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Comment by lectrick | Hacker News Reader

For the record,

1) Apple was the first to use USB even though it wasn't an Apple tech

2) Apple was the first to use Thunderbolt even though it wasn't an Apple tech

3) Apple is now the first to use USB 3 Type C (aka "USB-C") even though it wasn't an Apple tech (although rumor has it that Apple engineers had a lot of input on it)

The technology you're probably confusing it with is FireWire, which WAS Apple tech.

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* 1) Apple was the first to use USB even though it wasn't an Apple tech

Not actually true. USB was shipping on PC motherboards for about a year before Apple went whole hog on USB. At the time, however, almost no one actually used USB (I think the first primary use of USB was keyboards and mice, and the first generation of USB keyboards and mice were notably inferior to their PS2 equivalents). Once Apple backed USB, other companies started to do the same.

More information here: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2785/did-apple-j...

> 3) Apple is now the first to use USB 3 Type C

Didn't the Chromebook Pixel 2 come out slightly before the MacBook?

Yes, the MacBook was released April 10, but the Chromebook Pixel was already shipping USB type-C in March. Someone in the other Thunderbolt type-C thread also mistakenly claimed that Apple was the first company to use type-C.

I believe the MacBook was technically the first USB-C device announced (and rumors about it go all the way back to last year), but the Pixel shipped earlier.

Actually, the Nokia N1 tablet was announced late 2014, shipped in China earlier this year, and featured a Type C port.

Color me corrected.

It's not a big deal. No doubt both products were being developed long before they were announced, so Apple and Google were both ready to be the early adopter.

Now I'm just waiting for something to connect to the Pixel via a Type C <-> Type C connector, other than another Pixel ;)

How about a 2TB SSD with a performance rating of 850 MBps?

http://betanews.com/2015/06/01/sandisk-announces-2tb-ssd-in-...

This reminds me that Apple didn't work on it alone. I have a friend whose dad was an engineer at IBM. Back in high school (or maybe early college—late '90s at any rate), I was at his house one time and he unrolled a huge schematic… it was some kind of controller chip for Firewire. He's actually on a bunch of the patents for it.

The first USB-C device was the Nokia N1 released only in China and unveiled on 18 November 2014

Hmm, I think you misunderstood my post - I did not mean to imply Thunderbolt is Apple tech, neither did I do so for USB-C. I'm not sure how FireWire is relevant here.

Thunderbolt uses the Mini DisplayPort connector which was and is Apple tech, although DisplayPort itself is not.

Not sure why, but calling the mDP connector 'technology' vs. 'engineering' seems wrong to me. They are electrically identical as far as I can tell. The only innovation was in scaling the connector size down.

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