I've suspected this myself, but I think they went too far. Even minor incidents are prone to breaking a micro-USB connector where a mini-USB would tough it out. But there's a bigger chance of damaging the mini-USB port. All in all I think the micro-USB connector could have been made a little sturdier without excessive danger to the port.
On the other hand, I've never fatally damaged a Lightning cable OR port, despite some fairly bad accidents (drops that land on the connector for example). The only failures were a couple where the outer coating started to come off right past the strain relief, the connector itself was always solid for me.
The jury is still out on USB-C for me. I just don't have enough datapoints, but it does seem more robust on the surface and finally (finally!) the cable can be inserted in either orientation.
In my house, I replace at least one lightning cable per month. If those are even tugged in the wrong direction, they will bend or break entirely. Also, the copper pad contact surfaces on the surface of the connector often simply fall out of the plug itself, rendering the cable useless.
I'm buying Apple cables from Apple, as well. The lightning connector is garbage, and is easily the worst device interface cable I have ever seen.
Also note that the springs on a lightning connector are on the socket and not the plug.
Lightning cables and sockets are designed to wear out quickly, forcing replacement early and often.
You might have a device in your home with a broken socket
I have an old iPhone 5 where the socket is messed up in a way where it will instantly break a lightning connector if you plug it in, making it so the cable only works with that phone.
As a contracting data point, I’m still using my out of the box lightning cable of my iPhone 5 to charge my iPhone X. That cable is over 6 years old now and it did not break, stray or lost is reliability in any way.
Maybe they forgot to add the secret sauce to my copy, who knows.
P.S.: My iPhone 5s lightning port is also good as new. Just needs an occasional grime removal with a wooden toothpick.
The cable plug is supposed to fail instead of the socket on the device. Actual testing[1] demonstrates that the microUSB socket on the device does not last the rated 10k cycles and also that the cable lasts longer than the socket on the device.
TL;DW- Repeated insertion and removal led to the socket on the microUSB SSD failing after 8000 cycles, cable was still fine. USB-C still worked after 8000 cycles.
That video tested insertions, which is not the only type of abuse phones take. Falling, being shoved into poor angles, being removed from charging at a suboptimal angle (eg, walking away with it plugged in), for example are more common causes of phone cord failure in microusb.
That is statisticaly insignificant show test: sample of 1. Moreover the micro-USB-B 3.0 was tested which is wider, harder to plug as has much more pins to fail vs more common micro USB-B 2.0
I've had zero failures with mini, dozens of failures of micro cables and two failures of micro sockets. All the micro failures were in the early days, though, these days micro cables from the dollar store seem to last.
I have plenty of tales of impatient boomer relatives who have jammed up the micro-USB port on their devices by forcing it in the wrong way. It was a lot harder to do this with mini-USB, and I'm glad the subsequent revision (USB-C) is largely foolproof.
Long time ago I jammed headphones minijack into USB-A of tower case computer - you know, one with ports so low just above the floor. There was a spark and the computer powered off instantly. Thanks goodness it powered on fine and the USB port was still working fine. To this day I hate audio ports next to USB-A in some laptops.
I assume you meant type B, not type A, but anyway, lol. I had a somewhat similar "bad advice that always used to work" experience recently with someone, except this case was a proprietary USB-to-10P10C cable for APC UPS control, and they thought it was a USB/Ethernet adapter. Of course 10P10C and 8P8C modular connectors are exactly the same size and shape.
Nope, type A. Both connectors were damaged beyond repair. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it myself - that woman must have the grip strength of an enraged gorilla.
The RJ-45 socket on my MacBook was right next to a USB-A socket. I once inserted the USB into that Ethernet port, no jamming, and doscovered that indeed they are almost exactly the same width.
I've actually seen someone plug in a DB 25 upside down! Every pin in the male connector was bent and the metal hood which mated with the socket was flared out.
