Indeed. Apple used the 30-pin dock connector for ~10 years and followed it up with Lightning for another ~10 years. USB-C came after lightning, and as I understand it Apple staff participated in the design and standardization process, being concerned with things like making the connector symmetric (like lightning) and being firm enough to not fall out but weak enough to yank out without sending your laptop crashing to the floor, and supporting high data rates/thunderbolt as well as high-power/fast charging.

My personal pet peeve with lightning is that the power pins seem to burn out after a while.