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3 sounds like a doozy. Is there any way that the average person can learn to tell these apart once they are out of the packaging, or is it really just a guess and check?

My understanding is that Thunderbolt 3 cables should have the Thunderbolt logo on them.

And herein lies the rub of USB-C: It isn't a universal logical interface, it is a multi-use physical connector. By overloading the port's logical functions you introduce incompatible physical configurations.

There have always been charge-only USB cables, they're just not all that common (I believe many mice come with those for charging, but I don't know where else you'd get one). I agree that it is a problem for Apple to be shipping a charge-only USB-C cable, both because this significantly increases the number of charge-only cables in the wild, and because this is probably the first USB-C cable that their customers will have and it's confusing if it doesn't actually act as a generic USB-C cable.

FWIW, the only time I've seen charge-only USB cables is when they are permanently attached to a charging brick.

I'm pretty sure I have a charge-only Mini USB cable lying around in a drawer somewhere that came with an old mouse years ago.

Charge-only Mini USB connectors are a different question. They're possible to build, but non-compliant. Charge-only USB C cables are part of the standard. The difference is that you can only blame cable confusion problems on the standard in the latter case.

It's not a Thunderbolt issue. It's about supporting "DisplayPort Alternate Mode." This particular monitor doesn't support Thunderbolt.

Steve would be pissed.

The cables or ends should almost be colored blue. It might help if there was a color code to all the cables and ports

Kinda like how Apple's USB3 ports are not colored blue, for aesthetics... ?

2 and 3 are both doozies. #2 makes that setup basically unusable.

> (2) When the display goes to sleep, it disconnects all the devices on the hub. This is a problem for external disks, as the OS complains that it has been detached without being ejected first. I hope LG fixes this in a future firmware version.

This is why I'm quite disappointed that Apple exited the display business. Small issues like this highlight the different scope of LG and Apple business models. As a display manufacturer, LG is primarily concerned with a display that works well in its primary use (e.g. when it's on) and much less concerned about secondary uses - it's not really their problem. Apple, on the other hand, is concerned with the overall user experience, and has designed their business model around this (including cost centers like customer service / genius bar appointments). LG just feels a lot less pain on this issue than Apple would.

Hopefully Apple can find a way to preserve a certain level of user experience now that they're no longer manufacturing. There's no MFi certification equivalent for Mac, but it seems like there should be.

This is probably also relevant for wifi routers, now that they've left that business too.

I have a Thunderbolt display from Apple, it also powers off the USB devices when it goes to sleep.

>"This is why I'm quite disappointed that Apple exited the display business."

Is this official? Did they make some kind of statement? I think during the even they showed a Mac Pro connected to a monitor but it wasn't Apple. I was kind of confused by that at the time but now it might make sense.

There was also a thread on here yesterday about how they've existed the router business. Very odd, since so many of their customers like having a complete ecosystem.

Apple discontinued its last display a few months ago, and after the MBP announcement they confirmed that they've fully exited the display business. https://twitter.com/reckless/status/792069952916197376

> One cable. It's kind of amazing and magical if you think about it.

Apple had the one-cable thing back in 1998.

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

Power went the other way, but still. Crazy it's taken us this long to get back to it.

Apple had it in 1993 (minus the power): http://www.kan.org/6100/graphicshardware.html

But NeXT had it in '88, power included (!): http://www.uk.netbsd.org/ports/next68k/faq.html#connections

People always hate on Apple for proprietary connectors and cables, but I loved my Cinema display with the ADC cable.

#3 is because the USB-C charge cable only does USB 2. It doesn't have all the wires that would be needed to do USB3 or alternate modes.

The reason is that USB2 cables are cheaper and easier to make longer. The charge cable is 2m and $19, the Belkin 1m is $22, the Belkin Thunderbolt 0.5m is $22, and the Belkin Thunderbolt 2m is $52.

Also, the charge cable is emarked and supports charging at 5A (100W). Regular USB C cables only support 3A and 60W.

Have you guys tried using this monitor with a Windows Notebook like the XPS 13 or 15? I wonder how the intercompatibility is between the "for Apple" branded LG Monitors and the Standard USB-C TB3 Devices.

This particular monitor is not one of the two "for Apple" monitors announced alongside the MBP announcement.

But to answer your question: no. We don't run Windows at home and have no such test equipment.

What happens if you accidentally plug in your charging cable when it's already being charged from the monitor?

I read that it chooses the power source with the highest charge rate

This is correct. There's no harm.

Nothing. You can plug in four chargers, one in every port, and it will only draw power from one.

>When the display goes to sleep, it disconnects all the devices on the hub. This is a problem for external disks, as the OS complains that it has been detached without being ejected first. I hope LG fixes this in a future firmware version.

Is there a monitor that doesn't suffer this issue? My Dell's USB hub power is linked to the monitor power. I can't plug a mouse into the monitor if I want to use that mouse to wake up the computer.

I don't expect the hub to work when the display is powered off or unplugged. I do, however, expect it to work when the monitor is "asleep", i.e., in power-saving mode.

My Dell P2715Q display does work properly as a hub when it's asleep.

>> My Dell P2715Q display does work properly as a hub when it's asleep.

The P2715Q has all sorts of quirks. I have a pair of them connected to my Windows computer, and when they go to sleep, Windows basically forgets where all the open windows were and disperses them somewhat randomly. Of all the monitors I've used, I've only ever experienced this with the P2715Q.

I also notice that the power output of the USB ports on the monitors is barely enough to charge any recent mobile device.

>I also notice that the power output of the USB ports on the monitors is barely enough to charge any recent mobile device.

That's because it's probably supplying the USB spec of 500ma. That's not a fault, it's how it should work. The usb-looking chargers that come with many recent mobile devices are using a bastardized set of "not really standards" to let them pump more juice through the USB port than is allowed.

It's probably the cable, if they use a data cable it will limit it to 500ma, but if they get a usb power only cable I bet it will supply more. You're right its probably working as designed.

Well technically a USB port should disconnect if you try to draw more than 500ma, and if something does draw more than 500ma it's not usb.

But some do allow it to go out of spec, and if that happens you'll only be able to get that extra power if you are using a "charging only" cable (which tricks the phone into thinking it's plugged into a power-only USB outlet and it tries to draw more than 500ma).

So with a USB cable (that's not actually a USB cable), plugged into a USB port (that's not actually a USB port) you can get over that, but it's not meant to run that way on several levels.

It's one of the things that USB-C is meant to solve. Let the device and power source negotiate on how much can be sent and received by each (even being able to swap which way power is going). Sadly that means that cables are no longer just a bunch of metal in a wrapper, they need a set resistance or in some cases built-in IC's, and that means that now a shitty cable can cause issues.

Same issue with my U2713HM when I let Windows go to sleep. I have only one of them attached to my desktop, but Win10 likes to set all my open windows to a small size when sleep happens. I guess the monitor get's reported as turned off and Windows starts up a 1024x768 "emergency desktop".

That's interesting, because it happens randomly for my two Dells connected to a MacBook Pro and I was blaming OSX for this. Have you found any hack/solution to this?

No, I think it's the monitors themselves.

Instead of "sleeping", they appear to make the OS think they've been powered down/disconnected instead. When a monitor goes to sleep, I can hear the "device disconnected" chime in Windows, which should not happen.

might be a MST mode related - randomly bringing parts of the monitor online in different order makes windows think overall display geometry changed?

Apple's (now discontinued) Thunderbolt display does not suffer from this issue. I can wake my computer up from sleep by pressing keys on the keyboard attached to my Thunderbolt display.

I beg to differ. I had an encrypted USB HDD hooked up to Thunderbolt display, and lost all data on it because it does indeed power down its USB hub :)

My Philips bdm4065uc Doesn't seem to have this issue, or, at least, I've never noticed a problem waking my Mac by wiggling the mouse connected to it.

The next time I'm looking to spend a bunch of money on a monitor I'll definitely keep in mind this feature.

As to 3: the reason is cost. If you are using a cable with your power adapter, you are only using it for charging. To use a USB-C 3.1 cable for that is wasteful because it costs double what the charging/USB2 cable alone would cost.

And yeah, it is going to confuse a lot of people.

Its a $2500 laptop. Apple should ship the cable.

They could do that, and then listen to a different group of people whining about why they have to pay $30 for a cable that is only ever going to be used for power.

They've got like a 30% margin on these laptops, and have told everyone that USB-C is the future. So they ship with a gimped cable which will only confuse people because it doesn't have any of the capabilities they're touting.

If I buy a $2500 flight I get a toothbrush, why does the $2500 macbook not come with a toothbrush?

Edit: In case it wasn't obvious to the readers, the reason behind the missing toothbrush and missing USB-C 3.1 cable are the same.

Who the hell expects a toothbrush with their laptop? Or a random USB cable in that matter?

The company talks big about a beautiful vision of multi-purpose cables, carrying power in one direction, data in both directions, etc. They provide one of those cables...but it turns out that it only carries power. So, imagine if your airline was talking about the benefits of brushing your teeth with good toothpaste, and their provided teeth-cleaning kit just has a toothbrush.

Since Apple's shipping a "random USB cable" anyhow, it would make sense for them to ship the version of it that actually does all the things they've been advertising.

The toothbrush has a single purpose. The cable could be used to charge and to transfer data. It can't be used for the second case for no good reason apart of saving a couple bucks per box. I'm pretty sure Jobs wouldn't have it.

Because a lot of people fall asleep on flights, and want to refresh their oral hygiene when waking up, and the airline realizes this extra will be appreciated.

Now, do people need USB-cables when using their electronic devices? And would that little extra be appreciated?

That looks like a good choice for a monitor.

I've been thinking two of the 4K LG monitors Apple offers next to each other in portrait orientation would be nice. However, the lower UHD resolution at 27" rather than 21" probably makes a lot more sense for me if I want to be able to sit further away from the display.

If my eyes are 3-4ft away, 160ppi probably doesn't even look like it has less definition than 220ppi.

We have no complaints about it, other than the price. (It's still $200-$300 cheaper than the 27" 5K display that hasn't shipped yet; but it's about $100-$200 more than an equivalent Dell display that doesn't have USB-C.) We also wish it charged at > 57W, but this monitor predates the release of the new MBPs.

I use a 60W MB charger (with magsafe adapter) with my MBP 15" at home - it has had no problems for years despite the 15" normally requiring 85W.

I remember someone saying that the nominal usage wattage of a newer MBP 15" is around 15W, perhaps double if CPU taxed.

> When the display goes to sleep, it disconnects all the devices on the hub

I also have an audio interface connected to my sound monitors, and it is also quite bad for it to lose its power, producing a loud blasting sound. If monitor becomes a power supply, we need it to never stop supplying it, just like notebook doesn't stop when it goes to sleep.

With respect to #2, it seems ridiculous to me that in 2016 we still have to manually eject USB devices from Macs. How have they not figured this out yet? I hope it finally gets fixed next year with the new AFS.

Apple can't guarantee that write caching is disabled on every removable storage device out there, even if they send the correct command to do so (some devices ignore it to improve their performance benchmark scores). The best they can do is flush the data on unmount, which requires they be notified in advance via a user action. What else do you expect them to do?

BTW, Windows and Linux have the same problems. The fault lies with the storage device vendors.

"I have to say, I'm really impressed by the single-cable solution. The monitor charges the laptop"

Is this a new feature? I've never heard of monitors charging laptops before.

It's part of the benefits of Thunderbolt (and now, USB-C). The Apple Thunderbolt Display also charged Mac laptops via its built-in MagSafe cable.

The last revision of the Thunderbolt Cinema Display used two separate cables. USB-C is the first single-cable solution I'm aware of.

Why doesn't the Apple-supplied USB charging cable work?

It's for charging only. This seems to be a huge disadvantage to USB-c... you have to buy different cables for different purposes, even though they have the same physical connector.

Can you imagine if AC power had the same plug for both 110V and 220V? And you just had to "guess" which one was the right one?

They do? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60320

That's a common problem with power supplies that require setting a hard switch to choose between 110V and 220V.

Which is why it's rare at best to encounter such power supplies in new manufacture, and has been for quite some years now. Instead, they sense the line voltage and configure themselves accordingly.

It's hard to see the profusion of semi- and incompatibilities permissible in the USB-C connector as anything but a regression.

For the socket side of the same problem, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country and search for "Power cords with type A or B plugs which are rated at only 125 V may present a safety hazard" (each of the seven occurrences reflects a country that always or sometimes uses U.S.-style sockets with a higher voltage such as 240 V).

Yep, I bought some fun electronic bench gear, on the back it says validate the 110/220/240 setting prior to use.

On that note, always look on the back for a manual switch. Just to be safe. Its unlikely a regular consumer would need to but I'm learning to change my habits.

The cable is a USB-C cable, but not a Thunderbolt 3 cable. This is confusing, because they use the same USB-C port. My understanding is that Thunderbolt cables have the thunderbolt logo on them.

It's not a Thunderbolt issue. It's about supporting "DisplayPort Alternate Mode." This particular monitor doesn't support Thunderbolt.

A given USB Type C cable can be a "USB 2.0" cable, which is only good for USB @ 480 Mbps and power, or a "USB 3.1" cable, which can handle USB @ 10 Gbps and power, as well as alternate data modes like DisplayPort or Thunderbolt. Additionally, it can be only good for 3 A, or it can have a chip in it to indicate it's good for more power (up to 5A).

The Apple-supplied cable is probably a USB 2.0 cable, with a chip indicating it can handle 5A.

Even worse, you can't expect thunderbolt 3 to work over any cable length. So unless all USB C cables become active cables (unlikely), longer USB C cables won't have thunderbolt support due to signal integrity limitations.

Not all USB-C connectors are created equal. Something with that connector can support or not support a number of protocols, e.g. USB, Thunderbolt 3, USB-C power throughput, etc.

In this case, the cable used with the monitor needs to be a Thunderbolt 3 cable, not just a USB-C cable. I haven't seen a teardown of the new ones, but at least for the previous generation there's a bit more to it than your average cable.

https://www.wired.com/2011/06/thunderbolt-cable-teardown-rev...

Thunderbolt 2 had the same compatibility issue in that it was the same connector as Mini DisplayPort but couldn't run over a standard DP cable. That was pretty minor since it's not like everyone has a pile of loose DP cables sitting around.

On the other hand, your average consumer never uses a Thunderbolt device to begin with on account of them being significantly more expensive than other accessories. They'll likely never run into this even with it using a USB-like cable, and the people who do need TB will figure it out.

It's not a Thunderbolt issue. It's about supporting "DisplayPort Alternate Mode." This particular monitor doesn't support Thunderbolt.

Oh interesting, I didn't think monitors could run video over the USB cable and still offer a USB hub on the same connection, but it looks like the DisplayPort data goes over the additional USB-3 lines and preserves the original USB-2 connection for accessories. Good to know.

Thunderbolt displays can do hubs at full speed, the 5K LG Ultrafine has 3x USB 3.1 gen 1, which IIRC means up to 5 Gbps (vs 480 Mbps for USB 2).

Not sure why your comment was marked [dead] but I just vouched it so it should be back.

It probably lacks data lines. It is common for USB cables used for charging to only have power lines and skip the data lines to save money. I believe the USB cable that came with my Chromecast is the same.

It has data line, but only supports USB 2.0

What do you think the effect of constant charging will be on battery life in the long term?

Assuming a properly engineered device, the battery shouldn't actually be constantly charging. It should intelligently switch between power sources, as well as enabling and disabling charging of the battery as needed.

I think what is more of a concern would be the possibility that some laptops now tend to unthrottle the CPU when on AC power (or more accurately throttle their already LV CPUs when on battery), which can mean the internal temp gets pretty high and can be bad for the battery.

That being said, we have no guarantee that the power management is being done properly, but Apple seems to really have a handle on the power usage of their devices (even if they can't quite figure out their connectors or software). It's definitely a concern on lower end laptops.

Yes, apple has been quite good with batteries.

Indeed part of battery quality is to let the device manage when charging happens, but a big problem is that the device is expected to be charged when being hooked up to a charger for a bit. You don't want customers to walk away from home thinking they have a charged device, but end up only being able to use the device for a short time.

I guess there is some well thought out system to it.

There is no practical impact on modern batteries from being constantly connected to power.

this is not true, liion dont like being constantly kept at full.

I guess, I confused it with the batteries amount of charges before decline.

good to get it confirmed here.

Do you connect your laptop to a monitor without also connecting the charger? My MPB is used in 2 ways: on a desk or lapdesk without any peripherals, or with 3-4 connectors (including hub/monitor and charger).

I did before, but in that setup I turned the laptop screen off.

Probably not huge - my MBP's battery is 644 days old, and I use it plugged in pretty much all the time. So it's had 34 cycles. But it's still got 92.4% of its capacity left.

Lord, just 34? I use mine disconnected a lot but mine has over 300 in about a year.