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Comment by zecken | Hacker News Reader

Strongly disagree with the article, it seems the author is confused about the internal hardware. The actual pin connections within all USB Type-C cables are the same -- no matter if they are shipped with a product that uses Thunderbolt, Displayport, or any other standard. The only variance cable to cable (and this exists on existing micro cables as well) is on things like shielding, AWG, and ferrites which would determine signal & power integrity over the length. IE don't use a very long & skinny cable for delivering lots of power or high speed data unless the cable was bought for that specific purpose, which is something consumers do today if they aren't using professional installers.

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Most of the rant is about different device capabilities, and how cables being more or less the same makes it almost worse instead of better.

And that high variance in cable quality is a bigger deal than it needs to be. You can't tell by looking at a cable what bandwidth and amperage it's supposed to support. Even if it has thick wires you can't tell if it has a chip to enable 5A charging.

Also there's a non-quality factor. USB-C cables with no high speed wire pairs are valid and are quite common. You don't need more than USB 2.0 in a charging cable.

It would be nice if we had some standardized iconography for the cables (xAmps, thunderbolt/non-thunderbolt, &c.). There are really only a few useful permutations of cables.

Devices are a bit more complicated, but I'm hoping that the Hub situation will sort itself out (early in the days of USB 1.1, I remember plenty of devices that wouldn't work with hubs, or only with certain hubs).

There is standardized iconography[0][1]. It's enforced under trademark law by the USB Implementers Forum. In addition to the old "basic" (USB 1.0/1.1), "hi-speed" (USB 2.0), and "on the go" icons there's now "superspeed" (USB 3.0), "superspeed+" (USB 3.1), and icons for the power delivery spec. The new icons are just as inscrutable as the old ones, but they exist and the USB Implementers Forum requires correct labeling for all cables and devices.

The various proprietary extensions might be less consistent with labeling, but at least every Thunderbolt-compatible cable I've seen has a little lightning bolt icon in addition to the standard USB ones.

[0]: http://www.usb.org/developers/logo_license/Trademark_License...

[1]: http://www.usb.org/developers/logo_license/USB-IF_Logo_Usage...

The icons exist, but the fraction of type C plugs that have icons on them seems to be extremely low.

That’s not quite true. USB-C cables have a chip [1] inside that negotiates the available capabilities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Cables

When I was trying to clone the drive from my old MBP to my new one, Apple's restore tool refused to recognize the USB-C charging cable (that comes with the MBP power supply) as compatible with Thunderbolt. But running a classic Thunderbolt cable with USB-C dongles on both ends worked fine.

It turns out that the Apple USB-C high-speed charging cables just don't support the required Thunderbolt standard, and the software can somehow tell that the cable is incompatible despite it fitting in the slot.

Charging cables are usb2.0 and power delivery only, take a peek inside the end and you can see all the missing pins.

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