Apple’s reversible cable: why anyone cares

I’m still not saying I care, but I have wondered. Hang on, let me back up a bit. Previously on Cable Watch… For the past week or so, I keep reading news reports saying Apple is about to release a USB cable that you can plug in no matter which way up you have it. Excitement just doesn’t cover it.

But, grief, how the reports keep coming. You’ll be able to plug it in this way or that way. Gosh.

So I liked it when the latest such report begins:

Leaving aside the fact that Apple-related rumors are a dime a dozen and tend to be about as reliable as horse-racing tips, you may wonder what all the hubbub is about. Sure, not having to “find the right way” to insert a USB cable is convenient, but it seems hardly worth so much press. So what’s the big deal?

Details that count: Apple’s obsession with reversible cable connectors – Marco Tabini, Macworld (22 August 2014)

The full piece then examines how such a new cable would actually fit in with an element of Apple’s longstanding design ethos. I’d say that I refuse to get excited but that’s implying I need any effort to stay fully and entirely blasé about the whole thing. Nonetheless, I enjoyed Tabini’s take on the whole deal.