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Comment by spilk | Hacker News Reader

Honestly to me the worst thing about the new MacBook Pro isn't that there are no legacy ports on it or that the battery may be smaller, it's that the new all-things-for-all-people ports it has are confusing.

The ports are all Thunderbolt 3 ports, which I believe by definition means they are USB 3.1 ports as well. But some devices out in the world have USB-C ports that are not Thunderbolt 3 compatible. No longer can you tell what sort of devices will work with a port by its physical shape. For instance, I have a Windows desktop machine with a single USB-C port on the back, but it's not a Thunderbolt 3 port. So while I could physically plug in a Thunderbolt 3-only device, it wouldn't function at all.

Thunderbolt 3 is backward compatible with Thunderbolt 1/2 via an adapter, but the Thunderbolt 2 adapter that Apple sells does not function identically to a Thunderbolt 2 port on previous generation Macs - e.g. you cannot plug a Mini DisplayPort display into it. Thunderbolt displays do work with it though.

Also, the lower-end 12" MacBook that Apple sells with a single USB-C port is NOT a Thunderbolt 3 port, so you have to know which devices that have identical connectors will work with it. Apple makes the distinction on its peripherals by screenprinting a little Thunderbolt logo onto the cable/connector housing. The messaging was reinforced with corresponding Thunderbolt logos next to the connectors on previous iterations of the MacBooks - making it obvious that these ports were not just Mini DisplayPorts but also Thunderbolt ports - but the new 2016 models don't appear to have anything like that on the hardware.

Additionally, there are USB-C cables and Thunderbolt 3 cables. Thunderbolt 3 cables are apparently higher-spec and will always work as USB-C cables, but the opposite is not necessarily true.

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I've gotten myself into a stupid situation where I have purchased something like 4 adapters that don't accomplish what I thought they would when I bought them.

USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort to HDMI -> Monitor - doesn't work

USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort to DVI-D -> Monitor - doesn't work

USB-C to Ethernet - doesn't work

I'm actually planning to just go to Best Buy today and try to find anything that will let me plug this into my old monitor here even if it has to be the official USB-C to VGA cable from Apple since I don't have time to wait for shipping at this point.

I suppose this is my own fault but somehow I've never had this kind of problem in ~20 years of using a computer.

Edit: There are also currently very few resources about compatibility between all these new adapters and Apple hasn't done anything to help in their spec info so it's really just a guessing game right now.

I think the main source of the confusion is that the connector is called USB-C, but devices that use the connector may not be USB devices at all, since they can fully expect to only be used with devices that support a specific alternate mode (e.g. Thunderbolt). Yes, they all have to support USB at some level to negotiate the alternate mode (i'm not sure if for USB-C this is a passive signaling like sense resistors or something active like an authentication chip), but devices don't have to fall back to USB data modes at all if they don't want to.

If they had called the connector something distinct, like for example "Omnibus", then you could additionally specify the signalling required to make it work. So you could sell a device as being "USB via Omnibus plug", or "Displayport via Omnibus plug". Maybe even come up with little icons for each mode and place them on the host computers and peripherals to help people figure out what is going to work. Really just anything more than what they've done currently would be useful.

Yea, it used to be generally true that "if you can connect them with a cable, they will be compatible." Ports were single-use, and if two ports weren't compatible, then they would be physically incompatible. If you could get a cable to connect two different ports, they would probably be compatible because who would make the cable otherwise, right?

Now we have something like your "omnibus" port in USB-C, so you have potential incompatibility at the port level and at the cable level, and no good way to tell what will work and what won't. The good news is you only have one port, but the bad news is you don't really only have one port.

> if two ports weren't compatible, then they would be physically incompatible

they have forgotten about poka-yoke (inadvertent error prevention) which is very remiss.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke

A problem that Apple used to understand, if you look at their keyboard USB cords:

http://www.mcelhearn.com/images/articles/20060828181525223_1...

I guess the USB-C plug is too small for gimmicks like this, though. Would've been nice to distinguish between USB-C and TB 3.1.

(For context, that is how Apple prevents people from plugging anything but its own keyboard into the extension cord, or daisy-chaining two extension cords.)

To be fair, that already hasn't been case with Thunderbolt 1 and 2 which reused the Mini DisplayPort.

True. We have a mixture of Apple's Thunderbolt and Mini-DP displays at work and it confuses the hell out of our Windows users. Some adapters/docking stations work, some don't.

There's actually a good number of very weirdly wired serial cables out there (incorrect pin mapping on one side), and if you use a standard cable your device won't work.

Hah, you didn't get the specs quite right. That's:

USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort++ to HDMI

But a DP++ device in a non-++ port won't work, and I'm not sure how anyone is supposed to know this.

Anyway, Google sells a bunch of high-quality adapters for about half the price of Apple's.

Googling displayport++ returns a bunch of confusing pages - can you summarize what the ++ signifies in your own words and with some examples?

DisplayPort++ means a DisplayPort port that can also use a passive DP-to-HDMI or DP-to-DVI adapter, such as a DP-to-HDMI cable. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#DisplayPort.2B.2B

The graphics chipset will actually detect this and handle it as though you hooked up an HDMI cable.

What a clusterfuck...

The moment where the Hacker News crowd can't even figure this out anymore ... is the moment I have to stop recommending macs for anyone in my family or friends. There were a few mac sales due to my recommendations, but that has to stop now. Good luck, Apple.

Well this seems more due to the USB-C to rule them all paradigm that will actually deploy in every PC as well very soon.

People complained continually that Apple had gone USB/lightning/Thunderbolt instead of standard USB-C. Now they implement the standard and people complain that the standard is a clusterfuck...

This whole ranting start to look a bit unfair.

I am sure this will be fixed in a future iteration. In exhange you never have to flip a USB or HDMI cable around three times (turns out the first direction was right after all :) ) to plug it in, because USB-C can be plugged in either way. Worldwide, this literally saves multiple seconds every year. Have a little faith :)

I'm sure it will. Until then I'll hold on zo my wallet as tightly as I can. Or try out Thinkpads or XPSses with some flavour of Linux but I don't have high hopes for their touchpads and screens / HiDPI software support. You know - the things I actually touch and see the whole time using the damn thing.

Sigh...

I've been watching old SJ presentations (1990-2003) lately and I long back to the time where general purpose personal computers, fully capable of tapping into the machine and creating with it whatever you want, was at the forefront of industry efforts. Updates twice a year. Moore's law in full force. Exiting times those were.

> Or try out Thinkpads or XPSses with some flavour of Linux but I don't have high hopes for their touchpads and screens / HiDPI software support.

Touchpads generally work perfectly out of the box, with any Linux distribution that uses libinput instead of one of the older drivers. HiDPI screens also tend to work perfectly out of the box, though you may wish to tweak them to your tastes. (For instance, I don't want to treat a 1440p screen as 2x 720p, I want to treat it as 1440p with only slightly enlarged fonts.)

I'm curious why Apple's approach of drawing things at 2x or 3x and then downscaling the whole screen hasn't caught on in the Linux world. It seems like scaling the result (a single buffer) should be extremely easy? Laptops and screens targeted at Windows 10 mostly have crappy resolutions for both running at 2x or 1x.

Linux desktop environments do use the 2x/3x scale approach for high-DPI by default. If GNOME detects a high-DPI display, it'll render everything scaled larger by an integer factor.

1440p represents the one case that integer scaling doesn't quite handle right, because you don't typically want it to scale 2x (showing the same amount of information as a 720p screen), you want it to scale roughly 1.33x (showing the same amount of information as a 1080p screen). So, on a 1440p screen, I disable the automatic high-DPI scaling (which does make the display readable, it just shows less information than I'd like), and use other mechanisms to scale by 1.3x.

Linux desktops do the hard part out of the box: scaling everything by an integer factor. But then there is no built-in way to downscale the result to a usable size, which should be relatively easy?

For example, if you need more space on a 5K iMac than the default 1440p@2x, you can have macOS render everything at 1800p@2x off-screen, then downscale it to fill the screen.

The UI looks like this: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202471

I think it can be done with xrandr, but IMHO it should be a built-in option in GTK-based desktops too.

Ah, I see.

I don't think that would work well with Linux expectations for rendering, such as crisp edges for fonts; if you like Apple-style rendering of fonts and other UI elements, it may work better.

I'd rather see everything rendered for the display resolution I have, and just scaled at a non-integer factor.

As an owner of a Mac Mini from 5 or 6 years ago, I am fairly confident in guessing that this refers to what Apple calls “Mini DisplayPort with Audio”. My Mac Mini can use a Mini DP to HDMI adapter just fine — but it won’t include audio. Newer Mac Minis do support audio over Mini DP.

>As an owner of a Mac Mini from 5 or 6 years ago, I am fairly confident in guessing that this refers to what Apple calls “Mini DisplayPort with Audio”. My Mac Mini can use a Mini DP to HDMI adapter just fine — but it won’t include audio. Newer Mac Minis do support audio over Mini DP.

your sibling comment said something totally different... (no mention of audio.)

To be fair, I'm facing the same issue with a Dell XPS 13 9350 i bought instead of the new MacBook Pro:

I want to connect it to a 4k monitor at 60Hz via DP or HDMI 2.0. You have to find out how DisplayPort is done on the TB3 port (with USB-C plug) to know which adapter will work. The safest way seems to be to read Amazon reviews.

Thanks Amazon reviewers!

I have the same problem, but since I don't have Amazon here I'm testing different cheap adapters from aliexpress. No luck so far.

I found a USB-C -> HDMI -> DVI-D -> monitor works for that situation. But the HDMI adapter matters. Some Dell adapters we had laying around the office are what worked for me here, but it was flakey (plug in multiple times - plug in multiple monitors in the correct order).

If your monitor supports Displayport then that is the route you want to use. The MBP 2016 supports USB-C displayport alternate mode, and quality cables exist. This is pretty much bulletproof if it's an option to you.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EZH7CKO/ are the cables I bought since they were available next-day, but Monoprice also makes a quality cable.

http://blog.fosketts.net/2016/10/30/2016-macbook-pro-usb-cth... is also a great resource to get started, if you haven't seen it yet.

http://plugable.com/thunderbolt-3/ also has some good info. Apparently there are TB3 adapters which don't work with tbMBPs.

All I want is a single TB3 plug that powers my laptop and hooks up 2x4k displays at 60hz. A USB port or 3 would also be nice. Apparently this does not (can not?) exist.

From the Pluggable site: "Connect two uncompressed 4K 60Hz (4096 x 2160) displays (one via a DisplayPort++ port and the other via the 2nd USB-C port)"

Why can't I just have two real DP++ ports on the dock?

They do make one, but it's windows-only: Thunderbolt 3 DisplayPort Dual-Display Adapter for Windows (Plugable TBT3-DP2X)

Is there something about the new MBPs which prevents them from sending 2 HDMI or DP signals out over a single TB3 port? It seems like a huge step backward to now require a network of dongles, adapters, docks, and special cables just to replicate ports which other normal laptops have.

You can't expect an off-brand USB-C adapter to be able to fully support DisplayPort. USB-C does not natively contain DisplayPort. Also, don't daisy-chain adapters when you don't have to. Use a USB-C to HDMI adapter. Such as this one:

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

Herein lies the problem. Consumers don't understand or care why these things don't work, they just don't and it's frustrating. "I bought the adapter and plugs in, why doesn't it turn on?" I shouldn't need to explain to my dad why there are two indistinguishable plugs that follow different standards where one works and one doesn't.

"We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works." -Douglas Adams

  > "You can't expect an off-brand USB-C adapter"

Surely that's the point of standards: I don't have to purchase an Apple USB-C connector; I can purchase any USB-C connector, and it will perform correctly?

As an educated techie I understand that this isn't true because:

  - Some cables may be counterfeit/non-compliant
  - The nomenclature "USB-C" encompasses a multitude of differing standards
  - The differing standards are rarely identified or clearly explained at point-of-sale.

But this is, essentially, a consumer clusterf*ck.

This is poor advice. I have that exact adapter, and it fails to work with >50% of the HDMI devices (monitors, TVs, projectors) in our office.

This is kind of the point. I have to carry this, plus an offbrand HDMI adapter to hope to have greater than 50% chances of it working.

As far as I'm aware there is no reliable USB-C -> HDMI adapter on the market that works with the MBP 2016. If there is another someone knows about, I'd be happy to buy one for testing and let folks know the results.

Quick question! If we step back from the thunderbolt/displayport/displayport++/usb-c, distinction, which you use on the left-hand side of your arrow... when you wrote:

>"As far as I'm aware there is no reliable USB-C -> HDMI adapter on the market that works with the MBP 2016"

, do you exactly mean the broader statement (I've reworded what I thought you mean) :

>"As far as I am aware there is nothing that plugs into a MBP 2016 that gives a reliable HDMI port that I can connect with a simple HDMI cable to any output device that takes HDMI (screens/projectors/TV's/etc)"?

Is that what you meant? In other words, there is nothing you can carry around, together with an HDMI cable, that let's you plug the MBP 2016 into anything from a TV to a screen to a projector etc (as long as they take an HDMI input) without a chance that it won't work?

Yep, your latter statement is correct. There is no single adapter I can carry around with my laptop (with a HDMI cable and expect it to reliably work with whatever HDMI device the location happens to have.

I couldn't understand why. I found this article echoing your experiences:

http://blog.fosketts.net/2016/11/26/beware-usb-c-hdmi-adapte...

Note that it ends saying "The Good News: DisplayPort Works

I purchased a couple of USB-C to DisplayPort adapters from Monoprice and am pleased to report that they both work just fine. As hoped, these simple adapters natively and passively attach Alternate Mode DisplayPort from the MacBook Pro’s integrated AMD GPU through the Intel Thunderbolt controller and connect perfectly with the monitors I’ve tried."

I then Googled "active displayport hdmi converter" (to find one with a little chip inside, that actively really outputs true HDMI.)

I found this page:

https://www.startech.com/eu/m/AV/Displayport-Converters/Disp...

Which says "Connect an HDMI® monitor to a DisplayPort® Video Source".

Since it's active, the Mac should see it as a DisplayPort device. The device then takes that signal and outputs HDMI. So while the resolution might not be perfect, I would expect this combination to work and let you connect your Mac to any HDMI device, period.

Since it sounds like you have this problem a lot, if you did end up buying that device I'd be keen to know if it worked! (email in my profile.)

Thanks.

The Club 3D USB-C to HDMI 2.0 is perfect. I use it at the office to drive a LG 65" 4K screen at 60HZ for presentations from my MBP 2016: http://amzn.to/2hkM3hK

There is NO first party official Apple DisplayPort adapter. There actually is no first party adapter that would support 4k@60Hz officialy. It gets even more annoying since most 4K monitors made in last year will support 4k@60Hz only over DP, not HDMI.

I went through 2 adapters before I got one that actually worked with the new 2016 MacBook. Which was incredibly annoying.

I'm not sure how it compares, but I recently went 4k@60Hz with a Dell XPS 15 + docking station.(Dell WD15) + Vizio D40u-D1 (40"). That uses Displayport out of the dock, and a Plugable active DP to HDMI adapter before going into the TV as HDMI as 4k@60Hz. I find it surprising that the monitors, which likely cost 2-3 times what that TV cost ($400) don't support it over HDMI (but then again, the TV doesn't even have DP).

That said, Dell did have a USB-C dock, the TB15, which was plagued by a lot of the same things I hear about USB-C from the Macbooks with USB-C. Wifi and other components stop working intermittently, and on the dock, it flickered intermittently when connected at 4k[1]. Dell just released a new dock, the TB16, and there's a BIOS update for my XPS 15 that says it fixes some docking issues.

1: I seem to recall someone mentioning this was related to the firmware in some connected peripheral, but I'm not sure.

That's because you don't need an adapter to use DisplayPort with TB3 (on the MBP). Just purchase the correct [1] cable; the MBP implements DP as an alternate mode.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EZH7CKO/

That cable isn't available on this side of the Atlantic, local Apple store only had a faulty DP adapter. For some reason not even the german Amazon had the proper cable in stock or listed.

I want ONE CABLE for everything. That was the promise, I thought. I want 2x4k@60hz + power + 3 USB3 with one connector going to the tbMBP. Apparently this is not possible.

Instead you have 4 identical ports that all do the same things poorly.

The reason 4k monitors only support displayport is because current HDMI can only do 4k at 30hz. DP is a better cable with more bandwidth. Expect DP to overtake HDMI in the future.

I have a Vizio P55-c1 on my desk and with a GTX1080 and a BlueJeans HDMI cable, it works fine at 1080p@120hz or 4K@60hz. It's HDMI 2.0, so another case where just because it plugs in doesn't mean it'll work: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_2.0

USB-C does natively support DisplayPort as an alternate mode.

Whether your particular device does is not a given, though. the 12" MacBook definitely does, the specs specifically call out the native support:

http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs/

The specs for the MacBook Pro also purport DisplayPort capability:

http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/

DisplayPort is one of several options, but I wouldn't call them native because you can't rely on any of them being supported.

Also, the following does not work:

USB-C to HDMI -> HDMI to VGA -> Monitor

This forced me to buy a separate "USB-C to VGA" adapter. But with that, I cannot connect my USD laserpointer any more. It's a mess.

That may be because the HDMI to VGA adapter either doesn't work in general (there are so many cheap adapters on Amazon, and HDMI to VGA requires active circuitry, that I'd expect some of them to be fakes) or its pulling too much power over the HDMI port. I wouldn't trust any HDMI to VGA adapter that doesn't require external power.

Also, why does your laser pointer need to be connected to your laptop. If you mean USB presentation remote, you need more than one USB port.

And I suppose Apple has also made a healthy profit, either directly or through licensing on each of the purchases?

You suppose wrongly. It's clear from context that the user wasn't buying Apple adapters, and no, Apple doesn't get any licensing fees here either.

I get that the chinese manufacturers reverse-engineer everything, but you're saying that you can use "thunderbolt" on your packaging without paying some licensing fee to apple?

I mean, a bunch that just have the no-name plastic-bag packaging probably slip by on Amazon, but I would assume the lawyers wouldn't let you brand your cable "thunderbolt" without some official licensing fee process.

Apple doesn't own Thunderbolt: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/trademarks/thunderbol...

Apple does however control which Thunderbolt devices work with Apple hardware and software. Which means, for example, that Thunderbolt 3 hardware released prior to the launch of the new Macbook Pro is effectively Windows-only: http://plugable.com/thunderbolt-3 This appears to be an entirely artificial software block done to force manufacturers to go through their certification program and presumably give then a cut; there's a hack out there that bypasses it.

That's not true. First, for example Dell's dock works fine with the Mac, second the chip is not Apple's but from Texas Instruments and the non functioning devices are not compatible with this chip. So Apple blocks nothing and devices don't have to go through any Apple certification program.

But these devices work with the new MBP in Bootcamp/Windows just not in Sierra...

>presumably give them a cut.

You just made this up. As already clarified in this thread, Apple doesn't own Thunderbolt and Apple gets zero (0) licensing fees. There is no "cut".

Apple doesn't own Bluetooth either and yet they have strict control over which accessories (gamepads) can be used with iOS and charge for the privilege. Headphones with the old 3.5mm jack are also available in more expensive variants with the MFi certification.

Even when there's no money in it, Apple uses whitelists in some places, like which SSDs get TRIM and which displays work and get the HiDPI checkbox:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206587

Who owns a standard doesn't seem to matter at this point.

Apple receives licensing fees on USB Type C?

Actually it isn't precisely Apple's fault. It's the USB-IFs fault.

USB 3.1 in general is a mess. The spec allows for Alternate Modes, where the port is hardwired on the Motherboard to be able to be switched to deliver DisplayPort, HDMI, MHL, Thunderbolt, and damn near anything else you can figure out how to mux over the port's pins and cheaply demux on the other end of the cable. The best part is no one will actually list what Alternate Modes their laptop or motherboard supports. So if I want a laptop that supports, DisplayPort Alternate Mode with dual monitors, I'm opening support tickets with manufacturers asking "Does your USB-C port run this?"

Apple and Intel simply followed along what with what was already a mess.

Apple is lauded for making confusing technology simple. It's not Apple's fault, it's Apple's missed opportunity and it's our high expectations of Apple that are being eroded.

This! Thing is that situation with ports and adapters has never been worse, but Apple came there, wanted to be first again that will pull the plug on old technology and embrace the new one! But their execution was a miss. But anyway, my predictions are that from 2017. every Apple machine, wether it's computer or iPhone or iPad, will go down the USB-C route. Most probably next iPhone would use USB-C. And I just hope 2016. will be the year that was bad, and won't happen again. Since some Apple's small decisions were completely off, and we as costumers (or fans), are not used to it.

> Apple came there, wanted to be first again

Interesting point. Got me thinking about how the iPod was not the first MP3 player, and how the iPhone was not the first smartphone. I believe the philosophy was "don't be the first; be the first to get it right."

It's a little disappointing that they haven't been so magical lately.

It is, but you know, magic couldn't last forever, and we all knew it, since Jobds left us. It was just the matter of year. But I believe that these new MBP will be amazing and beautiful machines in next iteration. Some bad decision and bad timing led to disappointments but as long as they learn something from it, it's all good.

Apple has never gone with an open standard when a proprietary closed standard would do.

More likely than using any sort of standard port would be Apple inventing yet another new proprietary port.

Apple has never gone with an open standard when a proprietary closed standard would do.

False. USB 1.

Yup. Or...y'know...FireWire. Also known as IEEE 1394.

I remember overhearing a Best Buy employee describe the FireWire port on the back of an iMac as a Sony proprietary camera connector. Not sure why I didn't correct him.

Apple rarely goes proprietary with their ports. The original 30-pin iPod port. Lightning. ADB in the mists of time.

All of which were I believe better than what was available.

MagSafe 1 and 2.

They are better, but we also have a situation where the only port on an Apple device is proprietary with the latest iPhone.

Lightning was better-ish, but we also knew USB-C was on the horizon. I don't think that one is defensible.

Lightning came out in September 2012 [1]. USB-C was ratified in August 2014 [2].

If we put the iPhone 6S model aside (because the -S models generally do not adopt a significant change in features), the only model released since USB-C is the iPhone 7.

Given the short lifecycle of phones, adopting lightning rather than postponing until USB-C has given several generations of phones with a superior connection.

Should the iPhone 7 have adopted USB-C instead of lightning? Perhaps, but USB-C support isn't exactly widespread (and it might in fact be Apple which ends up pushing USB-C support to the point of widespread adoption).

Is the lightning connection superior to USB-C?

Well, it's size is smaller: 6.7mm x 1.5mm (vs 8.4mm x 2.6mm for USB-C); a 42% reduction in height, and a 20% reduction in width.

For devices like mobile phones, I can see how the size of connector can be more important than bandwidth or compatibility. I'd like lightning to be a standard, but it's definitely an improvement over micro-USB, and in terms of size, it's better than USB-C.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_(connector)

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

USB-C was on the horizon, but it was still years away when Lightning came out. I really think that Lightning forced the USB-IF's hand a bit and made sure that USB-C was a reality. Without a working example of how a reversible connection worked in the field, the USB-IF might still be waiting to push out USB-C.

Judging from the fact that people on this page are complaining about USB-C cables/adapters not working, and the non-compliant USB-C cable fiasco (e.g. OnePlus), I'd say it isn't that clear. For better or worse, you know exactly what you'll be getting with Lightning. The Lightning connectors are also mechanically very robust.

Of course, the one huge flaw is that now their phones and laptops use different connectors.

If my memory serves, lightning was introduced in late 2012 with the iPhone 5. I'm not sure we can really say that lightning was "on the horizon" that long ago. I would say lightning was "on the horizon" in late 2014, when in early 2015 we saw USB-C come to notable devices such as the Chromebook Pixel and 12" MacBook.

I'm pretty sure if you stick to apple hardware, things just work. So in a sense their technology is simple for those who stay in the ecosystem.

But don't dare buy a low-cost adapter from eBay or be damned for 10 generation.

So yeah it's a closed environment but is it so far worst than the jungle outside?

Yup. And they could have started by shipping a more compatible USB-C cable, instead of shipping a USB 2.0 one.

Well, it is partly Apple's fault in that they chose to go completely type c only, and that they chose not to provide the right sets of clearly marked and explained adapters that would be guaranteed to work with their hardware.

The whole ongoing Thunderbolt display fiasco where there are two different kinds of adapter from USB-C to mini-DisplayPort, each of which supports a non-overlapping set of monitors, is almost entirely Apple's fault though. They were the ones who decided to push Thunderbolt monitors using the mini-DP connectors, then chose to make and sell an adapter that didn't support actual DisplayPort.

So the alternate modes are required for proper operation? Or will it fall back to a standard mode and still work?

That's not how alternate modes work -- there isn't really a "standard" mode. When you plug in a Type C cable the two devices negotiate (via a combination of passives and some active negotiation) what protocols you want to use. Yes protocols with an "s." Power and, say USB 3.1 v2, or power and TB3 or HDMI or whatever.

Among the problems is you can have a cable that can't support a particular alternate modes, or can't support adequate power. The USB-IF hasn't defined a set of standard icons (not that there's much room for them -- they'd be microscopic).

Also the MacBook Retina has USB 3.1 v1 so supports just ordinary USB 3.0 & HDMI. The MacBook Pro supports several more alternate modes.

At least to Apple's credit, AFAICT all four USB ports are identical. Even that isn't required by the spec.

I read that the 2 ports on the left and right are actually slightly different. I don't recall exactly what it was but I think it was something about Thunderbolt 3 because of a lack of sufficient PCI-E lanes for all four ports.

Official Apple comment:

  The two right-hand ports deliver Thunderbolt 3 functionality, but have reduced PCI Express bandwidth [1]

The full Thunderbolt 3 speed is 40MBPs (use the left-side ports to achieve that).

I can't find any official document which clearly states the speed of the reduced-functionality ports, but Apple also state this:

  All late-2016 MacBook Pro models deliver USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) performance on all Thunderbolt 3 ports [1]

So there may be a 4x speed differential, depending which port you plug into.

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207256

Interesting. Sounds like they prioritized standardizing the connector but not the rest of the details.

Perhaps in the scope of large scale manufacturing, having multiple (redundant) connector styles is a low hanging fruit for cost reduction.

But it seems that there would be increased user confusion and technical support required. Very strange.

  > "they prioritized standardizing the connector but not the rest of the details"

In this case, "they" are the "USB Implementors Forum (USB-IF)" [1], rather than Apple. It's the USB-IF who agreed the standardisation of spec, but permitted the potential for "alternative mode".

Apple might have taken advantage of it, but it's the USB-IF who decided to make the standard rather more variable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Implementers_Forum

I dunno man, my eyes glazed over somewhere in the middle of that third paragraph and I'm just happy I don't have to deal with any of that.

Think they'll wise up and change any of it on the next model?

"Steve never would have backed down, remove more ports!" is how that product meeting will go.

The thing that bugs me about the argument for USB-C only on the new MBPs is that the early 2011 MBPs came out while Steve Jobs was alive.

That year was the first appearance of the Thunderbolt port on a Macbook Pro. You could have theoretically removed every legacy port outside of the MagSafe port and only had a bunch of TB ports to handle the I/O of peripherals. Yet Apple left the USB, FW800 (on the 15/17, maybe the 13 too) and SD reader instead of making people buy dongles to make up for the slack.

There wouldn't have been any auxiliary advantages to switching to full TB2.

TB2/mDP can't carry power. It was physically a much larger port, which means they couldn't scale down the size of the machine. And, ultimately, mDP is a much less useful port than the universally standard USB-C.

For the sake of argument, in 2011 we'd be talking about TB1.

TB1/mdp is larger than USB-C - in 2011 terms though, it'd be considered small. The mdp port is smaller than regular USB, ethernet and FW800 - all ports available on early 2011 MBPs.

TB1 should carry some power. I don't have my 2011 MBP any more, but I'm near certain that I was able to run a thunderbolt capable seagate external 2.5" hard drive without providing additional power. I also had a Kanex TB-> USB3.0 adapter, and I could swear it was able to power a USB 2.5" external also.

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/124485/can-a-thunde...

  > TB2/mDP can't carry power

  > > TB1 should carry some power. 
  > > I was able to run a thunderbolt capable seagate external 2.5" hard drive

(all this with the caveat of "I am not a physicist, but…")

All data is essentially energy/power, right? Isn't all communication, a change in energy state? Therefore, all data is essentially a transfer of energy/power.

Even the older standards - serial, firewire, USB 1, USB 2, USB 3, etc - carried some power, although (in general), a fairly small amount. I've used external USB-2 drives without a power source, except that provided by the USB-2 cable.

The maximum power-draw of a USB device is documented in the standards, but generally, USB 2 is permitted to draw 500mA, at 5V: 2.5W.

The power of TB2/mDP wasn't limited by the plug, but rather by the specifications of the standard/protocol.

USB-C is intended to provide significantly more power. All USB Type-C cables should support 60W. High-power cables should support 100W.

The older standards can (just about) provide enough power to spin a hard-disk, but the newer standards can power and charge a laptop.

Ok. A couple of things. My original point that you replied to relates to 2011, not 2016.

The analog is that in 2011 TB was a new, multi-purpose plug that can do just about anything (and USB-C is that thing in 2016, and it benefits from 5 additional years of progress, so yes, of course it can do more than TB). IIRC, Apple bragged about how great TB was when they announced it.

TB can provide 18V/10W/550mA. That's enough for what most people used USB 2 for in 2011 (Apple didn't introduce USB 3 until the 2012 MBP, IIRC).

At the very least Apple could have chosen to create a similar situation where TB could replace all the MBP's data ports that mattered in 2011 (in the same way they dropped all ports in late 2016) and force everyone to use a dongle for backwards compatibility when they introduced the early 2011 MBPs. But Apple didn't. Probably because they knew people would be unhappy. If Apple had the #courage to drop the USB and FW ports back then, people would have already been living the #donglelife for 5 years. Nobody would have even blinked or complained in the transition to USB-C.

And it also really doesn't matter that TB couldn't charge a Macbook Pro in 2011. Nobody would have cared, as everyone was still deeply in love with MagSafe (and many still are).

>> All USB Type-C cables should support 60W.

That might be true, but even Apple doesn't make it that simple, because they made a 61W charger (yes, I see that the charger's 1W over the 60W limit) that's incompatible with a bunch of previous cables designed for 29W chargers and you have to read the serial number on the cable just to be sure you're using the right one (I suspect a lot people won't know to do that).

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201700

Jobs took medical leave January 17th, 2011.

Sure but the MBPs came out in March 2011, so the design decisions very likely happened in 2010.

This is a pointless debate, but I'm sure he had other priorities at that time.

"The future is wireless!"

That was actually Apple's summation when it came to issues like "why not support metered connections and data use limiting?" - that they didn't feel that is a compromise they should have to make.

> The ports are all Thunderbolt 3 ports, which I believe by definition means they are USB 3.1 ports as well. But some devices out in the world have USB-C ports that are not Thunderbolt 3 compatible. No longer can you tell what sort of devices will work with a port by its physical shape. For instance, I have a Windows desktop machine with a single USB-C port on the back, but it's not a Thunderbolt 3 port. So while I could physically plug in a Thunderbolt 3-only device, it wouldn't function at all.

There is no such thing as a "Thunderbolt 3-only device". Support for USB 3.1 is a part of the Thunderbolt 3 spec, and in your example the Windows machine and the device would talk to one another over USB 3.1.

If you can plug it in, it will work: every device with a standards-compliant USB-C port will work with any other device with a standards-compliant USB-C port. The only question is which underlying protocol will be used; in the worst case, it will be USB 3.1, and if both devices support Thunderbolt 3, it will be something fancier.

> If you can plug it in, it will work

Unfortunately, this hasn't been my experience. As an example, I have a display-port-based Apple cinema display, and I bought this adapter to try to connect it to a new macbook pro 15":

  http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter

The physical size of the connectors are compatible, of course; you can plug the monitor into the thunderbolt-2-side of the adapter, and you can plug the thunderbolt-3-side of the adapter into the laptop. But, since the adapter isn't display-port compatible, no joy.

If I remember correctly (and I might not), the apple store page for this adapter didn't originally carry a warning about this, but instead had text that made it easy to misunderstand whether this would work. The text on the page has changed.

As a weaker example, I have an LG 27UD88 Monitor. The USB-C connection from it works, but only carries 60W of charging "oomph," and the 15" macbook pro needs 85W of charging. So, even though the menubar icon on the mac signals that charging is happening, the battery is actually depleting over time. (Yeah, this one is more caveat emptor than the other, but still.)

The confusion is that most people don't understand how USB, TB2/3, and DP work (not saying they should either!).

TB3 is an "alternate mode" signaling over USB-C. As such, every TB3 port is a USB-C port, but not every USB-C port is a TB3 port. Same goes for DisplayPort over TB2. Every TB2 "native" port allows DP, but not every DP port does TB2. TB3 doesn't however carry DP signaling as before though because a cable is either TB3 over USB-C, or DP over USB-C, not both. TB3 and DP both use the "same" alternate-mode signaling. This was my only complaint with the 12" rMB, having only one port, you couldn't plug in a hub, then hub to monitor, because the hub wouldn't kick in the alternate mode signaling required. This required the monitor to always be first device. Now with the rMBP having multiple ports, not a problem anymore.

As mentioned before, USB-C also has an alternate mode for DisplayPort. That's how your LG 27UD88 (fantastic monitor btw!) gets the monitor signal. Buying a TB3 to TB2 adapter is the wrong way to adddress hooking up a DP monitor, despite it being a semi-logical conclusion for even most tech geeks. The right combo is to get a USB-C to DP adapter.

I don't know what the USB-IF folks were thinking, but clearly we need some of whatever they were smoking as this is going to be a mess for years to come i bet.

As to your last point about 60W vs 85W USB-PD, technically you are very correct, but in real life not exactly. The distinction comes to play with how hard you are working the machine. If CPU/GPU are maxed, you'll drain a little battery, but under normal load you'll see a very very slow charge. Same thing happened before with Magsafe2 when you used a 65W power cord on a 15" MBP (that normally used an 85W adapter).

> As a weaker example, I have an LG 27UD88 Monitor. The USB-C connection from it works, but only carries 60W of charging "oomph," and the 15" macbook pro needs 85W of charging. So, even though the menubar icon on the mac signals that charging is happening, the battery is actually depleting over time

It actually loses battery being charged @ 60W? I can't imagine the MBP 15" is actually pulling that much current over the long term... If this is the case, that means it's simply not using the power delivery whatsoever which seems utterly insane.

I've plugged in my 15W phone charger to my 15" MBP, and I was fairly certain at the time my battery was going down less than it was previously. This could of course been placebo.

Ugh, what a silly rollout if so. Plus Apple shipping USB-C 2.0 cables with their chargers in an effort to save... $1? On a $3,000 laptop? Just ridiculous.

Not having a viable USB-C -> HDMI adapter at launch has to be the biggest oversight/wtf for me though. I don't know many users of MBP's that don't do presentations/toss some code up on a projector/etc. from time to time. This is now genuinely hard to impossible. I have to carry 2 HDMI adapters in my bag, as some TVs work with one, some the other. And some not at all.

I'm all for the move to USB-C - but it's like they put zero thought into the transition. You can't cripple a generation of hardware like this.

I know most of these problems will be solved both in software and in third party support - but man this product feels like some manager pulled 4 different groups together and said "you guys have had 3 damn years, release what you have now" and they tried badly at integrating it all together in a couple weeks.

Then you get into actual day to day usability issues like the touchbar lacking the completely in-your-face-obvious feature of haptic feedback making it almost useless... Like how was that not the first thing the first UIx tester who used the escape key said? Just amazes me.

  > Not having a viable USB-C -> HDMI adapter
  > Many users of MBP's…toss some code up on a projector

Your projectors support HDMI?! I wish!

Joking aside, my "presentation" adapter is Thunderbolt(2) -> VGA, because VGA is the only thing I can be fairly certain that almost every projector will support.

That said, I've ended up with a bunch of adapters, as a fallback in case that doesn't work. I'm definitely not expecting to plug into a projector with USB-C any time soon!

> It actually loses battery being charged @ 60W?

I've seen this, very rarely, when getting power via a 27" Thunderbolt Display, and keeping multiple cores busy.

I had a similar experience. Two identical looking cables but one was mini display port, the other Thunderbolt. An old Mac Pro could be used as an external display with one cable but not the other.

Seen that, with conference speakers stressing out minutes before their talk, about why the laptop > projector adapter isn't working.

It's the worst-case scenario: adapters/connectors that appear identical, but behave differently.

>If you can plug it in, it will work

this is completely false, because alt-mode exists and alt-mode doesn't have to support a fallback to USB-C. Google sells a usb-c to hdmi adapter in their store. If you connect it to a Nexus 6P, nothing happens, because the phones don't support hdmi alt-mode.

This is pretty demonstrably false. I have a USB-C port on my Windows machine and I just plugged in a TB3->TB2 adapter, then plugged a TB ethernet adapter into that. Windows machine pops up an error when plugging it in, no new devices appear in the device manager, etc. It will not "just work" when your USB-C ports are not Thunderbolt ports.

Not entirely true, as the 2016 MacBook Pro disables/blocks some Thunderbolt 3 devices that haven't been Apple-certified (apparently including any device that uses a Texas Instruments TPS65982 USB-C chip):

https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/03/2016-macbook-pro-thunderbolt-...

Is the TI chip out of spec? Why is it blocked?

>If you can plug it in, it will work:

Not if there aren't drivers written for your OS it won't. Unless you are the type of person who can roll your own drivers.

With the amount of variation in support/standardisation of USB-C, drivers are last on the list of potential issues.

Sure, if there's no driver, the user will be out of luck, no matter what. But that's at least a clearer, separate problem, from incompatible adapters or cables, and whether they correctly support the device.

Putting everything and the kitchen sink into USB-C was a mistake. I already have a horrible mess of weird cables that aren't interoperable, don't support Superspeed, have current limits, etc.

USB should be one thing and one thing only; a Universal Serial Bus. Can you send video over a serial connection? Great, let's do that instead of using the same physical connector for 85 different incompatible video cable designs that may or may not work with any given device.

USB 1.1 was about the right level of complexity. Maybe a bit too high. Since then, we have gone off the rails. It's no longer reasonable to suspect that anything except super-high-end devices will even bother to support a majority of the things in the USB spec. How many laptops actually support most of the charge profiles? The MacBooks do, but none of my friends' non-mac laptops do. It's a mess.

The speed we have now is great. Let's keep that. But let's also erase all the cruft and bring USB back to the simple, universal protocol it was supposed to be.

Even better, try finding a laptop that will run DisplayPort alternate mode over the USB-C port. EDIT: Or HDMI for that matter.

Apple: 12" rMB previous or current gen, 13"/15" rMBP current gen.

Other: Alienware, Dell, HP, etc all have laptops doing it. I don't have the link handy that lists ten windows laptops supporting it last Spring, but I'm sure Google can find it for you and there's likely dozens more now.

Ironically the MBP 2016 is probably the best for DP alternate mode over USB-C - thus far it's just worked for me on 3 different monitors.

HDMI you should just give up on though...

Your description reminds me of the '90's Apple that had so many fricking Mac models that ordinary mortals didn't know what to buy. I remember fielding those questions more than once, and only barely having an answer because I frequently browsed the hobbyist and trade press at that time.

200\* Apple became one of a few models choices, each designed to (for something of a premium) deliver a consummate experience within its niche.

Apple buyers -- both professionals and premium-paying consumers -- want something that "just works", and works well.

For Apple to foist the Emotibar on them, before solving these other problems... Back-asswards.

> No longer can you tell what sort of devices will work with a port by its physical shape.

This isn't a new issue and USB-C is far, far from being the first port type to be ambiguous in this manner.

USB 1, 2, and 3 all used the USB A plug.

Yeah; and I have a special camera which works over USB 3 but simply does not function when plugged into a USB 2 port (as there is not enough bandwidth to transfer its information). The power differences among various USB-C ports is also not special: I have tons of USB-A power adapters which are capable of providing different amounts of power, and computers are also sometimes different in what they are willing to provide.

I think it is more a case that ports are USB-C, as Thunderbolt 3 can be used via their alternate mode (thanks to Intel).

Thing is that displayport over thunderbolt used half the bandwidth of thunderbolt to carry displayport signals (raw, not coded on top of thunderbolt). This similarly to how you can use USB-C alternate mode to carry displayport. Thus using thunderbolt over USB-C alternate to carry displayport is superfluous to the extreme.

In practice most people aren't going to have multiple Macbooks, and if that's you you should go to Monoprice and just get different color cables for different types.

I don't think I'm an outlier. I have a late 2013 Macbook Pro issued from my employer. I also have a personal Macbook Pro. My wife has a new Macbook. I also have an old 2012 Macbook Air. So between two people there are 4 apple computers in a single household. Add in 2 iPads, 2 iPhones, and an Apple watch and this whole adapter situation starts to become a major issue.

People? So Apple isn't interested in selling to families and couples anymore?

Families is fair, but I think my advice still stands.

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