> We had looked at [making the plug reversible], but the whole goal here was to make it very inexpensive, and at that point, we were trying to solve all the USB problems with two wires. At that point, if you added wires to make things flippable, you have to add wires, and you also have to add a lot of silicon. Wires and pins cost real money, so we decided to keep it as cheap as possible... In hindsight, a flippable connector would have been better.
Even if making the connector reversible would have ended up costing too much money, why not at least make it (more clearly) asymmetrical to reduce the guesswork involved in plugging in the cable? Yes, I know the USB logo is supposed to face up and the seam on the connector is supposed to face down, but those seem like half-measures at best. At least they seem to have figured it out with later iterations of the connectors.
3 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 21.8 ms ] thread> We had looked at [making the plug reversible], but the whole goal here was to make it very inexpensive, and at that point, we were trying to solve all the USB problems with two wires. At that point, if you added wires to make things flippable, you have to add wires, and you also have to add a lot of silicon. Wires and pins cost real money, so we decided to keep it as cheap as possible... In hindsight, a flippable connector would have been better.