Total Nightmare: USB-C and Thunderbolt 3

http://blog.fosketts.net/2016/10/29/total-nightmare-usb-c-thunderbolt-3/

by sfoskett • 10 years ago

814 444 10 years ago

blog.fosketts.net

ngoldbaum• 10 years ago

Anyone have a mirror?

fernandotakai• 10 years ago

google has one http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8O__73q...

colejohnson664• 10 years ago

Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20161029155415/http://blog.fosket...

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

I activated W3TC and CloudFlare so it should be working now

0x0• 10 years ago

And then there's this: http://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/28/macbook-pro-tb3-reduced-...

"MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports) The two right-hand ports deliver Thunderbolt 3 functionality, but have reduced PCI Express bandwidth."

colejohnson664• 10 years ago

Wasn't USB supposed to be the connector to rule them all? Now it seems we're going backwards where just because you have a connector doesn't mean it supports what you want.

user5994461• 10 years ago

We are not going backwards. Only Apple is.

stormbrew3• 10 years ago

That was always going to be the end result of a single connector standard. Not all devices are going to support all modes of use.

In the end, what's really going to dictate how this shakes out is what chipset manufacturers decide to do. And there aren't as many of those as there used to be. Most likely, eventually, all intel chipsets are going to do thunderbolt 3 over usb type-c and everyone else will follow.

cygned• 10 years ago

Things only Apple can do

blumentopf• 10 years ago

Yes, because the PCIe root complex in the CPU can only connect one other device besides the southbridge, and that's used for the Thunderbolt controller on the left handside. The second Thunderbolt controller is connected to the southbridge (as are all the other PCIe peripherals), so it doesn't have the same number of PCIe lanes available as the one directly connected to the root complex.

Apple could have solved this by connecting a PCIe switch to the root complex and attaching both Thunderbolt controllers below it, but that would have consumed additional energy. Alternatively they could have used a beefier CPU with more PCIe root ports on the CPU, but I guess those available would have been too energy hungry. Which kind of means this is Intel's fault for not providing a low-energy chip with enough PCIe root ports on the CPU.

I'm wondering what the situation is like on the 15" version with discrete graphics. This would require 3 root ports directly on the CPU to drive both Thunderbolt controllers and the GPU with full speed, I assume that's indeed the case since it's not mentioned in the document.

Another thing not mentioned in the document is that energy consumption will be suboptimal if one device is attached on both sides of the machine because it prevents one of the Thunderbolt controllers from powering down. One should connect both devices on one side to improve battery life.

Edit: On Skylake the PCH is apparently optional, the functionality is mostly integrated into the CPU, so the limitation is really the number of lanes provided by the CPU, and this wasn't sufficient to connect both Thunderbolt controllers with 4x. The CPUs used in the 13" model all have 12 lanes, the ones in the 15" model have 16 lanes. So for the top-of-the-line model this could be 4x for each of the Thunderbolt controllers, 4x for the GPU, 2x for the SSD, 1x for Wifi, 1x for HD Audio?

revelation3• 10 years ago

Full Thunderbolt 3 for all four ports on the 15"?

I mean, I'm not sure how you can get 40 GBit/s with 4x PCIE 3.0 in the first place, every quote I find says 32 GBit/s. Maybe there is that much overhead in Thunderbolt.

But surely 4x40 Gbit/s would require 16 lanes at least. I don't think Intel makes any consumer CPUs with more than 16.

erik2• 10 years ago

Re:your edit, the PCIe lane configurations from the CPU aren't that flexible. There is no 4x+4x+4x+2x+1x+1x configuration.

4x Thunderbolt + 4x Thunderbolt + 8x GPU, with everything else on the PCH would make sense for the 15". Or maybe they connected the SSD (also 4x PCIe) to the CPU, and one of the Thunderbolt controllers to the PCH.

Hopefully they used the full set of CPU lanes. Most laptop manufacturers have a tendency to under utilize the CPU lanes and put things on the bandwidth constrained PCH for some reason.

dewiz• 10 years ago

Apple has a "long" history of differentiating ports by left and right (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12711127) which has been frustrating to me. For instance sometimes the left USB port "dies" after a sleep, while the right one keeps working. I agree it's going to be a mess for a long while, similar to HDMI cables that work or don't without any clear reason for the casual buyer.

etblg• 10 years ago

I liked when we just had USB2 and all you had to do was try to plug it in once, flip it over, try to plug it in again, flip it over once more, now it plugs in, and now you're reasonably sure it'll work.

And now the near-future seems to be full of dongles, shame.

colanderman5• 10 years ago

You forgot the step where you realize it's in an Ethernet jack.

lisper• 10 years ago

At least if you tried to plug a USB cable into an ethernet jack it would be immediately obvious that it wouldn't work. In today's world the wrong cable will plug in to the wrong port just fine, and you can be scratching your head for a long time trying to figure out why it's not working. And, if you are particularly unlucky, while you are puzzling it out your device can fry.

[UPDATE] Well, I stand corrected. It is actually possible to stuff a USB A connector into an ethernet socket. (You learn something new every day.) But come on, folks, telling the difference between a USB socket and an ethernet socket is really not that hard. You don't even have to look, you can do it by feel. But all these different USB-C/Thunderbolt ports are physically identical. They are literally and by design impossible to distinguish.

kevincox5• 10 years ago

I agree, we are moving away from "if it's the right shape it's compatible" to "everything fits in the port but they also need to speak the same protocol to talk".

This isn't completely new, a lot of non-standard USB hardware needed a driver (possibly in userspace) to work. However it is going to be much wider.

I think we will need to find methods to advertising to consumers how to figure out if things work together. The single port solution is technically superior but there are definitely human disadvantages that I think we can overcome with a little work.

jzl6• 10 years ago

"I liked when we just had USB2 and all you had to do was try to plug it in once, flip it over, try to plug it in again, flip it over once more, now it plugs in, and now you're reasonably sure it'll work."

Ah yes, the old proof that USB-A connectors exist in the 4th dimension. :)

wolfgke• 10 years ago

Ah yes, the old proof that USB-A connectors exist in the 4th dimension. :)

No, it proves that USB-A connectors have half-integer spin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spin-%C2%BD&oldid...

dingaling• 10 years ago

try to plug it in once, flip it over, try to plug it in again, flip it over

"logo up or to the left"

All these old adages will be lost in Internet Time, like tears in the rain...

innocenat• 10 years ago

That doesn't really works when whatever you are inserting in is also flipped in the wrong direction.

And sometimes it takes a long time to look for the logo (both side has different logo etc.)

jsz04• 10 years ago

And now the near-future seems to be full of dongles

That's not necessarily a bad thing. With the right dongle you can now connect almost anything you want to a laptop. It was just a few years ago that it was simply impossible to connect some devices externally or at minimum there was a major performance penalty.

_nedR2• 10 years ago

Life pro tip : The correct orientation in which a usb-cable is to be connected is usually indicated by the presence of the usb symbol.

mort96• 10 years ago

Unless the people making the cable decided to put their logo on top and the USB symbol on the bottom. I have one such cable from belkin.

mcv2• 10 years ago

Yes, having to flip your connector twice is a pain, but having to flip your drivers twice is going to be a much bigger problem to a lot of people.

dognotdog• 10 years ago

Personally, I am rather sad to see the Magsafe connector go, and having to sacrifice IO for charging while mobile seems like quite the headscratcher.

It's somewhat funny that not only will you have to carry dongles for everything for a few years time, but also make sure you carry the right USB-C cables, as your friend's might not work. Yay we have superlight laptops, but need to carry a backpack full of spaghettied cables.

stormbrew3• 10 years ago

Eventually there should be type-c charge cables that also act as usb hubs (if there aren't already). This is part of the promise of unifying charging and data into one port.

mfisher87• 10 years ago

I have a Dell XPS13 Developer Edition that came with such a hub (they call it a dock, but you don't dock to it, you plug it in to the charge port with a USB-C cable). It has DVI, USB, Ethernet, and charges the laptop.

It's a nice concept but it does not work well under linux. Most times I plug in the dock, a random port will not work.

petemill2• 10 years ago

The new 5k monitor sold by Apple[1] has display, charge power (back to the Macbook) and a hub for 3 extra ports all off a single cable.

[1] http://www.apple.com/shop/product/HKN62LL/A/lg-ultrafine-5k-...

UnoriginalGuy• 10 years ago

Apple already sells something like that:

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-av...

You can pass power through it and it adds USB-A and HDMI.

ryanmonroe• 10 years ago

having to sacrifice IO for charging while mobile

You're not sacrificing anything. The old MBP had two usb ports and the new one has 3 available while charging. The only thing that has changed is now you can use the charging port for IO when not charging. Framing this as a "sacrifice" doesn't make any sense.

make sure you carry the right USB-C cables, as your friend's might not work

With the old Magsafe chargers, and for laptop chargers in general, it's the same deal. If you want to charge your laptop, you have to bring your charger. The fact that the charger is USB-C doesn't make the situation worse.

nkristoffersen2• 10 years ago

He said "sacrifice IO". The old MBP (which I am typing on) has two USB and two Thunderbolt ports. So a total of 4 IO while charging with the old MBP.

tnones• 10 years ago

But the old MBP had two thunderbolts and an HDMI connector, on top of the two USB. You could plug in 3 displays, charge it and still have room for a mouse and a keyboard. Now it's always a trade-off, so on top of DVI/HDMI/DP dongles, you'll have to carry a USB hub.

rangibaby2• 10 years ago

Only one major generation of MacBooks (2013~2016) used a different MagSafe connector. AFAIK any charger will work with any MacBook, just at different rates of charging.

davidlumley• 10 years ago

If you want to charge your laptop, you have to bring your charger.

That's not really correct regarding MacBooks. If you've got the same Magsafe adapter (gen 1 or gen 2) the charger will work. It just charges at a faster or slower rate than intentional.

saidajigumi2• 10 years ago

It's interesting to note that the fancy LG 5k monitor announced alongside the new MBP also charges the MBP. One cable connection and you have a monitor, a docking station with ports, and power. All while leaving three extra ports free.

IMO, that's the real potential of this style of multi-use connector.

odbol_3• 10 years ago

Two USB ports PLUS two thunderbolt/mini display PLUS an HDMI and 1/8 analog, all while charging. That's 6 vs. 3 available ports.

WildUtah2• 10 years ago

The MacBook Escape—which history says will be the most popular new MacBook Pro by far—has only two USB-C ports and a phono jack. There are no other ports at all.

hackerboos2• 10 years ago

Bit of an eyesore but...

https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...

chx3• 10 years ago

Except... BreakSafe is rated up to 60 watts (20 volts @ 3 amps) but the new Apple MacBook Pro is 87W http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MNF82LL/A/87w-usb-c-power-....

cstross• 10 years ago

If you miss the safety aspect of MagSafe, Griffin Technology sell a USB-C charge cable for the 12" Macbook with a magsafe-like magnetic breakaway connector:

https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...

It's not Thunderbolt 3 compatible yet but making a version that is would appear to be a no-brainer.

phamilton2• 10 years ago

Well... Anything that requires more than 3 pins (which is apparently all that power requires) is going to much harder to build. A 24 pin, magnetically aligned connector seems pretty difficult to me.

chx3• 10 years ago

As I noted in another comment, it's 60W rated while the new charger is 87W http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MNF82LL/A/87w-usb-c-power-.... Confusion indeed.

kobayashi• 10 years ago

That's a really big wart on the outside of the computer. Hopefully it won't need to be that big on the Mac.

r00fus5• 10 years ago

As I've mentioned before, they really should have recessed this port so a solution like BreakSafe could be done and not stick out like an exposed wart. Ideally such a device would also be first-party (with 3rd party version available to reduce price).

inopinatus2• 10 years ago

Wattage issue aside, it's half an inch of protruding metal.

What I really want (and I'm prepared to pay up to $100 for) is a low-profile (near-flush-mount, maybe 3mm max) Magsafe 2 female to USB Type-C male adapter that I can leave permanently in one of the ports.

I've read that Apple have consistently declined to license the Magsafe patent, so I'd settle for a magsafe-like solution.

DominikR2• 10 years ago

There's pretty interesting options that we didn't have before with Magsafe.

You can connect a single USB-C port to a monitor that has a USB-C video in. This monitor will then charge your Macbook and on top of that if the monitor has a built in USB hub it will also do that.

Or if your monitor doesn't support this then you can buy a dock/hub to which you connect your charger, monitors etc and the Mac with one cable.

For me personally that's what I've been missing most since I switched from Lenovo to Macs a few years ago - a docking station. For me plugging in only a single cable is as good as that.

userbinator• 10 years ago

and having to sacrifice IO for charging while mobile seems like quite the headscratcher.

I have an odd hypothesis about this --- the less time people spend charging/running from AC, which is inevitably going to happen when there is no separate power input that can be used easily, the more they'll be cycling the batteries, and the faster they'll wear out.

Bluestrike22• 10 years ago

It seems more likely that we're in the midst of the early days of a transition away from USB-A cables to USB-C for most uses. There are a lot of advantages, namely connector size, reversibility, full power delivery, the unification of ports with Thunderbolt 3 and DisplayPort, etc. Plus, it's designed to be future proof for some time. Maybe I've missed something, but is there a specific benefit to USB-A beyond the current ecosystem and common use? Not that I'm discounting that. I'm not a dongle fan by any stretch of the imagination, though small USB-C hubs can alleviate the use of multiple dongles somewhat.

But I think that, as peripherals and other devices begin to switch over to USB-C, we'll eventually see dongle use become less and less common except for older peripherals and devices. And that's nothing new. Eventually, it'll go the way of the PS/2 port: included on motherboards, but not really used much (relatively speaking; the analogy breaks down a bit when you think of gamers and the mechanical keyboard community, where it still gets some use for n-key rollover).

Transitions between interfaces, as a matter of principle, suck. But we wind up going along with them because there's benefit to do so. I'm curious how this will play out in five, or even ten, years. Not that I want those years to speed by to find out :).

agumonkey• 10 years ago

Maybe there could be some kind of switch program. Exchange old cables for USB-C + adapters at amortized costs... Just wondering.

eru• 10 years ago

n-key rollover is a bit sad: there's nothing preventing USB from offering more than 6-key rollover---it's just not in the basic standard.

CamperBob2• 10 years ago

Maybe I've missed something, but is there a specific benefit to USB-A beyond the current ecosystem and common use?

I'm worried about the DRM situation, myself. My suspicion is that all of the engineering effort that should have gone into ensuring cable quality and spec compliance is instead being spent on new, innovative ways to lock me out of my own hardware.

p1mrx• 10 years ago

USB-A was large enough to fit entire devices (wireless, storage, crypto) inside the port, whereas the USB-C equivalents protrude, and risk getting snapped off.

rhinoceraptor• 10 years ago

The removable cable is a huge win, though. The magsafe cables are horrendously prone to fraying and cable jacket tears. My own Magsafe 2 cable's jacket inexplicably tore after a month of using it.

jccalhoun4• 10 years ago

It has been like that for years. Look at this partial list https://dcs.rutgers.edu/dcs-faculty-resources/classroom-tech...

For every button apple removes they add at least one dongle.

willtim2• 10 years ago

Magsafe was fundamentally flawed. It required a delicate thin and light power cable to work, which was subject to mechanical failure.

willtim2• 10 years ago

To the downvoters regarding my post about Magsafe being flawed. Here's a reference, the Magsafe adapter scores 1.5 stars and has mostly negative feedback : http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/reviews/MC556B/C/apple-85w-mags...

leonroy• 10 years ago

Whilst the Magsafe port has saved my bacon when tripping on a power cord its second variant Magsafe 2 has proved to be a tremendous headache.

On my 2015 Macbook Pro the port seems pretty finicky and requires fiddling with to get it to light up. The Magsafe connector on my Thunderbolt Display is even worse and a real lesson in patience. It's a Magsafe 1 port which requires a Magsafe 2 adapter - this thing is quite possibly the flakiest Apple hardware I've ever used - needing constant cleaning, fiddling with and blowing on. An absolute and utter piece of garbage - so yeah, I'm not going to miss Magsafe (version 2 at least). Although I suspect I might regret this statement the day I trip over my shiny Thunderbolt 3 cable...

riobard• 10 years ago

Worse case scenario: USB-C is gonna ruin the entire PC/Mac industry due to confusion and potential damage.

joeberon• 10 years ago

huge overreaction

tw044• 10 years ago

The core issue with USB-C is confusion: Not every USB-C cable, port, device, and power supply will be compatible

Not every USB-A port, device, cable, and power supply are compatible. I'm not sure I understand what his point is. That people who refuse to do research are going to occasionally run into incompatibility problems? Like they have since the dawn of the computing age? And?

gaius4• 10 years ago

The consequence of this incompatibility is damage to the host device; that's what's new. Never an issue with RS232!

rictic• 10 years ago

As far as I'm aware it is only out-of-spec cables that can cause damage. If everything is in spec then the worst case is just reduced performance or the connection not working. I'd add that – IMO – if an out of spec cable causes damage, then the cable manufacturer should be held responsible.

I'm sure that an out of spec USB 2 cable can cause damage as well.

weinzierl3• 10 years ago

Hmm, don't get me started on standards conformant +12V/-12V RS232 and common 0/5V TTL RS232.

deelowe2• 10 years ago

RS232 is a protocol, not a port. Rj45 is a port that rs232 uses and if you confuse that with ethernet, you will definitely damage something.

mycall2• 10 years ago

Unless the pins were wired wrong.

chx3• 10 years ago

Not every USB-A port, device, cable, and power supply are compatible.

While strictly true and you could drag up some pretty bad abuses of USB A especially as used for mobile charging, the peripherals / protocols usually just work. But here, if you have a cable in your hand with a USB-C and a DisplayPort connector it's pretty much anyone's guess whether a) it'll work with the given machine at all b) if it does, which version of DP will be supported with the given machine.

pixelcloud• 10 years ago

Now imagine the future abuses to USB-C :)

tw044• 10 years ago

So you'd rather have 8 different standards? I know I love having to have a DVI, displayport, VGA, and HDMI adapter in my bag in order to have my bases covered for presentations.

I'm confused the scenario you're imagining in which someone both doesn't have their own, known good cable, and also is in a place that doesn't provide a cable, where displayport would even come into play.

I can think of exactly 0. If the projector needs a displayport capable usb-c, it's going to already be attached to the projector. If I need one for home, I'm going to buy one that supports it.

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

The point is that due to the much better backward compatibility and do-it-all nature of USB Type-C, consumers are much more likely to run into incompatible devices and cables than ever before. Walk into any store and you'll see dozens of cables and peripherals that look the same but perform differently (or not at all) based on a confusing array of protocols and standards.

It's true that USB has always been a bit confusing, but now we have many, many more incompatibilities to worry about.

crudbug• 10 years ago

The politics behind standard committees is horrible. Just call the new standard USB 4.0 which supports alternate mode, power delivery ...

joecool1029• 10 years ago

4 is unlucky some places. They'd probably go to 5.0 next.

cpeterso2• 10 years ago

Tetraphobia is the practice of avoiding instances of the number 4. It is a superstition most common in East Asian nations. … The Chinese word for four sounds quite similar to the word for death in many varieties of Chinese. Similarly, the Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, and Sino-Vietnamese words for four sound similar or identical to death in each language.

Wikipedia's "Examples of sensitivity to tetraphobia applied" section is interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraphobia

jda02• 10 years ago

USB3 ports and cables are (when spec compliant) easily distinguishable from USB2 due to them being blue. Why was the same not done for USB-C (black for USB3, red for Thunderbolt)?

usaphp• 10 years ago

How is it going to help to a regular user? I doubt regular users even know what those colors are for, adding more colors just brings more complexion

fudged71• 10 years ago

At least you (or technical support) can look up the difference. If the cables all look the same then you need to physically test the cables to know their capabilities, which is a waste of time and resources.

jda02• 10 years ago

Colour is one of the easiest communication methods we have with 'Regular users' as they already use them as a natural key elsewhere - even things like credit/loyalty cards (Chase, Virgin) or games consoles (green vs blue vs white)

vladimir-y• 10 years ago

Thunderbolt 3 is a great thing (really), though some time is needed for the transition period.

billylo• 10 years ago

USB standard bodies can borrow a page from the Ethernet port and signal standards. 10-mbps to Gbps evolution does not have to be painful for users.

an_account2• 10 years ago

But Ethernet isn't included on many laptops anymore...

This rush to be "thin" has required changing the physical ports, and has contributed heavily to this issue.

For a few years there will be confusion as cables/connectors/standards shake out, but it's gonna be awesome after that when we have super thin laptops that just use one connector.

douche4• 10 years ago

There is no reasonable excuse that a laptop need be so thin that it cannot accommodate an ethernet port.

Oh well, I'm a late-twenties dinosaur that still expects to be able to remove batteries and pop off panels to upgrade hard disks and RAM...

zdw• 10 years ago

The 8P8C/RJ45 connector which was used from 10Mbps to 10Gbps might be the same end, but different speeds when different cabling grades (CAT3/5/6, etc.) were used.

While most 1Gbps equipment can work in 10/100Mbps mode, most 10Gbps equipment can only downgrade to 1Gbps mode.

It's actually a pretty good comparison to USB-C - lots of different modes with one physical interface and many things that don't work quite right or have significant caveats.

jzl6• 10 years ago

Start getting involved with 10Gb Ethernet and it is no longer trivial. You've got Cat 6, 6A, and 7, and all sorts of different length and shielding considerations and often don't get anywhere close to 10Gb.

kccqzy2• 10 years ago

At least for most Ethernet cables I buy, the category is actually printed on the cable itself. I don't see that happening on USB cables.

jonathanberger• 10 years ago

The mistake this article makes is thinking that the typical person will interact with many different USB-C ports and cables than his or her own. The reality, is that people will get to know their own ports, buy their own cables and devices, and things will work 99% of the time.

Only occasionally they'll need to use a friend or coworker's device or cable and then there could be confusion. Although, even then, assuming the friend also has one of the most popular computers/phones/cables, it'll probably still work.

Angostura• 10 years ago

Ah for a world where you never have to go and make a presentation in another office.

rosser• 10 years ago

Are you willing to bet your computer and/or peripherals on that?

StillBored2• 10 years ago

Yah, apparently you don't have my wife/kids/in-laws/cousins/etc. Where the rules for USB chargers seems to be, plug your phone/etc into whatever charger you happen to find, and possibly take the cable/charger home when your done leaving your old crappy one.

Kliment• 10 years ago

There's actually a semi-legit reason to make a usb2-only c-c cable: because it can get away with not having the high-(super)speed differential pairs, it can be thinner, lighter and cheaper than a full-function cable. Compare to charge-only microusb cables - they are indistinguishable from real cables, but lack critical functionality. If they were easily distinguishable, this would not be nearly as much of a problem.

One really major (to me at least) concern with moving from USB to thunderbolt is that thunderbolt is a PCIe connection, with the same security issues as firewire (a device can basically access all your RAM, extract keys and passwords, plant exploits etc). By bundling that into the same form factor as the (by comparison) far safer USB and hdmi/displayport we're putting users at risk.

rdmsr• 10 years ago

Recent MacBook pros use the IOMMU for isolating PCI devices. With that, the devices can't read arbitrary ram (if Apple configures it correctly).

ilyagr3• 10 years ago

Why doesn't the USB consortium standardize (and, ideally, enforce) labeling of ports and cables by capabilities? Kind of like washing instructions labels on clothes, only printed on the cable.

The ports on a laptop wouldn't have to be physically labeled if the OS could display a list of their capabilities in a user-friendly manner. Or, perhaps, they should have the most important label (e.g. thunderbolt or not). Something the committee would decide.

hk__2• 10 years ago

How would a consortium force you to print stuff on the cables you produce/sell?

ilyagr3• 10 years ago

By making it one of the conditions for licensing the specification and permission to use the USB trademark to you.

pantalaimon3• 10 years ago

Well it worked for the color of the ports up until USB3.

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

Well the USB IF does have standard naming and labels for the protocols. The issue is that USB Type-C is a cable/port standard, not a protocol standard. Makers ought to label the USB Type-C port with the highest USB speed it can handle ("SuperSpeed" or "SuperSpeed+" typically) but they don't. And Apple left the Thunderbolt icon off the ports on the new MacBook Pro! So buyers have no immediate way to know if a MacBook supports USB 3.1 gen 1, 3.1 gen 2, or TB3. (hint: gen1)

ulfw2• 10 years ago

It is a pity that they didn't introduce a common color coding for USB-C connector cables.

kevincox5• 10 years ago

How many color bands would you have to have one each end? The point of USB-C is that it can support many, many protocols. Labeling that is legitimately hard without a massive book.

ulfw2• 10 years ago

At least some basic coloring would be nice. Let's say (For the sake of discussion) blue for USB-C (maybe a different shade for 5 ws 10GBits if you want), a black one for a Thunderbolt 3 connection, a white one that only has charging pins (hello Macbok Air cable). Still better than the mess we have now.

revelation3• 10 years ago

That's just the start of it. So the new MBP has what, four USB-C ports.

Can I put power into all of them? What if I try to do 4xHDMI for all of them? Surely I can't connect four external graphics cards over Thunderbolt 3? Can I chain Thunderbolt devices?

The author also missed the "audio accessory mode". That's right, in some unique star constellation, some of these USB-C pins can be repurposed for pumping out analog audio! Supported? Who knows.

I think before long every USB-C accessory will have to come with some sort of EEPROM that the host reads first to figure out 1) what is this you are plugging in and 2) is this going to work. So that there is at least some user feedback instead of "plain doesn't work" or "oopsie now the port is dead".

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

Crap. I missed that. You're right.

ze_rat• 10 years ago

They already should [0]

All USB-C to USB-C cables are considered full-featured USB Type-C cables and must be active, electronically marked cables that contain a chip with an ID function based on the configuration channel and vendor-defined messages (VDMs) from the USB Power Delivery 2.0 specification.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Type-C

djrogers2• 10 years ago

The answers to all of the questions in your second paragraph are easily available and in most cases the answer is yes (you can do 4x HDMI if they're 4K or less on the 15", 2k on the 13" - video card limitation, not port limitation).

[1] http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/

revelation3• 10 years ago

It says two displays for both, so the answer is no. I'm not sure a user is particularly interested in the video vs port distinction.

Also says nothing on the four external graphic cards, but frankly the answer is probably going to be no as well.

That's the principal problem here: there is now a port for things that the underlying hardware can't even offer.

jsz04• 10 years ago

Can I put power into all of them?

Yes though it will only charge from one of them. A neat consequence of this is you can now connect multiple power supplies for redundancy. Not at all important for most people but there are some scenarios where it's nice feature to have available.

transfire• 10 years ago

And here I am wishing HD-BaseT would catch on, but I don't think the people behind that (and USB-C) have any intention of actually making our lives easier -- it's just to having something new to sell :(

http://hdbaset.org/

wyager2• 10 years ago

USB needs to go back to being "universal". The USB spec has been getting progressively more complicated over the years; it's time to cut back.

eyelidlessness2• 10 years ago

Has it ever been "universal"?

wyager2• 10 years ago

Yes, hence the name. It's quite easy to implement a USB 1 controller, and there was very little difference across implementations.

__david__• 10 years ago

This strikes me as being the same situation as hdmi cabling. Anyone who has bought a 1080p tv then a 3D tv then a 4K tv then an hdr tv knows that not all hdmi cables are made equally. This is not great, but it's very far from a nightmare.

nicholassmith• 10 years ago

I was going to post this very same thing, the upside is it'll be easier with USB-C because it'll appear in far more devices over time than HDMI.

phamilton2• 10 years ago

Is the long term dongle free? C to C everywhere? My TV could have USB-C instead of HDMI ports. I could use the same cable I use for charging my phone to hook my laptop up to the TV.

This solves the cable problem (every cable should support the full spec) but it doesn't quite solve the support question. Just because I have a cable that works between my phone and TV doesn't mean it will actually do anything.

kevincox5• 10 years ago

I hope so. It also solves the hub or dock problem in one go. I just get back to my desk, plug in one USB-C cable and I now have all of my devices plugged in.

hereonbusiness• 10 years ago

There are Thunderbolt (2) hubs that allow you to do just that even now, bit pricey though.

Also I don't think USB-C is the deciding factor here, it'll still have to use Tunderbolt to provide the hub functionality.

sesutton• 10 years ago

The USB 3.1 gen1 and gen2 thing still really boggles my mind. It's almost as if the USB-IF was trying to confuse people. Who retroactively renames a standard?

nimish• 10 years ago

Yeah it's one of the stupidest choices they made. Also, the idea that not all cables must support 100W (20V, 5A) so now the cheap chinese cables are all going to report they can but will catch fire the instant they do.

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

Well they did change the encoding of USB 3.0 to become USB 3.1 gen 1. But that's about it. And it's backward-compatible so it doesn't matter.

Having the higher data rate be "same name gen 2" is beyond dumb.

pitaj• 10 years ago

They should have just named things this way:

USB 3.1 gen1 => USB 3.1, USB 3.1 gen2 => USB 3.2

I don't know why they would do differently.

Tempest19812• 10 years ago

Agreed, 3 levels of versioning is too much for most users. Even 2 levels isn't ideal when dealing with a novice user.

  - Good: Thunderbolt 1, 2, 3
  - Good: USB, USB-2, USB-3
  - OK: DisplayPort 1.2, 1.3
  - OK: HDMI 1.2, 1.3a, 1.4, 2.0
  - Bad: USB Hi-Speed, SuperSpeed, SuperSpeed+
  - Bad: USB-3.1 gen 1, USB-3.1 gen 2, ...
  - Bad: LEV, ULEV, SULEV, PZEV, AT-PZEV

naner• 10 years ago

The fact that certain devices cab be damaged by the wrong cable is inexcusable.

ominous2• 10 years ago

This is like complaining "mv ~ /dev/null" does what it is meant to do.

I know

- "Keep It Simple, Stupid"

is a thing, but so is

- "UNIX was not designed to stop its users from doing stupid things, as that would also stop them from doing clever things."

et2o• 10 years ago

Disagree. This is an engineering failure. You have to look at reality; it's often not easy to tell what kind of cable you are planning to use. Any command line interaction is decidedly more involved than the typical user plugging in a cable. This type of interaction should have been planned for and mitigated.

This also has nothing to do with UNIX.

moogly• 10 years ago

What happened to Thunderbolt 3 over USB 3.1 Alternate Mode?

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

It's in there.

exabrial• 10 years ago

Tim Cook is the Steve Balmer of Apple. Balmer lead Microsoft to near oblivion. Really nice to see Microsoft change into a more open company... I'm getting more and more impressed with things like the Linux subsystem.

I haven't bought a Mac or an iPhone in awhile because their hardware is terrible compared to their competitors. Gimmicky features like 3d touch (haven't used it once, intentionally), unnatural scrolling, and this touch bar are things I'll probably use once or twice. Literally the only reason I stick with OSX is because it's a commercially supported Unix system with a nice user interface.

What I don't understand is the "pro" in the name. Doesn't a "pro"fessional need to do things with their computer outside of a coffee shop; usable I/O, gigabit ethernet, slots for interfacing with their other professional equipment, etc. I can totally understand these features in a consumer edition laptop. But there is no longer a reason to call these "pro" laptops.

The silver lining I guess is maybe Apple drives a new wave of people to desktop Linux and we can finally get a nice, modern, desktop environment. Either that or another project to get OSX running on [superior] non-Apple hardware.

Anyway, just my opinions. I wonder if anyone has similar thoughts.

andybak• 10 years ago

Rather off-topic don't you think?

Matachines• 10 years ago

Pointless Mac vs PC debates are never off topic on internet forums :-)

kevincox5• 10 years ago

I'm not an Apple fan, but you seem pretty harsh.

- 3d touch: gimmick

- unnatural scrolling: I presume you mean "scroll the content" not "scroll the viewport" I thought the same but when I tried it out myself I actually adapted really quickly and now find it more natural. Either way this doesn't seem like a huge investment in anything, if you don't like it turn it off.

- touch bar: I actually think this will be quite useful. It turns a row of numbered keys into a row of keys that can be matched to the application that is running. Maybe a slight downside to power users (less tactile) but I think it is a pretty reasonable feature.

- gigabit ethernet: Can't you get this over USB-C?

- slots for interacting... Maybe not right now but I think that soon everything will be USB-C. I don't really see any reason for another port.

- maybe Apple drives a new wave of people to desktop Linux: I can only hope :)

I can definitely that especially in the short term the advantages aren't clear or not significant. However I am really looking forward to the universality of USB-C and most of the other features appear to have a market so I'm not so much losing faith in Apple over all but feeling that they are moving further away from the demographic I am in.

mrcarrot• 10 years ago

You didn't buy an iPhone in 'a while', but you imply that you own one where you can (unintentionally) use 3D touch, so either a 6S or a 7. So you didn't buy an iPhone since... last year?

nvarsj• 10 years ago

we can finally get a nice, modern, desktop environment

Have you tried Gnome 3? Not being sarcastic :). These days it's a very stable, slick environment with a very good window manager. Beats the pants off of OS X at least.

Jerry2• 10 years ago

Have you tried Gnome 3? Not being sarcastic :). These days it's a very stable, slick environment with a very good window manager. Beats the pants off of OS X at least.

I used to use OSX but now I use Arch with GNOME3 and your comment is not based in reality. GNOME3 doesn't even have feature-parity with Snow Leopard. It's many years behind the OSX in features and polish department [0]. I encounter various GNOME3 issues and bugs daily and have been subscribed to many issues on GNOME's Bugzilla to keep track of fixes. The worst issue, by far, is memory usage and memory leaks. On my PC, GNOME3 sometimes ends up using 1.5GB or RAM. GNOME is also infamous for being the only Linux DE that regularly removes features that people use [1].

Anyway, while I do like GNOME and have used it every day for the past 4 months, it's nowehere near OSX's Aqua.

[0] https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/gnome-et-al-rotti... [1] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/commits-list/2013-March/msg0...

lee_s5• 10 years ago

What I don't understand is the "pro" in the name. Doesn't a "pro"fessional need to do things with their computer outside of a coffee shop; usable I/O, gigabit ethernet, slots for interfacing with their other professional equipment, etc. I can totally understand these features in a consumer edition laptop. But there is no longer a reason to call these "pro" laptops.

You can buy a single ~$80 hub that gives you all of those ports, AND you only need to plug 1 cable into your computer when you sit down at your desk. If you buy a new USB-C monitor, then all of those things are integrated in the display. Even the charger.

It has more IO throughput than pretty much any laptop out there with multiple Thunderbolt ports at 40Gbps. Even most desktops don't have _multiple_ 40G ports.

oldmanjay• 10 years ago

I imagine that there are very few companies worldwide that would refuse the sort of oblivion Steve Ballmer led Microsoft into

jsz04• 10 years ago

What I don't understand is the "pro" in the name

You can do all those things (and more) via ThunderBolt 3. You can even reuse old hardware by putting PCI-E cards into external enclosures. That's pretty Pro don't you think?

Matthias2473• 10 years ago

Very interesting article.

Can here anybody maybe even explain a little bit more about the video (Displayport) alternate mode? As far as I understand now both USB3 and Thunderbolt support it, but they support it with a different Displayport standard. How will that work if I plug in a future monitor with USB-C? Will there first be some negotiation in which both devices clarify whether to use USB oder Thunderbolt. And then another one in which the alternate mode is set? Or is displayport directly available on some dedicated pins of the cable and if yes, would it be the same for both cases? Or is displayport somehow modulated/multiplexed on the remaining data stream, and in a different fashion for USB3 than for Thunderbolt?

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

"Alternate Mode" means "using the same USB Type-C pins for other protocols". That protocol can be HDMI or DisplayPort or Thunderbolt or even analog audio!

The USB consortium specifies using HDMI 1.4b and DisplayPort 1.3 (and MHL 3.0) on the Type-C port. So non-Thunderbolt machines have these specs as a maximum.

Thunderbolt 3 can also pass video signals, and Intel specifies different versions of the protocols: HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2. Again, these are the maximums.

So if you have a USB Type-C monitor (not Thunderbolt) or a native USB Type-C to video cable, you're limited to HDMI 1.4b (1x4K at 30 Hz) but instead you might be able to use DisplayPort 1.3 (1x 4K at 120 Hz). If your video card, connector, cable, and display supports it, of course.

If you have a Thunderbolt-native monitor, you might be able to do 2x DisplayPort 1.2 (4K at 75 Hz or 5K at 30 Hz) or 2x HDMI 2.0 (4K at 60 Hz and much more). If your video card, cable, and the Thunderbolt controller support it.

Essentially, you can pass video directly over the port (in USB Alternate Mode) or over Thunderbolt. Then there are external video adapters that use USB or Thunderbolt data. But that's not in scope of your question.

Matthias2473• 10 years ago

Thanks for the answer. Also to fragmede.

That means from USB-C I would either go to thunderbolt or directly to displayport AM. But how would it go on from Thunderbolt mode to video (displayport 1.2 version that intel specified)? Would Thunderbolt again dedicate some pins for it or is the signal somehow multiplexed into a big thunderbolt stream which carries everything?

fragmede2• 10 years ago

No one can say at this point what your hypothetical future monitor will use. There's a standard, of course, but there's more than one of them, of course.

There's DisplayPort, HDMI (yes, it's different from DP), and now Thunderbolt 3 Alternate Mode for USB Type-C, and then also since it's still USB, there will also be video over USB (aka the displaylink chipset).

Alternate Mode is feature of USB Type-3 to allow a bunch of pins to be used as a host-device negotiates, keeping USB control pins intact, so Thunderbolt 3 is just Thunderbolt using the AM pins after negotiation.

I'll bet that if Apple starts making 5k-iMacs-without the-iMac (aka monitors) again, that in true Apple fashion they'll run video over Thunderbolt-only, just like the now-discontinued thunderbolt only displays did. This means there's a high likelyhood possibility they won't work with PCs, despite having a working cable.

Matthias2473• 10 years ago

Thanks!

Regarding Apple monitors: Apple seams to be partnering with LG now instead of producing it's own monitors: https://www.computerbase.de/2016-10/lg-ultrafine-4k-5k-monit... . Sorry, I have only the german article here, but there's maybe also somewhere one in english. The infos on the connector are also somewhat vague. Maybe it's the small model using USB3 alternate mode and the bigger 5k one thunderbolt mode, which makes it make only. For the expected apple customers it probably doesn't matter as long as it works with the MBP. However for other potential users (which do not seem officially supported) it would be quite interesting.

kevincox5• 10 years ago

I'm not an expert but my understanding is closer to your dedicated pins option. Basically everything that connects over USB-C starts with the USB-C handshake, after that alternative modes allows USB-C to get out of the way and (most of) the pins of the cable can be used for whatever the devices want.

jzl6• 10 years ago

Best explanation I found was from the following forum post which was discussing why the 4K LG only has USB2 ports on the back. Will quote it here. http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-teams-up-with-lg-f...

With the new displays, its the 4k one that only supports USB 2.0 speeds, the 5k one has "Three USB-C (USB 3.1 Gen 1, 5 Gbps)".

Looks like the two displays are actually using different technologies: the 4k one connects via "plain" USB-C, which means it uses USB-C's "DisplayPort Alternate Mode". USB-C has 4 pairs of high speed data wires plus 1 pair for "legacy" USB-2 signals. In DisplayPort Alternate Mode, some or all of the high-speed pairs are physically dedicated to DisplayPort signals. Unfortunately, Intel's USB-C/TB3 controller only supports DisplayPort 1.2, so to get 4k at a decent refresh rate takes over all 4 of those pairs just to run the display, leaving only the legacy USB-2 channel for other uses.

As for 5k, you can't do that with just 4 DisplayPort 1.2 data pairs - remember the Dell 5k display needs two DisplayPort 1.2 cables. However, Thunderbolt 3 works in a different way: rather than physically allocating wires to DisplayPort alone, the displayport data gets moshed together with the rest of the Thunderbolt signal so the display & peripheral data shares the same physical wires - the DisplayPort connection is a "virtual" one. Plus, Thunderbolt 3 has enough bandwidth to provide two virtual DisplayPort cables (8 virtual "wires") down a single physical cable, so it can can drive a 5k display and still fit some high-speed USB data around the edges.

That said - it probably doesn't make sense to hang your USB3.0 RAID array off the same pipe as a bandwidth-hogging 5k display. If you're gonna go 5k and want seriously fast external storage you can probably forget the whole single-cable docking thing until Thunderbolt 4 rolls around (...by which time you'll probably want a 25k display wall...)

USB-C DisplayPort mode can support 5k by using DisplayPort 1.3's higher data rate (although, again, that only leaves the legacy USB 2) but not when the computer's usb-c controller and GPU only support DisplayPort 1.2 - and that currently includes anything with an Intel USB-C controller (which is part of their Thunderbolt 3 controller). Complaints on a post card to Intel.

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

Fantastic explanation. Right on!

fragmede2• 10 years ago

Generally the cable hasn't mattered in consumer devices - as long as the device and cable are good and you plug it in to the right port, it'll work. A cable's a cable, after all, right? Unfortunately, that's not true, hasn't been true for a bit, and Apple's only partially to blame. DVI-A, anyone?

Some of Apple's dongles have a microcontroller inside in order to do the signal conversion, so it's a wonder they're only $30. That lighting-to-3.5mm jack that comes with the iPhone 7? Tiiiiny DAC - http://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/20/lightning-earpods-teardo... (The other option being dumb signaling with the iPhone itself doing the DAC and passing the signal, as USB-C allows with alternate mode).

Past Apple's dongle madness though, the bleeding edge of technology has always had a few edges. Despite the connector at the end fitting, HDMI 1.0 cables won't work where HDMI High Speed cables are necessary (though monster cables are still a rip off). High-end 4k TVs need the proper cables or else it won't work, just like a random cable with RJ-45s on the end won't necessarily support gigabit connection speed (or even support ethernet, for that matter).

If Monoprice listing all the possible variations of USB-C cables seems frustrating, and you're allergic to details, only buy the expensive Apple cables and certified Apple accessories and you'll be fine, same as it's always been.

If you need to venture outside their walled garden, yeah, there are some details to know about that the article doesn't go into, but I'm quite excited for what's become known as the USB-C connector to become the global consumer connector standard. Once that's true, the fewer weird dongles we'll all need, and you'll always be able to charge your phone-that-has-usb-c (we'll see if the iPhone 8 picks up USB-C).

What the author glosses over in the article is actually an interesting part of USB Type-C spec, which is Alternate Mode. This allows a device and host to negotiate to speak something other than USB on the pins, be it video, networking, or in Apple's case Thunderbolt 3.

Apple's definitely gone and made things confusing with Thunderbolt 3 - for everyone else. Buying only Apple stuff is going to "just work" as long as you keep buying their newest shiniest gadget, and, well, they're in the business of selling gadgets.

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

I agree that it's exciting to have a durable/flippable cable that can be used for all sorts of things. The issue is that the nomenclature is unclear, with everyone just saying "USB-C" when that can mean all sorts of things.

I actually spent quite a lot of time talking about "Alternate Mode", I just didn't call it that all the way through.

makomk3• 10 years ago

I think this understates the number of ways you can connect a monitor over USB-C if anything. Let's see, there's Alternate Mode DisplayPort, Alternate Mode HDMI, Alternate Mode Thunderbolt's video support, Thunderbolt to an external GPU, USB 3.0 graphics, possibly more, most or all of which can be converted to HDMI with different compatibility and performance tradeoffs.

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

...and most of which won't work with a given display. SO you have to figure out which of the dozen or so possibilities works with your monitor and computer and buy the right cable to go between them.

jws• 10 years ago

We will survive this. We survived having RJ45 jacks (which I just learned are not really RJ45 jacks, but 8P8C connectors) in walls. Is it a phone, a token ring, or an Ethernet? Cat 3, Cat 5, Cat 6? Did the installer unwrap the pairs too far? Are there crossed pairs? Does it have two pair or four (in days of old it was common to make single Cat 5 wire serve two devices since they only used two pairs)? Does it have a DC voltage supplied between some of the pairs? What voltage, what current capacity, which polarity, which pairs? What speed is the ethernet switch port? Maybe it is a VGA extender or an HDMI extender. Maybe it is a serial console. I had an office where one RJ45 went to an FM antenna above the steel roof, you really are not supposed to do that. (I have installed or used all of these conditions except for token ring.)

USB has already had this problem for 16 years. When they went from USB 1.0 at 11mbps to USB 2.0 at 480mpbs they had to change the shielding. The only visible change on the connectors was a tiny + sign in the three branched USB tree molded on the end of the cable, which was apparently so useless to users that no one bothered to put them on. At least, my quick rummage of cables didn't find any. There is alleged to be a color code. The plastic inside the connector is white for 1.x, black or white for 2.0, blue for 3.0, and yellow or red for sleep/charge. My quick rummage of cables suggests this is not necessarily known to cable manufacturers. I think the ports on devices are more rigorous about this, at least, I think all my USB 3 ports are blue.

novaleaf2• 10 years ago

we survived wired home networks because they are expensive, and a superior IO solution (wifi) caught up quickly.

Re usb-c: good luck not using the (only) io port on your device.

StillBored2• 10 years ago

Superior if your a laptop user sitting on the back deck. I run backups/bluray movies/etc between my NAS and assorted devices. I will assure you that my desktop PC's, which are connected via 10GbaseT have ~30x faster access to said NAS than the small business class AC WIFI AP's I use. The latency, throughput and most importantly the reliability of a decent wired network is still far superior to wifi, and I have a far cleaner/stronger wifi system than the vast majority of wifi networks I've seen. Even so, I still run wires to my home theater devices because I don't have to worry about dropouts in the middle of streaming a bluray, or more importantly the random driver/etc bugs that seem far more frequent on wifi than boring old ethernet. Plus, with the advent of reasonable speed internet accesses (thanks google!) the WiFi is frequently the bottleneck. One room away and that AC 1200 router is only actually delivering 200Mbits, or for that matter the 20 closest neighbors APs/wireless phones/airport radar/etc are messing up the spectrum.

helthanatos• 10 years ago

What are you talking about? WiFi is not superior. It's easier to wire all the desktops in your home rather than hoping your WiFi reaches. Ethernet is not very expensive. USB-C is good because it can use many protocols and pretty much the only reasons it is bad are: people that don't know what they're buying and people making cheap, out of standard knockoffs that will damage devices. This is mainly a manufacturer problem and will probably be fixed by the time the majority of people have USB-C ports.

WalterBright2• 10 years ago

My Grace Digital music player is nearly unusable with wifi (see the Amazon reviews on it). But with wired, it works like a champ. Wired is simpler, faster, more secure, and more likely to work.

douche4• 10 years ago

In what universe is wifi a substitute for a proper wired network, for serious bandwidth and reliability? I've got so many other wifi routers polluting the radio waves that I can't stream Netflix on my TV that is 15 feet away from the router.

It's so bad that I bought a 50' ethernet cable and tacked it up along the ceiling from the router to a switch by my TV to create a redneck ethernet network. Works beautifully - well, not beautifully in the aesthetic sense, but it gets the job done well.

jccalhoun4• 10 years ago

you can have my ethernet cable when you pry it from my cold dead hands!

alanh• 10 years ago

I believe Apple never used the blue convention on their MacBook Pros. I think they even mocked the competitors for uglifying their devices this way. Hell, I’m writing this on an rMBP with USB 3 and it uses a white plastic bit.

duaneb• 10 years ago

Heh, they certainly kept to the standard USB length even if by default the keyboard is going to have difficult reaching the computer....

rcthompson2• 10 years ago

I think it's fine in that case, since Macbooks never mix USB port types. As far as I know, all the USB ports on any given Macbook have identical capabilities, so there's no need to distinguish them visually. You just need to be informed when you buy the device what port type you're getting.

ghaff• 10 years ago

Is it a phone, a token ring, or an Ethernet?

I remember the first one or two times I went to IBM's then meeting facility in Palisades, there were warning signs in the rooms to NOT plug your laptop's Ethernet into the token ring jacks. Eventually they rewired the place and put in Ethernet. :-)

SiVal2• 10 years ago

We won't solve the device incompatibility, but it seems we (as individual users) could solve the cable problem by always paying more to buy USB-C cables the were made to handle ALL of the allowed protocols (incl. power) up to the limit of each protocol. In other words, universally usable USB-C cables, where any failure was an incompatibility between devices, not the fault of the cable.

If I'm going to need a lot of cables, it will probably be worth it to me to invest in making them ALL the universal kind, so when trying to set up any system, I can just use any of MY cables for anything.

Of course, this will then fail if they introduce another protocol that uses the same connector but won't work through my "universal" cables, but unless they do, this could make life easier (at the cost of more expensive cables).

nol13• 10 years ago

"but unless they do"

koffiezet• 10 years ago

If I'm going to need a lot of cables, it will probably be worth it to me to invest in making them ALL the universal kind

The problems will not only be the cables and connectors, but for a large part also the devices people will be trying to attach. When it doesn't work, is it a bad cable? Does my laptop even support the device I'm trying to attach? If it's a display, do I need displayport 1.3 or HDMI 2.0 What would be optimal, and what does my laptop support? That's the biggest part of the mess.

Cables that don't support everything can easily be sold as "this is a bad cable" and have a user replace it. Your $1000 storage box you just bought can't be connected to your 2 year old laptop even though they both have the same connectors is a harder sell.

nkjoep• 10 years ago

I agree on the "we will survive" fact. When buying something, of course the buyers they must be careful and get informed.

Having only one plug shape simplifies a lot, and this doesn't change how difficult is to choose a product. At all.

TwoBit• 10 years ago

My concern is that within two years they will realize that the C plug doesn't support some new 2019 protocol and they will create USB Type D.

coding123• 10 years ago

And we'll be better off in the long run.

jccalhoun4• 10 years ago

A few years ago, when i was a grad student at Indiana University, I was told that one of the dorms required students to use a specially wired ethernet cable as recently as 10 years ago because the building had been wired before the ethernet standard was finalized and they chose the wrong wiring order.

ant6n• 10 years ago

couldn't they 'undo' the mistake between the wall and the switches in the basement?

dragontamer• 10 years ago

We survived having RJ45 jacks

We survived the 90s in general. Every damn cable was basically designed for one task.

RJ45 wasn't the worst one in my experience. The worst cable was the Serial cable. Null Modem, male-to-female adapters, DB9 vs DB15, and every combination thereof.

Some of the serial cables would work for mice, others for modems, others for printers, some for gamepads. We lived, we learned how to swap cables and label them.

---------

And once you got the right cable, then you may have to configure the right settings. 9600 8N1 is common, but maybe there were 2-stop bits, or maybe the baud-rate was 4800 or some other value.

Uggghhhhhhh.

danudey2• 10 years ago

I know someone who got a lot of smoke out of mixing up his VGA and gameport ports.

snorrah• 10 years ago

"We will survive this"

But why do we have to play this game again?

Why haven't we learnt from previous mistakes?

Myrth• 10 years ago

Because the reality is not straightforward and to break many catches 22 it is required to make decisions that not everybody happy about.

corndoge• 10 years ago

Is it possible to make one Type-C cable that supports every possible protocol that can go over Type-C and works as long as the devices are compatible? I.e., if the two devices can talk over Type-C, then the cable will work?

phire• 10 years ago

It might be possible.

There is a bit of a problem with thunderbolt's highest speed mode (40gbit). It requires active cables which have a chip at each end of the cable.

lee_s5• 10 years ago

Yes, except for HDMI alt-mode. The problem is they tend to be expensive/stiff cables because of the need to support Thunderbolt 3.

But HDMI alt-mode is a cluster anyway, because it takes over the conductors used for powering the device, so hopefully it will just go away and be replaced by the (imo) superior DisplayPort.

ianburrell• 10 years ago

Type C cables only come in two types: USB 2.0 and 3.0/3.1. USB 2.0 cables have fewer wires and only support USB 2.0 data and power. USB 3.1 cables have all the wires (and are expensive) and support higher speeds and alternate modes.

Finally, Thunderbolt 3 requires active cables for longer lengths and higher speeds. It can only do 40 Gbps with 0.5m passive cable, and 20 Gbps with 2m passive cable. Anything longer requires active Thunderbolt 3 cables.

partycoder2• 10 years ago

Well, a similar situation exists with UTP cables, where cat5 offers 100 Mbps, cat5e offers 1000 Mbps, and cat6 offers 10000 Mbps. They all look exactly the same unless you go and read the label on the cable and are familiar with this.

jzl6• 10 years ago

It's even worse: getting consistent 10Gb on Cat 6 depends on cable length and electrical interference. Cat 6A and 7 also start coming into play for long cable runs and make the situation even more complicated.

partycoder2• 10 years ago

Yes, though cable crosstalk and interference is an issue with most cables. There is STP (shielded rather than unshielded), which protects against external interference.

krylon2• 10 years ago

The proliferation of various ports and interfaces has been disturbing, even in the PC arena where Thunderbolt is rather hypothetical.

Displays alone drive me insane these days. Twenty years ago, you had a VGA connector, and that was it. Then came DVI, which allegedly worked better with TFT panels. Then came HDMI, but there is also DisplayPort which appears to be similar, yet different. I have not seen a display or beamer that will accept DisplayPort input. Does such a thing even exist?

And laptops have, of course, the "mini" version of these, so there is mini-DisplayPort (which looks suspiciously like ThunderBolt) and there is mini-HDMI (which looks suspiciously like USB-C).

I am still telling myself this is a transition, and in five years everything will be USB-C. Once we are there, that sounds like a nice future, but I am not certain we'll get there in time. (Plus, a tea leaf got stuck my Galaxy Tab's USB-C port while riding the train - it took me an hour to scrape and shake everything out before that thing could be charged again. Something that never happened to me with good old USB ports for some reason, even though they were much larger.)

DougBTX• 10 years ago

so there is mini-DisplayPort (which looks suspiciously like ThunderBolt)

You're right here, Thunderbolt 1 and 2 use the mini-DisplayPort connector, now Thunderbolt 3 uses the USB-C connector.

microtonal• 10 years ago

I have not seen a display or beamer that will accept DisplayPort input.

Both my Dell U2412m at home and whatever Fujitsu I have at work have a Displayport connector. The Dell is at least 4 or 5 years old.

It's kinda handy, I plug in my MacBook 12" with a hub and HMDI-DVI cable. My wife uses a mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort to connect her Air to the same screen.

std_throwaway• 10 years ago

I have not seen a display or beamer that will accept DisplayPort input. Does such a thing even exist?

Highend displays with display port definitively exist. I'm not sure about beamers, though.

douche4• 10 years ago

Plus, we have all the old devices that still work just fine using the old ports. I've been using some LCD monitors for five or six years that are VGA-only, and they are still going strong, with no need or reason to replace them.

DisplayPort vs HDMI is one of the real bafflers. Graphics cards always seem to have one HDMI out, and two or three DPs, yet I have never encountered a monitor that have DP-in ports, just VGA or HDMI.

marcins• 10 years ago

I recently got a Dell P2715q and it has DP and HDMI only. As time goes on you're less likely to see DVI connectors on monitors.

hocuspocus• 10 years ago

Wow VGA... even 13-14 years ago my monitors were on DVI.

As for DP, you've never seen a 27 or 30" monitor? All high resolution (QHD, UHD, 4K, 5K) or high refresh (120/144 Hz) or G-sync/FreeSync monitors use DP as their main input source.

russdill2• 10 years ago

The article is pretty good, but this amount of hyperbole is really unforgivable: "If you’re not careful, you can neuter or even damage your devices by using the wrong cable." First of all, the linked post says that C to C cables do not have this problem at all. The issue comes about in relation to how older standards report allowable power draw via resistor configuration. This is a problem that can only occur with USB A to USB C and also USB A to USB B.

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

No you can damage your devices with C-to-C cables. https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BensonLeung/posts/HakwCMmd346

russdill2• 10 years ago

Did you actually read it? Like maybe the part with the question regarding damaging devices with c to c cables?

cpeterso2• 10 years ago

  Q: Do C to C cables have the same problem?
  No. C to C cables do not have the same problem because they are required to be straight pass through

gengkev• 10 years ago

Back when we had different connectors for different things, we knew one thing: if it fit, it worked. But the proliferation of incompatible connectors, driven by the advancement of technology, meant that nothing fit! So we created one connector to rule them all: USB-C. Now everything fits, but nothing works.

mycall2• 10 years ago

I say establish matched color coded ends for both the cables and rings around the plug ports.

mattnewton• 10 years ago

I think that's too subtle for many consumers and it has been hard for manufacturers to stick to that, especially when selling cords in specific shades of colors is good product differentiation.

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

"Everything fits but nothing works" - I love that!

Anagmate• 10 years ago

This would probably be too hard & expensive to implement, but it seems as the most user-friendly solution: create connection protocol where both ends send all possible protocols they can work with (standard codes could probably be established) and the cable would include small chip & LED diode in both connectors - when you connect two devices, it would either light up green (both ends share at least one protocol) or red (incompatible).

For example, I plug one end into my phone and the other one into my sound card - it the phone doesn't support external sound cards, the cable would light up red - otherwise, it would flash green for few seconds, then turn the light off.

Another (maybe more practical solution) would be to implement this in both ports, but some vendors may not comply with the specification. (in the cable, you could only buy those cables that support the negotiation protocol - it would be your choice if you decide to pay a bit more for a better cable)

LeanderK2• 10 years ago

Does anybody know how the protocol/mode gets negotiated? Its unbelievable what capabilities such a small port has.

makomk3• 10 years ago

Well, that depends on the protocol being negotiated and the connectors and devices on either end, of course. Having just one or two methods of protocol negotiation would be too simple.

LeanderK2• 10 years ago

Well, i would expect that. But how is the detection done? i don't think USB was designed with an alternate mode/thunderbolt in mind. I would expect some tricky solution to play nice with legacy USB-devices, or not?

icinnamon• 10 years ago

I'm a bit confused. The ports on the computers themselves can have different protocols- that makes sense. But the cables themselves can also support different protocols? Maybe I'm just naive, but can someone explain how a "dumb" cable supports different specs?

pantalaimon3• 10 years ago

Different grade of shielding/what kind of bandwidth you can achieve over those cables.

lee_s5• 10 years ago

They aren't dumb cables anymore is why.

I'll use Thunderbolt 3 as the example because it's the most stringent. At the 40G signalling it uses the connector loss is extremely high. The maximum passive cable you can have is << 1 m before the rx will start to encounter bit-errors. This forces manufactures to put re-drivers in the ends of the cable to boost the signal, which is obviously expensive.

Even just USB-C charging cables that need high-voltage have chips in each end to negotiate the correct protocol for both the devices and the cable.

cheiVia0• 10 years ago

Specifically, different cables support different bitrates and Wattages. This is due to the number and thickness of the wires in the cable.

I think Monoprices's labeling of a 5Gbps or 10Gbps USB-C to USB-C is false, however. There is nothing about the USB 3.1 Gen2 (10Gbps) spec that requires anything more than a regular USB3 cable. I think the "5Gbps" version is just an older product description from when 5Gbps was the fastest USB available.

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

Plus, as noted by lee_s2, the higher-cost/higher-protocol cables are "active" with chips in them.

Dylan16807• 10 years ago

Thunderbolt 3 requires a special cable

Apparently this isn't quite right. You can use normal passive USB 3 cables to get 40Gbps at very short lengths and 20Gbps at medium lengths.

Unless they're too low quality.

ufmace• 10 years ago

I think I can answer at least one of the questions, on why make 2.0 only C cables.

When I got my Nexus 5X, I bought some assorted A to C cables to go with it. I noticed that the 3.0-capable cables are awfully thick and heavy, and not so convenient to carry around with a mobile device. I bought some 2.0-only A to C cables that are much thinner, lighter, and more flexible, and use those instead. Considering that I will basically never need the extra 3.0 speed for connection to my phone, I'll take the cheaper, lighter, more flexible cable every time.

ChuckMcM• 10 years ago

And some vendors are apparently not having all ports do all things, so two USB-C ports, one can charge at high power and one can't, but from the outside they look identical, plugging into either can charge, but the low power one will take forever.

While I'm a big fan of backward compatibility, I feel that at some point it is better to start fresh rather than try to wedge another solution into the same mechanical configuration. And while I get that people didn't appreciate motherboards that went ISA->PCI->AGP->PCI_e, it saved people from the frustration of plugging cards in that wouldn't work.

jaggederest2• 10 years ago

So one of the things I wonder here is, if I plug all 4 ports into chargers, will it charge faster? I know the onboard battery is current limited, but I wonder how it works in practice.

randall• 10 years ago

Interesting! I hadn't even considered this.

SiVal2• 10 years ago

Since there will be many occasions where power is being passed in on more than one of the USB-C connectors, the new Macs are designed to take power from the ONE charger that offers the highest power (capped at some limit) and reject power from all others. So, plugging in all four will NOT charge faster than plugging in just the one offering the highest power. This is a very explicit, intentional design decision, not some hidden side effect of something else.

Moter8• 10 years ago

Your MacBook Pro only draws power one power supply, even if more than one is attached—so using multiple power supplies will not speed up charging.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207256 (scroll down or click "Charging MacBook Pro")

tbatchelli• 10 years ago

A meta comment. There are many other threads lamenting that this is not a "Pro" machine, but all this cable discussion is not foreign to audio, video and IT professionals and prosumers. If you want to get the max of your pro computer's IO you will need to learn your cable specs and protocols.

It does look that the future will require some rebuilding of our cabling. I have a thunderbolt hub that connects to my screen, my external thunderbolt drive, and a plethora of USB devices. I only use a single Thunderbolt port on my laptop. I like this Future. With these bandwidths I can see us connecting more interesting devices to our laptops

todd82• 10 years ago

I once had a large plastic tub, full of SCSI cables, there were around 10 kinds of connectors, in both male and female configurations and about 10 different kinds of cables. Disk drives would have one kind of connector and often computers would have a different style connector necessitating lots of A to B connection issues. And the cables were expensive, often over $100. It was an absolute mess.

It seems that the USB-C connector, finally, represents a small, robust, easy to use connector that is capable of high data bandwidths.

It wouldn't make anything any better to have different connectors and different cables for charging, mice, keyboards, disk drives, monitors, etc. I just hope that I'll be able to get by with a handful of different lengths of the highest end cables (e.g. the thunderbolt 3) and use them for everything.

jzl6• 10 years ago

Read the article. That's crux of the complaint -- that there isn't just one type of cable for USB-C. Heck, the USB-C power cable that comes with the the new MBPs can only do power and USB2 data. See for yourself: http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MLL82AM/A/usb-c-charge-cab...

todd82• 10 years ago

Yes, maybe I wasn't clear. The USB-C connectors look like they will simplify the end points so that's an improvement. We should need fewer cables.

I'm hoping that by buying the more capable cables (the Thunderbolt 3 versions) that I will be able to use them on all of my devices, even the ones that don't require Thunderbolt 3 like my 12" MB where I only use the USB-C connector for charging, USB3, and sometimes an external monitor (not at Thunderbolt 3 speed).

hkjayakumar• 10 years ago

Here's a slightly unrelated question -

What happens if you plug in 4 power cords into the new MacBooks ?

geerlingguy• 10 years ago

In Apple's documentation, it mentioned that if you plug in multiple power sources, the MBP would choose only one at a time.

fredfoobar42• 10 years ago

This just sounds like the same whining people did when the Mac went to USB back in 1998. "You mean I need an ADAPTER for my SCSI device?!"

chewxy• 10 years ago

I was in shenzhen a couple of days ago, and faced with the prospect of having different types of USB-C cables, I bought one of each standard (thunderbolt, USB3.0 and 3.1).

I now have a problem because I don't remember which colour is which. Is there a way to find out without having to break the nicely braided cables?

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

You could try them with appropriate peripherals and see if they connect at max throughput... But that's going to be very hard since there are pretty much no Thunderbolt 3 peripherals out there.

jzl6• 10 years ago

Food for thought: will USB-C be the "last" standard connector? Speaking in terms of the physical connector, not the data protocol. I'm sure it will eventually prove not to be, but it's got a lot going for it and I suspect it will last for a very long time. If USB-A was the dominant connector for nearly 20 years I think C could see a run of 50 years or more. RJ45 connectors are around 40 years old and aren't going anywhere soon. I wonder what the qualities would be of a connector to replace USB-C.

_nedR2• 10 years ago

Wow, This is an interesting idea. It looks like using wires for I/O will be be outmoded in the not too distant future and who knows, maybe in 50 years they may be outmoded even for recharging. So this could truly be the last universal connector standards.

comex2• 10 years ago

Well, Lightning (which is older) is already significantly thinner than USB-C, 1.5mm rather than 2.6mm, though it has fewer pins. Looking at this visual comparison, I'm a little concerned that USB-C will start being too thick if the phone thinness war ever starts up again:

http://josh-ua.co/blog/2015/3/15/usb-c-dimensions-size-compa...

Lightning also differs in not being hollow on the male side, which, aside from reducing thickness, apparently has both advantages and disadvantages for durability.

smilekzs3• 10 years ago

It is not easy to see, but we ARE on a converging path, instead of the other way around. Current high-speed off-board point-to-point data links (SATA, USB3, DisplayPort, PCIe, etc.) have converged onto some sort of 8b/10b differential signaling. We used to have totally separate OSI stacks, but now we are seeing potential to leverage the same physical layer (i.e. USB Type-C). Sure, we would have to carry different protocols, but I am optimistic --- eventually ASIC makers roll out adaptive chips (just like the cross-wire RJ45 @jws mentioned was solved by Auto MDI-X) that are smart enough to negotiate the correct protocol (MAC layer upwards) between the two sides.

djsumdog• 10 years ago

I dunno... I've been meaning to write a post about multi-protocols on the same connector for a while.

Thunderbolt can run across DisplayPort and now both can run over USB-C. M.2 NGFF sockets can run mSATA, PCIe SSDs (either in AHCI or NVME), but not every M.2 or mini-PCIe Wi-Fi card will work in every laptop because of blacklisting (wtf?) even though they both attach to the exact same PCIe bus. Some M.2 sockets are only mSATA and can't take pcie/nvme drives. I'm pretty sure any M.2 drive can attach to the mSATA controller via an mPCIe adapter, but I'm willing to be there are some board that don't support that.

Why the hell are we doing multiple protocols on the same wire? It's beyond confusing. I thought with USB3.1, at least there'd be a universal cable, and I didn't realize until reading this article that the cables themselves are different per protocol!

I agree with what the writer is getting at. This is really confusing and it all feels like weird questionable design decisions.

smilekzs3• 10 years ago

the cables themselves are different per protocol

I feel this is a transient rather than inherent problem of running different stacks over the same physical layer. If the physical layer can "miss pairs" then I agree we lose the whole point.

One way is to have some sort of official certificate system enforced by USB.org and adopted by major manufacturers. Basically "guaranteed to support a few pre-defined subsets of protocols".

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

The cables are generally backwards-compatible, but most people will buy the cheaper cables. And those won't work.

nashashmi• 10 years ago

This makes my brain hurt:

Thunderbolt 3 is really an “Alternate Mode” use of the Type-C port/cable, just like HDMI. But in practice, Thunderbolt 3 is a super-set of USB 3.1 for USB-C since no implementation of Thunderbolt 3 will be USB 2.0 only.

Anybody care to explain?

sfoskett16• 10 years ago

"Alternate Mode" means "use these same pins for something other than USB". So Thunderbolt 3 uses the same connector but re-purposes the pins and wires to carry 2 or 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes rather than USB. HDMI similarly repurposes these pins to carry traditional HDMI signals.

Anyone implementing Thunderbolt 3 will also be implementing the full USB 3.1 stack in the same chipset. Intel, for example. It would be silly to implement just Alternate Mode Thunderbolt and skip the USB 3.1. That's all I meant.

karlb• 10 years ago

So am I right in understanding that… (i) When my new MacBook Pro arrives, I need to learn which is the Thunderbolt port. (ii) I can simplify matters by always buying the top-spec leads. If so, how do I know which to buy?

taejavu• 10 years ago

Answer for (i): They're all Thunderbolt.

kccqzy2• 10 years ago

But some might be slower than others. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207256

cmurf• 10 years ago

I think the nightmare is if we give up and go back to separate ports and cables for various things.

teilo• 10 years ago

What a bunch of alarmist BS. Drop all the exclamation points. No one takes you seriously if you end every damn sentence that way.

jay_kyburz3• 10 years ago

What is so crazy about this is, if you can't risk just using any cable that fits in a socket, becuase you could damage your hardware, end users would be better off with a completely unique shape for every cable.

This is a giant leap backwards.

tmzt5• 10 years ago

Where does it say you would damage your hardware? Alt modes are negotiated with a standardized protocol as is power transfer. The defaults should be electrically compatible with all devices, though not necessarily functional.

jay_kyburz3• 10 years ago

    "If you’re not careful, you can neuter or even damage your devices by using the wrong cable. Seriously: Using the wrong cable can damage your machine! This should not be possible, but there it is."

bootload2• 10 years ago

There is a real evolutionary fight going on with connectors at the moment.

    > Apple's fastest growing product category.

This tweet highlights the Apple problem right now [0] What is damaging to users is the cost / availability of connectors. What was the last time this connector nightmare played out? Token/Ethernet, Serial/DBX/USB? It pays to be a bit conservative in hardware choice at this moment.

[0] https://twitter.com/dbreunig/status/792034409788518401

bootload2• 10 years ago

interesting read on the technical details of the ports b/w 13"/15" and port placement: "Thunderbolt 3 Ports on Right Side of 13-Inch MacBook Pro Have Reduced PCI Express Bandwidth" ~ http://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/28/macbook-pro-tb3-reduced-...

shurcooL• 10 years ago

Such mixed feelings about this. Really nice content, but misleading title. :(

I already knew all that, but I appreciate the write up for others who don't already know all those details. I'm an enthusiast and obsessed with these details of ports, protocols and cables. I predicted this a year ago [0] and I'm very happy with this outcome. Yes, it's a transition period, which is unpleasant every time, but we will be in a fantastic state in a few years.

[0] https://twitter.com/shurcool/status/607351368387469312

nobrains• 10 years ago

Table nightmare:

http://i.imgur.com/52zh3Ki.jpg

beedogs• 10 years ago

Although it looks exactly the same as a regular USB-C cable, you need a special Thunderbolt 3 cable to use Thunderbolt 3 devices!

They're clearly putting a lot of lead in the water in Cupertino lately.

Tempest19812• 10 years ago

Intel's headquarters are in Santa Clara. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)

kartickv5• 10 years ago

Color-coding would have helped solve the cable mess, especially for users who are not tech-savvy. Imagine if USB-C were green, Thunderbolt were blue, Lightning was yellow, and DisplayPort red. If you have a rat's nest of cables behind your desk, it becomes easier to tell what's what, which makes it more manageable and less frustrating.

Also easier to guide non-tech-savvy family and friends on the phone: "See the red cable? Is one end plugged into the monitor?" "Yes" "Good, now plug the other end into the laptop."

is a better conversation than:

"There are a dozen cables here, all alike!"

lathiat2• 10 years ago

I'm sure that would be great for everyone except Apple. Even blue ports (probably the least offensive color) are too ugly for Apple hardware :)

kartickv5• 10 years ago

Is the article correct in claiming that the CABLES are backward-compatible?

I have a Nexus 5x, which uses USB-C. I want to buy a cable to charge it and connect it to my computer. Would a Thunderbolt 3 cable work?

lmm5• 10 years ago

Yes - thunderbolt 3 cables are required to support the full 100W of power. It sounds like there are only really four types of USB-C cable, at least for the time being - USB2, USB3 without power, USB3 with power and thunderbolt 3.

Animats2• 10 years ago

The spec [1] is a long read, but interesting. Misc. stuff that's not well known:

- The 24 pin connector does not have symmetrical connections. The interface IC senses which way it is plugged in.

- It's still a master/slave system, but either side can be the USB master or the power master. Those need not be the same.

- Who powers whom is an interesting issue. It's up to the OS to decide. There's special support for the dead-battery case - what happens when you plug something with a dead battery into something else? Can you charge your phone from your laptop? Laptop from phone? Tablet from laptop? Phone from phone? It's complicated.

- There's something called the "billboard device", which is the interface IC's mechanism for sending error messages when both ends are not in agreement about modes. The devices at each end are supposed to display this information. Hopefully they do. At least the designers thought about this.

- Hubs are more restrictive. They don't pass through much more than USB mode and power. They don't pass any of the more exotic modes, like HDMI, since those are not multipoint protocols. It is supposed to be possible to pass power upstream through a hub, though.

- Anything with a female USB-C connector has to talk USB-C. It is prohibited to have cables with a female USB-C on one end and some other USB connector on the the other. Male USB-C to other USB is permitted, and will provide backwards compatibility.

- There are extensions defined for "proprietary charging methods" to allow higher current levels. (I wonder who wanted that?)

- There's a mode called "Debug Accessory Mode". This is totally different than normal operation and requires a special cable as a security measure. (In a regular cable, pins A5 and B5 are connected together and there's only one wire in the cable for them. Debug Test devices use a cable where pins A5 and B5 have their own wires and there's a voltage difference between them.) Debug Accessory Mode, once entered, is vendor-specific. It may include JTAG low-level hardware access. Look for exploits based on this. If you find an public charger with an attached USB-C cable, worry. Always use your own cable.

[1] http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/

SimpleMinds• 10 years ago

The "usb-c female to other usb is not permitted" surprised me so I started searching why might be the reason. I've found this g+ post [1] which sheds a bit of light. It's actually good to know as I would've assumed that's ok to have this kind of connector. Probably is, if you know what you're connecting together. Btw you can buy those cable in Amazon :) [2]

[1] https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/UFCHbSDRa2o [2] https://www.amazon.com/USB-C-Female-Macbook-Tablet-Mobile/dp...

el_benhameen• 10 years ago

I'm not adding much here, but I wanted to say that comments like this are why I read HN.

yurymik• 10 years ago

- Who powers whom is an interesting issue. <...> It's complicated.

Yeah... I have a battery bank from Anker with two plugs: USB-A and USB-C. If I connect my Nexus 6p with USB-C/USB-C cable, everything is good, phone gets power. But if the only cable I have at the moment is USB-A/USB-C, then phone starts to charge the battery bank.

2sk21• 10 years ago

This is crazy. In all the battery packs I have seen so far, the convention seems to be that the micro USB port is for charging the battery pack itself and the type A port is for delivering power to the device to be charged. Looks like a new set of rules apply to the USB-C ports.

marcosscriven• 10 years ago

I have the same one - annoyingly I find the USB-C cable, when plugged in, isn't flush with the body of the battery.

Hondor2• 10 years ago

That has to be a spec violation of at least one part of the system. How can a USB-A port possibly ever receive power? Does it actually charge the battery or does the phone just think it's delivering power - perhaps because of a non-compliant cable?

alexland• 10 years ago

When you plug the phone in, a notification appears in the notification shade allowing you to choose how you want the power to flow. You should be able to choose to charge the phone, rather than use the phone as a charger. I know this option appears when using a Type C to Type C cable, but there's a chance it won't work with a Type C to Type A cable.

tw044• 10 years ago

Which hub? That doesn't even make sense since the only port the Anker accepts power in on is the USB-C port.

tunneln• 10 years ago

I love

aq3cn• 10 years ago

You know whenever there is a bad press about Apple product they start to black list those reporting websites. Blacklisted company don't get any pre-released news or products for reviews. I wonder how many websites have been blacklisted.

bobsgame• 10 years ago

It would be nice if calling things "Total Nightmare" did not become a trend.

I've seen more of this negative rhetoric lately and I suspect it's influenced by Trump's speech patterns of describing everything as a "Total Disaster, Sad!"

It's not a constructive way of speaking, and it's hurtful and discouraging to whatever or whomever it is criticizing. That's likely why Trump does it.

How about changing the title to "USB-C adapter confusion: what can we do to improve this?"

calinet6• 10 years ago

One interesting thing is that when the port is the same for everything, the port itself (the shape, size, look and whether it matches the other thing you're looking at) ceases to be a useful interface for connecting things together physically. Instead we need other indicators, labels, and on-screen error messages to tell us those things, which is a much more indirect and less clear way of understanding connectivity.

Did anyone ever stop to ask if we really wanted everything to go through one port, even if everything wasn't really inter-compatible? I think we had it pretty right before, with a mix of ports, some of which were exclusive to a purpose (like HDMI, power, audio), some of which were generic (like USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt). Now we've removed clarity for what exactly? Aesthetics? "Simplicity?" The technological advancement of a single standard? There could be good reasons, but we should be aware of the usability tradeoff.

Total Nightmare: USB-C and Thunderbolt 3

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