micro USB and replace Micro USB with USB C, most of the answer still makes sense.

Reminder that Apple designed the USB-C connector, which is why it&#x27;s so friggin&#x27; user friendly!

So in the time frame that Apple has switched connector once for the iPhone, there has been at least 3 versions of small USB connectors (Not counting the larger types here that are at least 2).<p>Usually Apple is the one scolded &quot;for switching connectors every few years to suck out more money&quot; How come?

The real longevity plan for plugs is not X,000 cycles, but “Will it work until I lose it?”

A lot of words to say the obvious answer: micro is smaller, and phones are thinner now.